This article is a sponsored feature from Mining.com.au partner E-Power Resources. It is not financial advice. Talk to a registered financial expert before making investment decisions.
E-Power Resources (CSE:EPR), with a new CEO at its helm, is focused on what it’s good at — exploration work. A relatively young company, E-Power has a relatively straightforward project and a solid plan of action to prove its resources.
Jean-Michel Gauthier, the company’s new CEO, has joined E-Power with a clear mission, to transition the company’s flagship Tetepisca graphite project from discovery to resource definition in 2026.
Gauthier is strategic with his work, explaining that, in business, everything needs to be accountable. Relationships are still incredibly important, but everything has to be validated because ultimately, a company is accountable to its shareholders, so having a solid plan of delivery is important.
E-Power is focused on graphite, which Gauthier calls “the blue collar mineral”.
“It’s not as flashy as copper, silver, or gold, or as complicated as palladium or niobium, but graphite is just about everywhere,” Gauthier says.
“It’s in our phones, our computers, our televisions, it’s in the pencils, golf clubs, and baseball bats that we use. It’s also used in large crucibles for smelting and in lubricants and sprays for airplanes and space shuttles.”
There’s also a significant amount of demand coming from batteries, not just in electric vehicles, but in large battery storage units.
Quebec’s graphite heart: Infrastructure, neighbours, and high-grade targets
Located in Grenville, the graphite heart of Quebec, E-Power’s Tetepisca project has all the key infrastructure needed already in place. There’s year-round highway access and the project is relatively close to the Manicouagan Hydro-Electric dam, ensuring clean, renewable hydroelectric power for the site.
Tetepisca is also just 220km away from Baie-Comeau and its deep-water international port. Gauthier points out that Baie-Comeau isn’t just a northern outpost – it’s a well serviced town with access to local drilling consultants, geological services, and more.
Tetepisca comprises 234 claims covering an area of approximately 12,665 hectares and is surrounded within 5-10km by other major graphite players, including Nouveau Monde Graphite (TSX:NOU) and Focus Graphite (TSX-V:FMS).
Gauthier explains that the work needed at Tetepisca is fairly surface work and that it’s a fairly straightforward project.
“We just need to prove it up, do some targeted drilling, take care of some permitting, do the geophysics, re-targeting, metallurgy testing, and then bring it up to a preliminary economic assessment (PEA),” Gauthier says.
The overall Tetepisca district has resources of 126.6 million tonnes measured and indicated at 14.1% graphitic carbon and 34.1 million tonnes inferred at 14.5% graphitic carbon.
The company has identified 16 high-priority targets within their discovery pipeline, all of which have yielded high-level results from surface sampling.
Captain Cosmos has yielded 23.97% graphitic carbon over 5.15m. This target has been drill confirmed and bulk sampled.
At the 1078 target, the company intersected 6.3km in strike length with ‘high-grade’ grab samples. The electromagnetic work has been completed here.
Then, in the Northern Zones, there have been five new zones discovered in 2024 and 2025, and so the focus there is now on surface prospecting and sampling.
As the company moves forward with resource definition plans, Gauthier lays out a two-phased approach to work in 2026.
Phase one will comprise exploration drilling in May 2026, where the company will be systematically testing and prioritizing targets to confirm 3D continuity.
Phase two will begin around August 2026 and will focus on high-density drilling to support a maiden NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate (MRE). This work will be integrated into the technical deliverables in 2027 where the company aims to deliver resource modelling, estimation, and scoping-level economic samples.
In November 2026, E-Power released metallurgical testwork results completed at SGS Canada that highlight the potential for flake graphite mineralisation at Tetepisca. As previously reported, results showed 96.7% flotation recovery and a 94.8% concentrate grade from the Graphi West sample.
Flake size distribution for the syndicate concentrate demonstrated 40% medium flake or larger, including 22% large flake or larger which is a key indicator for high-value product potential.
E-Power’s two-phase drilling plan to define resources
Gauthier says that E-Power is lucky with the Tetepisca project because he sees this project moving quickly, though not necessarily as fast as he’d like.
He notes that Quebec is an excellent, stable jurisdiction to work in, but the project is very far north, making it difficult to continue work through the winter.
With significant plans in place to continue advancing the project in 2026, Gauthier stresses that E-Power is an exploration stage company, as compared to many of their peers in the region.
“I look at Nouveau Monde and tip my hat to management because to go from where they started to where they are now takes a lot of equity and a lot of patience,” Gauthier says.
“The whole point is for them to go into production and that’s a whole different beast when you’re no longer in exploration, you’re in exploitation.”
Gauthier doesn’t necessarily see that path for E-Power. “There are people that are really good at natural resource exploitation, but that’s not our role. Our role is to get out there and prove up the land and resource.”
Gauthier notes that there’s no upside for him to be competing with his neighbours saying, “we don’t need that many graphite producers. I’d rather bring the project to one of my neighbours and let the experts take it into production”.
Global deficit, local opportunity: Why Canada’s resources mattter
Gauthier explains that although graphite is an abundant mineral, we’re seeing a significant deficit in the market — a 1.2 metric ton deficit that just keeps growing.
“It’s an old trope, but it still is true that we’re very much dependent on China for so many minerals. For decades we’ve been reliant on international imports and not looking at what’s in our own backyard,” Gauthier says.
We’re seeing this across the Western world at the moment. Canada is rich in natural resources, as Gauthier notes.
“Gold, silver, lithium, you name it, we have it. It has just not been exploited that well. For a long time, at least since the late 1990s or early 2000s, globalisation and international partnerships were the name of the game,” Gauthier says.
“Now, there’s been a swing in the pendulum and we’re moving back towards protectionism, and for good reasons.”
Gauthier believes that now is the time to focus on our own supplies because that supply deficit continues to grow. But, it’s a man-made deficit mostly due to a lack of understanding of what goes into our everyday electronics.
Gauthier explains how “cobalt is a great example, but do we buy cobalt from the DRC or do we exploit cobalt and other minerals in Canada where we know that we have good jurisdictions, employee safety regulations, and more.
“It’s revenue for the country and the province. It’s time to be self-autonomous with our natural resources.”
It is important to remember though that governments in North America are increasingly receptive to the mining industry, helping with funding, grants, and fast-tracking permitting.
That said, international relations have never been more fragile which, as we’ve seen in gold for example, can make the markets more volatile. Investors don’t always know how geopolitical events are going to impact the markets.
Gauthier believes that junior mining companies shouldn’t be traded on news from the international markets, they should be traded on the news of the company.
“The reality is that investors have to take the time to realise that if they’re going to invest in a junior, they need to have faith in the management, have faith in the work, have faith in the plan.”
Financing, drilling, and deliverables for 2026
As Gauthier has explained, 2026 is going to be an exciting year for E-Power. The company has a financing coming out soon, which will allow them to fulfill their near-term plans.
Around August 2026 the company will be working on a drill program, working on their high-priority targets, which will then need interpretation and re-targeting.
Gauthier is focused on facts and deliverables, rather than stories and promises, and so will be bringing the E-Power story out to the market with clear data, mineralisation, and sample recovery rates.
Images: E-Power Resources
