Charles Archer - Interview with CEO Paul Barrett

Yesterday evening, I sat down with Paul Barrett, CEO of Rome Resources, to discuss the company’s progress at its flagship Bisie North project in the DRC — one of the most compelling tin exploration stories right now.

Paul has decades of experience operating in challenging jurisdictions and made a compelling case for why Kalayi could be a transformational asset.

The headline from this campaign is simple: the XRF readings are the strongest Kalayi has ever produced, and the top five intercepts from this campaign exceed everything from all previous campaigns combined.

Paul was candid that whilst the model pointed in this direction, the scale of the results was still striking.

A standout hole — KBDD029 — hit 10 metres at 1.3% tin from 220 metres, deepening conviction that this system has serious vertical extent.

Several intercepts now match or exceed Alphamin’s Mpama North on both grade and width, moving the conversation from ‘analogous system’ to something potentially much more significant. Paul was confident the formal ALS assays will track closely to the field XRF numbers.

The current maiden figure sits at 4.47kt tin. Paul flagged strong resource growth for the June MRE — and in context, strong means a material step-change, not incremental improvement.

The single biggest variable between XRF promise and MRE delivery will be how consistently the formal assays replicate field readings across the full drill envelope.

Chemostrat stratigraphic work has identified two large untested targets at Mont Agoma, with a dedicated drilling phase being planned. The prospect already carries a meaningful polymetallic inventory from shallow drilling alone, with both copper and tin representing serious opportunities — sequencing will depend on resource definition priorities coming out of Kalayi.

Conversations with potential strategic partners are ongoing and, reading between the lines, at an advanced stage. The mineralisation style at Kalayi is well-suited to processing through Bisie Mine infrastructure, and there has been dialogue with Alphamin around what a closer commercial relationship could look like — whether toll treatment, JV, offtake or something else entirely.

Nothing has been formalised, but the logic of proximity is hard to ignore.

Despite the M23 situation, Paul confirmed operations are running normally, with sample transport from site to Johannesburg carefully managed through established logistics and security protocols.

The emerging US-DRC strategic partnership is a tailwind the company is actively monitoring. The New Brunswick addition is both a jurisdiction diversification play for institutional investors and, in Paul’s view, a solid geological opportunity in its own right.

If assays deliver, the June MRE transforms the investment case, and a strategic partnership takes shape — Rome Resources is going to re-rate.

Paul’s tone throughout was measured but quietly confident.

Listen in here: https://thatstocksguy.substack.com/p/rome-resources-4c1