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Collective Mining Targets Next Phase of Apollo Development | Ari Sussman · Kitco MINING

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Kitco Mining on-site coverage of Mining Forum Americas is presented by Metalla Royalty and Streaming.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Big Gold and Tungsten in Colombia.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Kitco Mining with me, Paul Harris, here with the 2026 Mining Forum Americas in Colorado Springs.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Joining me now is Ari Sussman, Executive Chair of Collective Mining.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Ari, welcome back to Kitco.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Always a pleasure to see you, Paul.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now just uh a couple of weeks ago, Ari, you put out a maiden resource in your Guaya Bales project or the Apollo Target at your GuayaBallis project in Caudas in Colombia.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: About five million ounces.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, initial reaction to that.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Was that uh what you were expecting?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, remember that we initially guided for the maiden resource to be the second half of 2027, and when we decided to accelerate the licensing for the project, which we will be submitting in the middle of 2027, we subsequently announced we're accelerating the maiden resource.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: We came out with, to be exact, in all categories, 5.4 million ounces uh and gold equivalent.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that is world class.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so like I say to many people, show me another non-porphyry company, so a deposit that's not a porphyry, whose maiden estimate was north of five million ounces.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: This is a maiden starting point, and we're growing in all directions.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: So very excited by it.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in the uh previous conversations, Ari, you've spoken about the potential to have be as part of a 10 million ounce district.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: You're obviously well on the way there.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: The resource was at let's say two grams per ton, more or less.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Five million ounces, you you mentioned world class, so five million ounces seems to be the new black in terms of uh resources.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well look, so there's some nuances obviously to it.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: So the grade of the resource, we broke it into three sections.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: The one of the to me, the best surprise of the resource was the open pit and more importantly, the size of the open pit.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: It really is attractive.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: So the open pit, the indicated resource, is 2.06 grams, one and a half million ounces of that total at a low stripping ratio of 3.4 to 1.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: I can tell you that that stripping ratio will only get better as we continue to drill what we call the shallow halo zone or the outskirts of that pit.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: We put out results subsequent to the resource cutoff date.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: We've had some big hits, including last week, 135 meters at north of two grams from just below surface.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's all was in area that was considered strip.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then we announced the high grade ramp zone, which is the which is the juice at the bottom.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: The grade of the ramp zone was was uh in indicated was uh 4.74 grams in inferred where most of it sat was 5.37 grams per ton gold.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so high grade.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, now you mentioned that um an open pittable resource.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um what gives you the confidence that you can permit an open pittable resource or starter pit at Apollo?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: First off, just look at the history of Colombia.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Virtually all the mines are pits.
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  SPEAKER_02: Secondly, um this this trope has been going around for 20 years on Colombia, but Cordoba Minerals, which as you know, I founded, okay, was one of the key founders of that company, got fully licensed with a copper gold open pit in March of this year in an area that is far more complicated than ours.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: So why do I think we can license a pit?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because A, Columbia does license pits, and B, we have nobody living on Apollo.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: You've been, right?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: You look at the top of Apollo and you see nothing.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody lives there.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: So this is and we own all the land.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: So this is a perfect setup.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: And thirdly, and lastly, it sits in a bowl, so the pit would be contained in that bowl.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: It would be totally out of sight to anyone unless you worked for the company and were physically there on a day-to-day basis.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and of course, Columbia's got a recently elected a new president, more positive in mind, and we're gonna be talking about that in just a moment.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but before we get to there, the you the gold equivalent ounce calculation that you presented in the maiden resource that was about 50% gold.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: You had three other metals in there for the remainder, including tungsten, which uh is not the easiest metal to produce.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you choose to include the tungsten and what potentially would the resource have looked like without that?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, when one looks at tungsten, the first question to ask is what mineral is the tungsten hosted in?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: There are generally two types, sheelite and wolframite.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we our deposit is shellite.
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  SPEAKER_02: She lite is the easy tungsten to produce from.
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  SPEAKER_02: What makes it easy?
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  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have impurities attached to it.
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  SPEAKER_02: Wolframite is generally a metallurgical complexity.
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  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: You look at the shellite production mines around the world, they generally have somewhere around 70 to 75 percent recovery rates.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: That is what we're guiding for because that is what our initial network shows.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: It is very easy to produce.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you produce tungsten simply by gravity, and if you need it, sometimes you don't, but if you need it, flotation.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: That is it.
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  SPEAKER_02: She light is coarse, it's easy to separate from the other minerals right up front, and then you send it to its own small dedicated circuit for flotation if needed.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um you've drilled at least another 40,000 meters into Apollo.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: How big could that potentially grow?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, look, we're we're we plan on doing another resource, mineral resource estimate update, either Q4 of 2027, Q1 2028.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: We expect to complete for that estimate about 100,000 meters of additional drilling.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that would mean there'd be around 215,000 meters of drilling total into the resource, and I am expecting the next resource to be somewhere between seven and eight million gold equivalent ounces.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So a 50% bump?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now you mentioned that you're accelerating the permitted work, and that was why you brought the resource forward.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um you're looking to submit your permit applications mid-next year.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: What permitting timeline would that give you?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: So in Colombia, you will get your answer in approximately 11 to 12 months.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we expect from the date we submit, or let me rephrase that, from the date it is receded by the environmental agency named ANLA, expect it to take 11 to 12 months.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: That includes a public hearing.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: So sometime in the second half of 2028, we expect our final decision.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: As I mentioned at the top, Columbia's got a new president, and the government has been making very sort of pro-mining noises.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I spoke with uh your neighbor earlier this morning, and he mentioned he's um met three ministers last week.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it seems it's it's a very real engagement of the current administration with the mining sector.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what are some of the sort of more concrete actions that will suggest to people that this is a very real intense uh sort of kickstart mining?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, so they they came they came out of the gate firing on all cylinders.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: They immediately rescinded ten areas that were deemed restricted for mining in the country as a show of goodwill to the sector that, hey, we're open for business.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: B, actually, to to back up Eris Mining's point, we've had full engagement with the Minister of Mines, the Minister of Environment, the Director of ANLA, and the director of the agency that's in charge of titling, and they all have the same message.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: We're open for business.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: Please submit your permits as fast as you humanly possibly can.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so this is really game on uh in Colombia.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're we're seeing the government take a very strong stance against criminality, which is I I I'm blown away.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: This is far past far faster action than we saw even former President Aribe take in 2002 to 2006.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I have a feeling that in the next six months or something in that timeline, Colombia is going to be on the front of the Economist or some similar magazine talking about how how much it's changed and how improved it is in terms of a secure place for investment.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: And and lastly, the government, the new government was left a fiscal mess.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: We all know this in Colombia.
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  SPEAKER_02: They need infrastructure projects, which includes mining to move and move quickly.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: So this is a all all signs pointing straight up, and we will be a poster project for new pro for new projects to get licensed in the country, and we'll be submitting and and we'll be delivering hopefully.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: The last thing I should mention, this was totally fortuitous and coincidental for us, but we put out our resource, made in resource estimate on September the 8th, and on September the 9th, the Marco Rubio, the secretary of the Secretary of State, uh came to Colombia and signed an MOU for critical minerals with Colombia.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: And here we are with tungsten and copper fresh out of the gate the day prior.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: So things are looking very bright in terms of the future.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'll add to your comment about uh the government showing a lot of support for the sector very quickly.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think within 10 days, the government re-uh instated the exploration concessions of Anglo-Gold Ashanti at the Cebradona development project, which the previous government had refused to um update and and uh um extend.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in addition to Cebradona, I imagine they're gonna be looking to file their environmental permit application during this administration.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: We've also got B2 Gold and Gramolotti, they're due to file their permit amendment, I think.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um let me let me catch you on that.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: They already filed that.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: They filed B2 filed that in April.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you can search it online.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, thank you for the correction there.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I guess a big question is we're at an investment conference, Aries.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: How is this resonating with investors?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've seen a number of new juniors come into Colombia anticipating that things are gonna get better.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: How has it invest uh resonated with investors?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: So we can look to Argentina as a model of what we can expect in Colombia.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: So you live in Colombia, I work in Colombia, we see the change on the ground, and it's very obvious.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, when I first got into Colombia, the the change to me was obvious because I spent time there, but it was not yet obvious to the world.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: It takes time to resonate outwards.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're going to see the sentiment keep going higher and higher over the next six months, and when the light bulb comes on, six months, nine months, and all of a sudden everyone's saying, geez, I need to be in Colombia.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: And also this axis of the world that Trump, President Trump, has created, you know, seems to be pointing strongly towards America, America's plural goes to the West, and everything else goes in a different direction.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're seeing this big influence by the United States government and South America.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: These are all very bullish signs for resource development.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we know that we're look, as Robert Friedland aptly said, he's never in his career seen a time where this much attention is being paid by so many different actors pro-mining by governments, etc.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I believe that the northern arc of South America is the feeder system for minerals for this demand, this ferocious demand that we're facing.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Brazil, Ecuador possibly be part of that access.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned a couple of important names there.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Marco Rubia, US Secretary of State, Alvaro Aribe, who was president of Colombia, what, 15 years ago, something like that.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, under Aribe, the Colombia has been the US strongest ally in the region, and it seems that the ground is being set for that uh to resume.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it's fair to say that in the not too distant parts, the past there was a Colombia discount, if you like, related to investments in Colombia.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see that as being still there?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is that going away?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is that that improving?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean that that that will that will disappear as the next six months progress and as the articles on how bullish Colombia is continue to come out.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there was an Argentina discount for a long time too, right?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: There's been discounts in all sorts of countries.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: So look, you know, that that I believe will turn into a discount to a surplus, okay, for for these countries that I just mentioned in the northern part of South America, because the difference between them and Canada, United States, or Australia, the three mining centers, is you can move the projects forward far faster.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: Even with the overwhelming words of the Canadian government, US government, and Australia, it's still far faster to move a project forward in a Colombia than it is elsewhere.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: And if we want revenues to be coming out of the ground, it's gonna start to come out of these countries like Colombia much faster than Canada and elsewhere.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Ari, when when you and I first both went to Columbia about what, 18 years ago, Colombia was the hottest jurisdiction in the world for exploration and development and potential.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it will get back to that level?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: 100%, because I I I like it better than say Guyana.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: I like Guyana, don't get me wrong.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's a one I would invest there in a minute.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: But Guyana has no infrastructure, right?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Virtually all the projects are in remote jungle.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: Colombia has wonderful infrastructure, at least through 50% of the country.
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  SPEAKER_02: And and so that's where you focus for mining, and you're going to see all sorts of money pour in, all sorts of drilling happen, and we're going to be a very hot place.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: And again, the geology of Colombia is in the in the front, not in the rear view mirror, like it is in Chile and to a lesser extent Peru.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now, um Ari, you're going to be filing your um your your your permit applications.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um you've you've got a quite a clear timeline on when that may come out the other end.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you're in a relatively short space of time, you're going to be in that uh situation of uh potentially financing and building a new project.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: What's your view on whether we're in a builder's market rather than a seller's market at the moment?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: You obviously built your previous uh company uh and project, Veridica with Continental Gold.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um what's your view at the moment?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm strongly of the view that today you we're in a builder's market.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: I suspect over the next 12 months, if gold price stays flat or goes up, we're going to be in a seller's market, right?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because the cash flow being generated across this industry is really astounding to see, and that cash is going to need to go into acquisitions.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think the valuations are going to start to rise rapidly as that cash continues to deploy.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Even today, we see all sorts of noise about Goldfield potentially merge it with Northern Star.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: Now there's an article that Agniko is sniffing around.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: Whether that's true or not, I doubt it, but that is that is out there.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think we're going to see a lot of action in MA.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: So today, build a year from now, I suspect MA is going to be the way to go.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: You've put out your maiden resource.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to be submitting permit applications.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um what about economic studies?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Presumably you're going to need a sort of mind plan for the permit application.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay, so so there's two parallel paths, right?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: There's the Colombian licensing path, which is based on Colombian law, and then we follow 43101.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so we submit our license, Colombian standard, right?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: High standards, of course, right?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: We're using independent consultants, but that goes in.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Our made our next resource comes out late next year, early 2028.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: That will feed a preliminary economic assessment.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we expect to hopefully get a positive answer on our license in the middle of 2028.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: In early 2029, we will come out with a feasibility study, 43101 compliant feasibility study.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: And on the back of that being positive, we will make the decision to build.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: Just so we're clear, what we do plan on building here is we're planning on erecting a 15,000 ton per day plant.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, we have a lot more drilling to do at the project to assess and expand the resource, but I believe that this mine, as a future mine, can produce north of 400,000 ounces per annum.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: For how long, I don't know yet.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Let's keep drilling, but it it will be big.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because think about 15,000 tons per day, if you just throw three grams at it, right, before metallurgical recoveries, that's that's 500,000 ounces of production.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that's just on uh Apollo.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's just Apollo.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: We were we're going to be drilling aggressively at our trap system, which sits coincidentally very close to where the mill will go imminently, and we're developing an exploration drift, which is starting in November.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we'll be drilling trap, and and my hope, and it is just a hope at this point, is that trap will turn into something mineable, another front, whether it's 50,000 ounces equivalent a year, 100,000, we'll find out with drilling.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: But if that happens, that's gonna make uh it's gonna add another element of surprise to this to this name.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um we've we've covered a lot of uh a lot of ground over the past sort of 15-20 minutes, Ari.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe we can end by sort of highlighting some of the sort of key catalysts that our viewers can expect to see from collective over the next sort of 12 months or so.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: Outside of what I mentioned, the permitting and a subsequent resource estimate, it's drill baby drill.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we have 90 holes outstanding in the laboratory right now.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so that's never happened.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe Ford Labs have been overwhelmed by the amount of drilling globally.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we have 13 rigs.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, the thing I'm excited for in the shorter term is drilling from ramp.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: We have visual gold intercepts expanding outside of the block model.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, caution everyone, we need assays to see what the actual grades are, but I'm positive we're going to hit gold.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's just a question of how high grade in some of those holes, and let's wait to see.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, definitely an exciting time to be advancing a project in Columbia.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Ari Sussman, many thanks for joining me today.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Nice to see you again as always.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we have a lot more to come from the 2026 Mining Forum Forum Americas in Colorado Springs.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: So stay tuned and hit that subscribe button.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Paul Harris, and this is Kitco Mining.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: KitCo Mining on-site coverage of Mining Forum Americas is presented by Metalla Royalty and streaming.