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**You are Early!** 🌞🌞 Listen to THIS on Gold and Silver Price - (and First Mining Gold) · SILVER / GOLD / $UFD: Surviving Global Economic Shifts | RONS BASEMENT

0:03
Historic moves in the price of gold and silver, a renewed
0:07
interest in the gold and silver mining sector.
0:11
Today, we're going to break it all down with Dan Wilton.
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He's the CEO of First Mining Gold.
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He's also going to tell us about some major accomplishments his
0:20
company has had during 2025 and some great things to look
0:24
forward to in the coming year. Dan, welcome to Ron's Basement.
0:28
Ron, it's always a pleasure to be be back in the basement, if
0:31
only virtually. Well, you've been coming down
0:33
here for years and you're always welcome here, actually made an
0:37
in person appearance at one time.
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But you know you and I have been talking for years, what's going
0:43
on right now in the precious metal sector is really nothing
0:47
short than historic. When you look back, let's say
0:50
3-5 years and you look at what's happening now, are you seeing
0:53
some big differences, things that are making you kind of
0:55
excited about the future of the precious metals?
0:59
Well, you know what, what I think is happening, Ron, is
1:02
exactly the things that we all saw happening five years ago,
1:06
right? It's exactly the reason that you
1:09
started talking about gold and silver.
1:11
You saw this coming. We've all seen this coming.
1:15
A bunch of the world doesn't quite see it coming yet, which
1:18
is the interesting part. But like, you know, I think
1:21
there's really, you know, really interesting things on the macro
1:26
that when people are saying, oh, you know, you're starting to see
1:29
gold's overbought or silver's overbought and, you know, when's
1:33
the crash coming? The reality is, I think when you
1:36
look at it now, all the things that got the value guys like us
1:41
into gold and silver, which are things like, you know, Fiat
1:46
currency debasement, it's things like runaway debt.
1:50
It's things like governments without the political will to
1:54
solve their own balance sheet issues.
1:56
Those things if you look at it right now are are bad and
2:01
they're getting worse and they are getting worse every day.
2:04
And So what we've seen is the rest of the financial sector now
2:08
recognize that and look for alternatives and it's
2:11
alternatives to the US dollar, it's alternatives to Fiat
2:15
currency broadly. And I think, you know, where I
2:18
find it really interesting is what is becoming, I think the
2:22
great coming together of kind of the crypto world and the gold
2:29
and silver world through stable coins and other things, which
2:32
are really, really starting to gain some momentum.
2:36
But the momentum is so big that it's having major impacts in the
2:42
fundamental they like commodity markets.
2:46
Yeah, yeah, Tether, who's the world's biggest crypto company,
2:49
is now the world's biggest holder of gold outside of
2:53
central banks. And you know, that tells us kind
2:56
of, you know, the future of the marriage, you know, in the in
2:58
the tokenized gold and silver products are really almost a
3:03
perfect marriage between physical and in the blockchain.
3:07
And it could create a massive additional source of demand for
3:12
for both gold and silver. The one thing I wanted to throw
3:15
in, I think yesterday we had some big news.
3:17
You talked about this macro, favorable macro environment for
3:20
gold and silver. Jerome Powell cut interest rates
3:24
yesterday, but more importantly, and I'll go ahead and say it, he
3:28
basically announced a new round of QE that the government is
3:31
going to be buying. I think it's 40 billion at the
3:35
government. the Fed is going to print money and buy 40 billion
3:38
worth of Treasury bills, short term treasury bills going
3:42
forward. And that starts not at some
3:44
point in the future, it starts tomorrow, which to me, just as
3:48
you know, proof of what you discussed earlier like this
3:51
macro environment is favorable. And if you say it starts
3:54
tomorrow, Ron, we all know it probably started a few weeks
3:58
ago. Like, you know, let's be, let's
4:00
be honest about this. No, I, I think I, I continue to
4:07
be pretty amazed at the pace with which we're seeing this
4:14
kind of debasement of currencies.
4:16
I've been traveling a lot. We were talking about this
4:18
recently, but it's been quite a bit of time in Europe, Like
4:21
there, I don't think there's a safe haven in Europe anywhere.
4:26
You look at the fiscal situation, you know, in the UK,
4:29
in France, in Germany, like it is dire.
4:33
And you know, you pivot back to the US and there is 0 appetite
4:40
to address, you know, what is a record and unsustainable deficit
4:47
in spending. So you know, politicians won't
4:50
stop spending money and, and you know, markets for now are
4:56
continuing to fund that. But we're starting to have to
4:58
see central banks step in like in in, in, in a non crisis
5:03
situation, right? Let's be clear, like the
5:07
president's saying the economy is great and everything's fine,
5:10
but you have the Fed stepping in with QE like something does not
5:14
add up. And that's why I think we're
5:16
seeing all around the world those governments with a little
5:18
bit of flexibility, financial flexibility.
5:23
China kind of first and foremost have been and continue to at a
5:28
higher pace stockpiling gold, right?
5:31
They are rotating out of U.S. dollars into gold and that's
5:36
underpinned this, this, you know, I'd say new level in the
5:42
gold price, but nothing that has caused that swell of interest
5:49
over the last really what, Ron, like 3 or 4 years.
5:52
We've seen the central bank's really starting to step up.
5:55
Yeah, all of the reasons that have caused them to do that are
6:00
just as valid or more valid today than they were when it
6:03
started. Yeah, yeah.
6:04
So the, so the macro environment for gold and silver, it looked
6:08
very good. I've always had an interest in
6:10
the mining stocks as well. Like you said, you've been, you
6:13
know, traveling the world, going to conferences recently.
6:18
Are you sensing, let's say, compared to three years ago, is
6:23
there a different mood out there in general?
6:27
You mean you mean not active disdain for what I do for a
6:30
living? Yeah, I I think it's remarkable.
6:34
I think there's been an entire order of magnitude more interest
6:38
that's come into the sector broadly, starting as it always
6:41
does. We could have called it.
6:42
This happens every cycle. It starts with gold, it goes to
6:46
the producers and then it goes to smaller cap producers with
6:49
higher cost and higher leverage and then it comes down to the
6:52
developers and the explorer. So we always call it the trickle
6:55
down effect and we're absolutely seeing that.
6:59
I think you look in the last three to six months you've
7:03
absolutely seen that in the market.
7:05
But what's interesting for us is, you know you've also had a
7:09
very vibrant M&A market. So you have a lot of larger
7:13
projects and advanced stage projects that have been bought
7:17
by producers who need to replenish reserves and or grow
7:22
production. So I think what's what's really
7:24
changed we're at the point in the cycle now.
7:26
I'll go back a couple months, but in the big meetings in
7:30
Colorado in September, almost every gold producer, major gold
7:36
producers presentation, which for the prior 10 years had been
7:41
about cost cutting, capital efficiency And then most
7:45
recently like, oh, margins are improving return of capital.
7:49
Every single one of those. The headline on the presentation
7:53
was growth, growth. Look, we have this growth.
7:56
We're the ones with the growth and you're seeing in the market,
8:00
you're seeing the large cap and mid cap gold producers with the
8:05
growth profile trading at substantially higher multiples
8:09
than those that don't have a growth profile.
8:11
So what does that lead to? It leads to those other
8:14
companies going to acquire a growth profile.
8:17
And that's where it starts getting pretty interesting for
8:19
companies like us who have these large projects that we've been
8:25
on a very long walk through a very dry desert for a long, long
8:30
time where no one wanted to fund permitting, No one wanted to
8:34
fund, you know, engineering studies and feasibility studies.
8:38
But we're at the point now where, you know, I'd say even
8:41
just in the last three months, there's been a sea change in the
8:45
recognition of value of, of, you know, assets like ours.
8:49
Yeah, your stock has done very, very well.
8:53
And next, I do want to focus on 1st mining gold because of of
8:56
what you've accomplished during 2025, but also coming out in
8:59
2026. But I also want to throw in it
9:02
like the world seems to be like in the last six months, last
9:06
three months last year scrambling to find gold and
9:10
silver. And I want to point out
9:12
something very important and that is that I think that
9:14
because of the suppression of the prices of both gold and
9:19
silver, I think it's important to recognize that there wasn't
9:22
there, there weren't a lot of companies out there exploring
9:26
for gold, developing gold projects over the last 10 or 15
9:30
years because like you said, the big gold miners were were more
9:34
focused on cutting expenses. We're getting rid of debt all
9:39
that. Now suddenly it's shifted to, oh
9:42
gosh, we need to replenish our pipeline because every time we
9:46
mine an ounce of gold, we need to find, you know, we need to
9:49
replenish our pipeline. But on top of that, we need we
9:52
want to grow and there just aren't a lot of big projects out
9:56
there, which I think feeds in beautifully to what you've done
10:01
over the last 10 years. Like you were, you know, like it
10:04
was kind of a ghost town. I was with you through the
10:06
journey or desert or you know, however.
10:09
You want. There weren't a lot of people
10:12
out there developing and explore and, or exploring for, for big
10:17
projects. And, and now it's become kind
10:20
of, you know, this major focus and there just aren't a lot of
10:23
those projects out there. So tell us about what happened
10:28
in 2025, some of the highlights. But I think even more
10:31
importantly, as we look out into 2026, I know that first mining
10:35
has potential for some huge catalyst on the horizon.
10:38
And you know, and they're still value in the developer in, in
10:43
first mining stock. I mean the, the, the value, I'll
10:45
let you touch on that as well. The floor is yours, Dan.
10:48
Well, thanks, Ron. Well, 25 has been a big, big
10:51
year as you know major catalyst around for our company around
10:56
the environmental assessment process at our spring pole
10:58
project in Ontario. So we, you know, submitted our
11:02
final environmental assessment in November of last year and we
11:06
went through a public comment period.
11:07
We've been back and forth with federal and provincial
11:10
regulators and I've been spending a lot of time and, and
11:14
some very constructive discussions with Indigenous
11:16
communities that we're working with.
11:19
That's, you know, culminated in one important agreement that we
11:23
signed during 2025 with Mishka Gogemang First Nation and we're
11:28
still continuing to sort of finish those work streams.
11:32
So the, you know, the regulators were federally, I think we're
11:38
largely done that back and forth provincially.
11:41
I think we're still sort of tying up a few loose ends in
11:45
kind of the, you know, their fact finding, understanding the
11:48
work that's been done in some cases requesting a little bit
11:51
more work to be done. We're kind of coming to the end
11:53
of that process and everyone is targeting now I think an
11:57
environmental assessment decision, you know, before the
12:00
end of Q2. So we'll call it in the in the
12:03
next 6 months. People need to remember that
12:06
we've been in this process. We entered into this
12:09
environmental assessment process in 2018.
12:12
So you know we are in February 2018.
12:15
So we are nigh on 8 years of having been doing this
12:19
permitting work, like you said, Ron, at a time when no one
12:23
wanted to do it, no one wanted to touch it, no one wanted to go
12:27
through a protracted permitting process in Canada.
12:31
I think the governments have recognized that now.
12:33
And we're starting to actually see some pretty constructive
12:37
moves in terms of how governments are trying to
12:39
streamline that process for the projects to come after us.
12:42
And you know, we're thankful for that.
12:44
We're thankful for that, for a Dupart K project particularly
12:47
because I think, you know, Quebec's going to get it right.
12:52
But you know, I think we're, we're at the tail end.
12:55
And what sort of differentiates us now from a number of other
12:59
companies who are just starting that process right is, you know,
13:03
we're, there's very few projects that you could see get
13:07
financing, get shovels in the ground before the end of the
13:10
decade. And it's just the reality of
13:12
those processes, even if they try and condense them, like I
13:15
don't think we're getting to a point where you can get go
13:18
through an EA process in Canada in, in two or three years.
13:22
Like I, I, I will be optimistic that.
13:26
So at some point we can achieve that.
13:28
But I think just with the work that we've done, the things that
13:31
are the rate, the rate determining steps of these
13:34
processes are often about building relationships, right?
13:38
It's often about understanding the communities that you're
13:41
working with and giving them the capacity to, you know,
13:43
understand and participate in the process.
13:46
That stuff you can't really rush.
13:48
And so you know what what it's going to mean.
13:51
And going into 2026 for us, you know, some of the major, major
13:56
catalysts are coming is that we get the environmental assessment
13:59
approval and and hopefully, you know, we'd like to think we'll
14:03
have a couple of other agreements with communities
14:05
before those EA approvals are granted.
14:10
But we kind of get all of that clear demonstration of, you
14:15
know, an operating social and environmental license.
14:19
Well, you know, it's pretty hard to think that these ounces in
14:23
the ground at spring pole, which people have always dismissed
14:25
because the deposit's in the Bay of a lake.
14:28
It's pretty hard to think that those are still worth 30 bucks
14:32
an ounce when there are very few advanced stage developers that
14:36
you could actually see a shovel go on the ground in any Tier 1
14:40
jurisdiction in the next five years.
14:43
And you know, those where there are that, that are a little bit
14:47
ahead of us or sort of further closer to that construction
14:50
decision are trading at 150 to $200.00 an ounce, which
14:53
historically is kind of where advanced stage permitted
14:56
projects have traded. So, you know, we, we keep
14:59
telling people like, yes, the stocks up 400% this year, but
15:06
it's up from, you know, from 7 1/2 dollars an ounce to $28.00
15:12
an hour, $30.00 an ounce, right? Like there's still lots of room
15:16
here. Like this is still a deep deep
15:19
value play. And and, and you have, is it
15:22
safe to say a head start? It feels like to me that that
15:25
with spring pulling all the work that's gone in that you have a
15:29
big head start. And I want to frame this for our
15:31
viewer. I should have done this before I
15:33
asked you the question about Spring Pull.
15:35
You're a company with two huge development stage projects.
15:39
There's Spring Pole which you just talked about, but there's
15:42
also Duparquet which we'll touch on as well.
15:44
But these are multi million ounce deposits that have been
15:48
worked on for years and years. And like you said right there
15:52
are very, this is like an elite class.
15:54
There's very few projects of this scale located in a
15:59
favorable jurisdiction like like Canada.
16:03
You you, you kind of gave us an update on where things stand
16:06
with the the development stage on spring poll.
16:08
What are the numbers behind it? Because, I mean, they're
16:10
astounding as well. Yeah, I know you came out with a
16:14
the preliminary economic assessment.
16:18
How did the numbers stack up and what's the what's what's the
16:20
leverage to the gold price? Yeah.
16:22
I mean, that's one of the things I think that's really sort of
16:25
got people refocused on it. So our previous pre feasibility
16:29
study was done in 2021 and I think investors rightly were
16:33
looking for a bit more information.
16:35
They knew the costs were dated, they knew that there'd been a
16:38
bunch of scope changes in the project.
16:40
So as we were kind of updating some of this work just
16:43
internally getting ready for the feasibility study.
16:46
And we said actually, I think it's really important for us to
16:49
show the investors what this environmental assessment case
16:54
looks like just from an economic perspective.
16:56
So, and that's important from, from a few things.
16:59
One is the economics of the project, but the other that that
17:02
we'll be coming out with shortly is the economics of what this
17:07
project means to Ontario and Canada in terms of potential tax
17:14
revenue generation, in terms of employment generation, in terms
17:18
of, you know, being really one of the largest potential drivers
17:23
of the economy in Northwestern Ontario for a generation.
17:26
Like it's really, really distinguishing itself.
17:29
But the updated pre feasibility study showed a project with
17:34
upfront capital of about $1.1 billion US, which was a pretty
17:38
significant increase from 2020, but not unsurprising.
17:43
But it also showed a doubling of our net present value from, you
17:47
know, a billion to 2.1 billion. On that project alone.
17:52
On that project alone and that's that's at a $3100 gold price Ron
17:57
like we all I think have views of where gold and silver are
18:02
going, but I've. Not I've not checked the gold
18:04
price for the last nine months, but I think it's higher than
18:06
3100. Yeah, the last time I checked,
18:09
so you know, we were at a, you know, upstart a spot case at
18:12
4200. And this is where you see that
18:15
leverage that 2.1 billion after tax net present value just on
18:19
the gold price change and the silver price change because they
18:23
have a pretty significant silver component goes up to $3.8
18:26
billion. Wow, Like it almost double s on
18:30
$1000 in the gold price. And you know, it's, it's a
18:34
pretty linear relation when you have a project, when you're
18:37
assuming kind of, you know, a set cost base.
18:40
The one thing that's interesting and we haven't really thought
18:43
much about this, but we always look at our silver as a
18:46
byproduct. So you basically take the silver
18:48
revenues and deduct those off your cost.
18:50
It's a pretty standard way to to think about, you know, the, the
18:54
value of producing your gold if you're producing let's say less
18:57
than less than 10% of your revenues coming from another
19:00
commodity. And for us silver's at about 5%.
19:03
So even with this the silver stream that we have with First
19:06
Majestic like it actually the impact of the silver drops our
19:12
all in costs going from, you know, call it $35 silver to $50
19:17
silver drops our all in sustaining cost by like 25%,
19:22
takes it down like from 1000 to 800, which 1000 is globally
19:28
competitive, easily lowest quartile at all in sustaining
19:32
costs in the industry. But I think you have that extra
19:35
leverage to that silver price, which drops that number even
19:38
further. So it's a huge project.
19:40
It's very robust, it's got fantastic leverage to the gold
19:46
price. And I think it leaves us in a in
19:48
a, you know, in a really, really good position.
19:51
Now having had the team kind of refresh all these numbers, we
19:55
now drive on to a feasibility study which we're targeting to
19:58
have done kind of by the end of 2026.
20:01
We're starting to collect all of that data now and we'll be
20:04
collecting the data through kind of the end of Q1.
20:07
There's some seasonal work we need to do.
20:09
We have to do some drilling from the ice to get to collect some
20:12
of the geotechnical data that we need, but in a very, very good
20:16
shape to do it. And yeah, we continue to remain
20:20
very well funded. We've got, you know, about $35
20:22
million in the bank and what I guess shouldn't have surprised
20:27
us, but is surprising us a little bit as we're now a lot of
20:30
our, of our, the participants in our financings over the years.
20:34
Ron, you being one of our very dear and loyal shareholders, we
20:41
have a lot of warrants outstanding, you know, like
20:43
'cause all of these financings we did have warrants.
20:46
And so we're now seeing, you know, it used to be kind of once
20:50
a week, We're now almost seeing once a day with the share price
20:53
above $0.50. All those warrants are in the
20:55
money and starting to get exercised as shareholders are
20:58
just looking for for more leverage.
21:00
So, yeah, and I think we're in, we're in a really, really good
21:03
shape that way. But I think a lot of that's been
21:05
underpinned by us kind of resetting the markets
21:09
understanding of the economics at Spring Pool, which have shown
21:11
themselves to be very, very robust.
21:14
Yeah. So it's a, it's a huge project,
21:17
could be, could be a major contributor to the communities
21:21
in the area. See it sounds like sometime in
21:24
the first half of 2026 we'll we'll be expecting to hear on
21:31
the EA, the environmental assessment permit and then later
21:35
in the year a pre feasibility study.
21:37
Those are some pretty big potential catalyst for a massive
21:41
project in Canada. Yeah.
21:43
And later in the year would be feed the like the definitive
21:45
feasibility study that you'd use, bankable feasibility study
21:48
that you'd use to go out and arrange project financing.
21:51
And you know, get ready as you go through the permitting
21:54
process, get ready to make that construction decision, which you
21:58
know, the is probably somewhere between 12 and 18 months, but
22:03
we'd say 18 months after the environmental assessment
22:06
decisions made. OK, OK.
22:08
And I also think it's worth mentioning to our viewer that
22:11
you've got like a first class team working on this.
22:14
I know Steve Lines was is working on this, the permitting
22:19
process process and previously he was involved.
22:22
Is it the Greenstone mine? Yeah, Equinox now is, is
22:26
running. I mean, he has a track record
22:27
of, of, of, of success in that in that area.
22:31
Yeah, I know very much and a lot of the teams here in Vancouver
22:33
for our Christmas party today would Steven, Steven, Steven,
22:37
James Maxwell and I travelled back from Thunder Bay together
22:39
last night on would end up being a bit of an adventure.
22:42
But no, no, we've, we've got a great team that has, you know,
22:47
has actually gone through this entire process with the most
22:51
recently permitted and now built large scale projects in
22:56
Northwestern Ontario. So again, those relationships
22:59
with the regulators have been really important, just the, the
23:03
the team and the experience of how you navigate and and solve
23:07
problems. And that's what essentially
23:09
what, what this environmental assessment process is.
23:13
It's understanding where there might be impacts and then
23:16
bringing smart people together, engineers, environmental people
23:19
to figure out how you can mitigate whatever of those
23:24
impacts might be. So, yeah, no, it's been, it's
23:27
been great. We're very, very fortunate to
23:29
have a team, but everyone's very focused on the finish line right
23:32
now, as you can imagine, Ron. Oh, finish line or starting line
23:35
depending on how you look. At it, yeah, Yep, Yep.
23:36
And I've and I've been following the company.
23:38
I looked back before we came on my first video I made about
23:41
first mining gold before you sponsored my channel was all the
23:45
way back in 2020. And the work that's been done
23:50
just in that five years alone and I own the stock for years
23:53
prior to that or few years prior to that has been, you know, has
23:57
been very consistent, very high quality.
24:00
And I think now in this new environment that we're in for
24:03
precious metals starting to, to, to, to pay dividends for
24:08
everybody that, that saw the value and believed in the
24:11
company. So spring pull alone, right is,
24:14
is super attractive, high value. But I have to say but wait,
24:19
there's more but. Wait, there's more, but.
24:21
Wait, wait. If you, you know, please don't.
24:24
You know, you've got to hear about the Dupart K project
24:27
because it's also very attractive and I think could
24:31
provide some catalyst as we move into the coming years as well.
24:35
Yeah, for sure. And our focus on Dupart K over
24:37
the last year has been really on exploration and we continue to
24:43
grow this deposit. We know that there's more
24:48
mineralization there. Our, our, our success rate with
24:53
exploration in finding new zones of gold mineralization is pretty
24:58
incredible. Like there's not many projects
25:00
where you're hitting gold in almost every drill hole.
25:03
And James and our exploration team have done an amazing job
25:07
with that. The other thing importantly, and
25:10
we're we're starting to see the real benefit in this just in, in
25:14
our discussions with the province is we've taken a very
25:21
transparent and pragmatic view towards starting to remediate
25:25
some of the environmental legacy from the old mine.
25:28
And you've been to the mine site, Ron, you know, it's, it's
25:31
a mine that produce gold from 1933 to 1956 and there's a bunch
25:36
of legacy infrastructure there. But we've finished this year one
25:40
of the largest construction projects that first mining's
25:43
ever taken on, building a new storage facility for some of the
25:50
old mine residue byproduct with the arsenic trioxide.
25:54
So that plan is well in place. But I think you know what, what
25:57
that's sort of earned us with the province of Quebec is just,
26:01
you know, I think an understanding that we're a
26:03
company that's focused on doing the right things and it's been a
26:06
very collaborative process. Quebec is an amazing place to
26:10
work like it really is. And when we talk about kind of
26:15
the head start on these projects, you know, one of the
26:19
things people don't really appreciate about Dupart K is
26:21
that's a project that was taken to pre feasibility study in
26:24
2014, right? So a lot of that work is done
26:28
almost to the same level that spring pool is.
26:30
And the amount of drilling that's in that, in that project,
26:33
300,000 meters of drilling, like just the time to collect that
26:38
data. If you were starting from today,
26:40
like let's say three to five year process, if you were going
26:44
like at 100,000 meters a year, which would be, you know, a
26:48
major, major scale drill program.
26:50
So it leaves us in this position with with with Dupart K where,
26:56
you know, we've got a couple of really important catalyst coming
27:00
for spring poll. But we've started, I'd say now
27:04
almost all of the like the long lead time work we need to do to
27:08
have Dupart K catch up in advance through this process.
27:11
And you know, very, very supportive discussions with the,
27:16
the province of Quebec, who you know, I think see the same
27:20
vision that we do, which is that there's a project here that is
27:26
in part addressing, you know, historical legacy at, at the
27:32
existing old mine site, cleaning up tailings that have been there
27:36
for 70 years. But also creating what will be
27:40
one of the largest and most robust gold projects in the
27:44
province. Because our our study on Dupar K
27:47
or PEA was done in 2023 Ron at an $1800 gold price.
27:53
Dan here I have I, I'm sorry I have to show there.
27:56
There's a picture from when we visited the Dupart K mine site
28:00
and I. I don't know if you'll be able
28:03
to see it, but I've got the. I've got the same one right
28:06
there. There you.
28:07
Go Yeah. Well, it's, it's interesting
28:10
because there's a date on here which I was very great.
28:12
October 12th of 2023 is when we visited.
28:16
OK, a little over two years ago, I looked up before we came on
28:19
what the gold price was on October 12th, 2020.
28:23
Three, I want to emphasize a little over just two years ago,
28:27
the gold price was $1870 per oz. So when you talk about these
28:33
numbers, I mean, it truly is incredible the, the, the, the
28:38
increase in value alone that you can attribute to, to this, you
28:43
know, if you got the gold price going up and at this at the same
28:46
time good work going on, on these projects.
28:50
It's like it's a. It's incredible the value that
28:54
can be created. Yeah.
28:55
And you know at Duparquet that leverage is, is just as strong
29:00
as it is at spring pool. You know our our study which was
29:04
run at a base case $1800 gold price had about a 600 million
29:09
Canadian NPV, but at a $2200 gold price that was like 1.11
29:15
point 2 billion. Don't get, Don't get.
29:17
Don't get. Don't get too aggressive.
29:20
They're going up to 2200. The only reason I say that is
29:23
because that's what was published in the report is like
29:26
at the time our upside case, right?
29:28
And they wouldn't let us publish anything higher than that.
29:30
Well, you almost double that. Yeah.
29:33
And it's a pretty straight line relationship.
29:35
Like I can tell you, this project is worth billions and
29:39
billions of dollars. It's one of the largest
29:42
undeveloped contiguous gold resources in the Abitibi Gold
29:45
Belt, which is an area that everyone wants to get in.
29:49
So let's go back over the last couple of years.
29:51
AG Nico obviously dominates the belt.
29:54
You've had Tony Mccooch in Discovery Silver buying the
29:57
entire Timmons camp. You've had Gold Fields that's
30:00
bought windfall and made a big, big push into Canada. 2 1/2
30:04
billion dollars pre pre construction on a development
30:08
project that's about the same size as spring pool.
30:10
You have Fresnio that just come in and spent 700 and is spending
30:14
$780 million buying probe, which is 100 kilometers away.
30:20
So like all these behemoths are scrambling to pick up what is
30:25
really rare, which are these large scale deposits in the
30:29
Abitibi. And we've we've literally got
30:32
like the biggest next one that's there and the best located.
30:36
So yeah, we're excited and, and. And I'm sorry to interrupt you,
30:39
but you mentioned Fresnio, aren't haven't they
30:42
traditionally been like focused more on Mexico?
30:46
And so correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I read that that
30:51
was one of their first forays out of Mexico in like a very,
30:55
very long time. Indeed, yeah, I think it, I
30:58
think it was, you know, the only, I don't know about only,
31:02
but certainly one of the most significant forays outside of
31:05
Mexico for them. You know, I, I think it's a
31:07
group that's been looking for a long time at where are those
31:12
opportunities outside of the country because they have
31:14
obviously, you know, a long standing history of operating in
31:18
that jurisdiction and very closely tied in at all levels
31:22
of, you know, government in the mining industry.
31:25
But where do you find the 5 million oz gold projects?
31:30
Like where's the next one in Mexico?
31:33
I don't know. You know, I don't know.
31:36
So. And, and, and and and do you
31:39
want to when you compare the jurisdictions, I mean Mexico's
31:42
has presented some challenge for mining companies in the last
31:45
five years. Compare what's going on with
31:48
Mexico to Canada, where there seems to be, I'm sensing an
31:54
overall, how do I say they're making it a little more
31:58
favorable for mining companies in Canada in general?
32:02
Certainly the intent is there. We've seen a lot of
32:05
announcements. We spent, you know, a few days
32:08
last week in London with a lot of the Ontario Minister of
32:13
Northern Economic Development and a few ministry people from
32:17
there in the Ministry of Energy and Mines with the and the
32:20
Minister of Energy and Mines with a very clear message that
32:23
like Ontario needs to develop it's mining sector.
32:27
It's open for business, you know, real focus on critical
32:29
minerals, but don't forget about gold, which is really important
32:32
to Ontario as well. So, yeah, that that message of,
32:37
you know, we need to get this right and make sure that we're,
32:40
we're doing what we can to simplify these processes for
32:45
companies to advance these projects.
32:47
So we're seeing that really all across Canada with varying
32:50
degrees of success depending on where you are.
32:53
But yeah, no, I, I think we've in my career, which is, you
32:58
know, 30 plus years, I don't think I've ever seen a, an
33:03
environment that has been as pro resource development in this
33:09
country as we have in the last 12 months.
33:12
Like, like it has a lot to do with the, with the tariffs, a
33:15
lot to do with that relationship with the US and a recognition
33:18
that Canada needs to a certain extent to control its own
33:21
destiny and develop its own resources in order to fund all
33:25
of the rest of these things that the Canadian population wants to
33:28
have. So, yeah, we're, I think we're,
33:30
we're well positioned that way and have certainly very, I think
33:35
constructive governments in Ontario, in Quebec.
33:39
And you know, I, I think to the credit of the, of the Indigenous
33:43
communities we're working with as well.
33:45
And a lot of those communities really understand the importance
33:48
and the imperative of economic development.
33:52
They just want to make sure that it's done in a way that is
33:55
environmentally responsible and recognizes the impacts that that
34:00
they are going to have on their, you know, their traditional way
34:04
of life and their treaty rights. And these, these projects will
34:07
have, will have impacts. There's no question about that.
34:10
But you know, I think what's, what's important is, you know,
34:13
us having those dialogues and, and continuing to work together,
34:17
which, you know, again, we're hopeful that that could be
34:21
something else that will drive towards as a, as a major
34:24
catalyst in 2026. Yeah, for the for the benefit of
34:27
everybody and I want to emphasize for our viewer, like
34:30
in my view first mining gold is ahead of the curve, right.
34:34
We both have used the word scramble in our, in our
34:37
interview today, but the world is scrambling to find good
34:42
quality gold deposits and first mining gold has, correct me if
34:46
I'm wrong, but two of the largest development stage
34:49
projects in Canada. One last question for you on
34:54
Duparke then I have two more points I, I, I want to ask you
34:56
about. But with Duparke you mentioned
34:59
exploration potential down the road.
35:02
Any blue sky feelings about how much that deposit could grow in
35:06
the future? Well, we'll find some time in
35:09
the new year to have James and Caroline come up and give you
35:11
the give you the the full view. Listen, what's what, what is
35:15
important at Dupart K is that we have discovered and have now
35:19
starting to understand the extent of a bunch of parallel
35:23
zones of mineralization that no one has ever looked for before.
35:28
And these are the types of things that at any other project
35:31
in the abbativity, they're like the primary target.
35:33
At Dupart K, no one looked for them because you had this
35:37
existing style of mineralization, which was what
35:40
they mined from 1933 to 1956. So no one ever looked for
35:44
anything other than this gold in the cyanides.
35:47
But that's now really, really changing.
35:50
And I mean, it's exciting because we're finding, you know,
35:54
10s of meters of 2 to 3G at surface.
35:58
You know, just basically in what if you were to like draw an open
36:02
pit around where you were going to mine some of these things.
36:06
This is mineralization that's sitting in the open pit and in
36:09
our economic study would have been treated as waste.
36:12
But it's sitting here is actually some of the highest
36:14
grade open pit ore in Canada. So super excited.
36:18
We need to understand the extent of it.
36:19
We found it at Miroir. We found it at the North Zone.
36:23
It's quite a big task to understand over 4 kilometers
36:26
where you're going to find it. Is it continuous?
36:28
Is it lensy like we'll we'll see.
36:31
But and that's just, you know, 1 facet of it.
36:35
The other facet that's very clear on is like everywhere we
36:38
have drilled under the existing mineralization, we have extended
36:42
that mineralization. And in the Abitibi, you know
36:45
these deposits are renowned for their vertical continuity.
36:49
And so you overlay, you know what Agnico has at, at Canadian
36:56
Malartic, which is about 100 kilometers away, large second
36:59
largest gold mine in Canada. So they had an A pass producing
37:03
mine, they had an open pit around the outside of it.
37:06
And you know, mining sort of disseminated Halo of what what
37:09
had been mined underground. But they're now sinking a shaft
37:13
1800 meters, so you know, 5000 plus feet.
37:17
And they are going to be mining like 3G ore, big bulk mining 3G
37:25
ore from underground. So, and if you look at the
37:29
footprint of that and look at the footprint of what we have at
37:32
Duparquet, they are eerily similar.
37:35
So we're not, we're not drilling these deep holes yet because
37:39
like we don't need them for the economics of our project right
37:42
now, but we know that this is on a trajectory to 10 million oz.
37:47
Wow, absolutely. I mean, we're at, we're in the
37:50
land package today. We're at 6.
37:52
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember because you
37:54
had been, we were passing through Saint Louis around the
37:58
time that the, the, the Duparquet deal happened.
38:02
Oh yeah, that's right. And what A and what a big deal
38:04
that was because it had been a bunch of independent or you, you
38:08
expanded your land package significantly, kind of combining
38:12
what had previously been a bunch of independent projects and how
38:17
exciting that was. And that even, I think at the
38:19
time we talked about a lot of the border borders between these
38:24
previously separately owned claims really hadn't been
38:27
explored because people didn't want to, you know, necessarily
38:31
explore for somebody else's gold.
38:34
What I'm, what I'm hearing from you, and again I'll ask you to
38:37
correct me if I'm wrong, is that what you're saying is that at
38:39
Duparque the footprint could potentially get bigger, but also
38:44
it could get deeper as well, is that?
38:46
Yeah. I mean on, on the footprint
38:48
side, yes, I think sort of on the margin, yeah.
38:54
But it's still not very well explored along strike to the
38:57
east. So we're continuing to find some
39:00
new zones of mineralization there.
39:02
But I think it's very clear like this is this, it's only drilled
39:06
down in the main part of the deposit to about 600 meters in
39:10
the Central du Parque in Dumico, which are just to the east as
39:14
you're driving in from Ruai, sort of just to the north of the
39:17
highway. Those are mostly only drilled
39:20
down about two hundred 250 meters and you know what, we've
39:26
now extended like connected some of those and extended them.
39:28
And so we know that there's that continuity there as well.
39:32
So the overall in a resource endowment in the top 600 meters
39:36
here, considering that, you know, we have 5 million oz there
39:39
and they mined 1,000,000 1/2 oz out, it's like 1,000,000 oz per
39:44
100 meter vertical, which is one of the biggest endowments I
39:51
think of any project ever in the in terms of size and scale.
39:56
Now it needs to be higher grade as you go deeper.
39:58
And that's some of the things that we're trying to find.
40:00
But you know, again, these contact zones, the last year
40:03
our, our final drill hole into the north zone was 33 meters of
40:07
6 grams. Like that's something that you
40:09
follow that down that, you know, that could be an underground
40:15
mine for a long, long, long, long time.
40:17
So. Yeah.
40:18
I think, I think, you know, it's the, the surface footprint will
40:22
likely end up, you know, in and around sort of what we
40:25
understand now. But the opportunity really is
40:28
going to be that this is a mine that I think will produce or,
40:32
you know, when you start mining it again, it'll produce for 50
40:35
years. Yeah, yeah.
40:36
Super, super exciting. I wanted to mention for our
40:39
viewer as well, Keith Neumeyer founded this company.
40:44
He's a well known figure in the precious metal sector, CEO of
40:47
First Majestic Silver, which actually owns my other channel
40:51
sponsor, First Mint. Give them a plug right behind
40:54
me. If you want to premier first
40:58
class silver bullion experience, check out First Mint.
41:02
But Keith started the company 8 years ago with a vision.
41:06
We're seeing that vision now come to fruition.
41:09
But I think it's also very interesting that based on
41:12
publicly available records, I've noticed that Keith Neumeyer has
41:16
continued to accumulate First Mining stock.
41:20
If you'll, if you if you can touch on that and then talk
41:23
about the inside ownership with within the the management team
41:27
at First Mining as well because I think that's very important.
41:31
Yeah, I agree with you. So Keith, Yep, continues to
41:33
acquire. I think the last I saw, so we
41:36
participated in our financing in August, has bought a bunch in in
41:40
October and November after we put out the after we put out the
41:45
the PFS updates, I think he's up to 42,000,000 shares now.
41:49
And like, what's remarkable about that is like, those are
41:53
all purchased shares, like purchased in financings or
41:56
purchased in the open market. You know, it's very rare that
42:00
you find a lot of these big entrepreneurs who really have
42:04
their own money in a lot of these things.
42:05
I mean, you know, particularly those more familiar with the,
42:08
with the tech world. No, there's a lot of, you know,
42:12
founder stock that you get or whatever, you know, Keith's put
42:15
his money behind this and importantly, you know, for him
42:18
and, and good for him and good for, you know, and, and we're
42:21
thankful for people like you, Ron as well.
42:24
There were those that were supporting this thing when we
42:26
were raising money at, you know, 12 and and $0.13.
42:29
Yeah. Because we saw that, you know,
42:32
long term vision and had the the patience to be able to support
42:35
it and and ride it out. So, you know, the overall the
42:40
entire management team owns shares.
42:42
We're all extremely incentivized.
42:45
I own 15,000,000 shares that all but maybe a million and a bit of
42:50
that which have come from restricted stock units, which I
42:53
basically took in lieu of cash compensation for a lot of years.
42:57
So my my total exposure between shares and options and Rs US is
43:02
probably 38 million shares, but I've got more than $2,000,000 of
43:08
my own money into this company. And you know, like very happy
43:13
that I have because you know, we were underwater until probably
43:17
like, you know, three to six months ago, right.
43:20
But it's, it's having that, that faith and that commitment and,
43:24
you know, having a great team that's all similarly aligned and
43:28
focused on the outcome, which is ultimately, you know, trying to
43:32
deliver our best result we can for our shareholders.
43:34
Yeah, it is. It shows to me, which is always
43:37
very important to me that that from the chairman down to the
43:42
CEO to the management staff alignment with shareholders,
43:46
right? Like we're in the same boat
43:48
together and you know, your interest is aligned with my
43:51
interest. And I still do believe, just my
43:54
opinion, I'm not a financial advisor, that the stock is still
43:58
an unbelievable value at these levels.
44:01
I mean, I know we got to wrap this up, but when you look at
44:04
like the, these charts that are coming out that show the entire
44:08
gold mining, so the market cap of the entire gold mining sector
44:12
compared to companies like Microsoft or Amazon, I mean,
44:16
gold. I, I believe that we're still in
44:19
the very early innings for the entire gold mining sector and,
44:24
and that the moves and some of the quality development stage
44:28
companies could be, you know, there could be a great
44:31
opportunity for capital appreciation.
44:35
We also, Dan, one thing that's I think sets first mining apart
44:39
from most all the other junior mining companies that I've dealt
44:43
with in the past is your communication and transparency
44:47
with shareholders. I know that Paul Morris, your
44:50
director of Investor Relations, makes himself available to
44:54
investors. If people want to reach out to
44:56
him, it's paul@firstmininggold.com.
45:01
But that that it feels like with First mining that you, you, you
45:04
put shareholders first. And on behalf of myself and the
45:08
other shareholders, I want to say thank you to you for that.
45:11
Juan, thank you for and thanks to all the shareholders for
45:14
supporting us. You know, like we said, it's
45:15
been, it's been a long journey and we know it's been a long
45:18
journey. We're delighted that we're at
45:20
the point where it's sort of feels like we've kind of turned
45:23
the corner. But we do hasten to remind
45:25
people, you know, we're only so happy that we're gone from
45:29
trading at $7.00 an ounce to $30.00 an ounce, right?
45:33
At $30.00 an ounce, it's still a pretty clear like 5X reversion
45:38
to the mean in terms of where, you know, where our peers are
45:41
trading. So and and important to your
45:44
point Ron and where we kind of started the whole discussion, if
45:48
you have a constructive view on gold and silver and you think
45:51
that we are still in the early innings, then you're going to
45:54
get you know maximum leverage on getting exposure to large
45:59
numbers of Oz at a lower price and seeing those oz re rate.
46:03
Because the fundamentals of our project, like we said, the
46:07
difference in NPV between 3100 and $4200 in spring poll is the
46:13
difference between 2.1 and $3.8 billion US.
46:18
So you know, we still think we're sitting at like current
46:22
spot prices. We're sitting with six or $7.00
46:25
a share of net asset value in this company and we're trading,
46:28
you can buy it today in the market at $0.50.
46:30
Like it's still pretty good value here.
46:33
And, and yeah, for those, those of us who've been in it for a
46:37
long time, you actually even longer than me, Ron, you know,
46:42
I've only been here since 2019. But the fact that these
46:47
catalysts are now very pretty clearly in the next 6 months
46:52
that we're going to reach these catalysts, I think it gives a
46:55
great sort of view on, on risk reward here.
46:58
And I think it's still a great time because we haven't really
47:02
seen the frenzy start in the mining industry yet.
47:06
And I've lived through a few cycles and I know what that
47:09
looks like when the companies need to replace their reserves
47:12
and they need to show growth. And that's when those values per
47:15
oz are going to get up to $200, plus that they're going to be
47:18
willing to pay for something that's near term.
47:21
Yeah, Yeah. The way I see it is first,
47:24
mining has big leverage to the gold price, big leverage to the
47:29
gold mining sector and even, you know, because relative to your
47:33
peers, you're still undervalued, even big leverage to the
47:36
development stage. And then you know, but wait,
47:39
there's more, one more time that is there.
47:41
There's a pretty clear path of some great potential catalyst
47:45
for first mining in the coming year. 2 years, three years with
47:49
Spring Pull and Du Parquet. I'm going to quickly for two
47:52
seconds pull up the company's website for anybody who wants to
47:56
go check it out. firstmininggold.com has all the
47:59
information. Also, as we previously said, you
48:03
can reach out to Paul Morris, the Director of Investor
48:05
Relations. Paul, at First Mining Gold.
48:08
Dan, thank you so much. I'm sorry I kept you so long,
48:11
but there's too much to talk about with what's going on in
48:15
gold and silver, but even more so with first mining gold.
48:18
So thank you. And we're going to look forward
48:20
to 2026 because I think there's a lot of great things to come.
48:24
Well, Ron, we always as always really appreciate your support
48:28
and you know, I look forward to one of my KPIs for 2026 is I got
48:34
to get physically back to the basement.
48:35
So that's so we'll, we'll be back for a little in person
48:40
here, hopefully before you know it.
48:42
Yeah, yeah. On a personal note, I'll share
48:44
with the viewer that first Mining Gold was instrumental in
48:48
me building Ron's basement, which is now 65,000 subscribers
48:53
and supported me from the the very I remember.
48:56
I'll tell a quick story some yeah, I think you reached out to
49:00
me from the company and I was like in shock.
49:03
I'm like the CEO of a gold mining company.
49:06
I've reached out to say hello because I've been making a
49:08
series of videos about first mining gold when I first
49:11
started. So thank you for the support,
49:13
Dan, and we'll look forward to a a lucrative relationship into
49:20
the future. Absolutely.
49:22
Thanks again, Ron. We'll chat.
49:23
We'll chat again soon.