Latest / SILVER / GOLD / $UFD Meme Coin Investing & Global Economics / Are CEOs "In the Know" about SILVER & Gold Price
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- 0:00If we really are at a point where okay raising rates is
- 0:04starting to have that impact, you're you know we're getting to
- 0:06a point where we're going to start dropping rates again, then
- 0:10I think that's that's going to be rocket fuel for the gold
- 0:13price. Today we have a special guest
- 0:20and we're going to talk about your favorite subject, silver
- 0:23and gold. I'm joined by Dan Wilton.
- 0:26He's the CEO of First Mining Gold.
- 0:29They're a Canadian gold development company with a
- 0:33portfolio of projects including two world class size projects,
- 0:38each of which have 5,000,000 ounces of resources.
- 0:42Dan, welcome to Ron's Basement. Ron, thanks very much for having
- 0:46me. Great to be back.
- 0:48Dad, it's great to have you here.
- 0:50We had you here live about a year ago, and you're always a
- 0:53welcome guest in Ron's basement. So we're having a good day in
- 0:57the gold market today. I think last I checked we were
- 1:00up about $20 approaching in U.S. dollar terms that $2000 range,
- 1:06but sentiment still seems to be a little challenging.
- 1:10Do you have any read on what you're, what you're seeing out
- 1:13there from your perspective as a CEO?
- 1:16Yeah, it's interesting Ron. You know, I was looking at this
- 1:19morning as well and reflecting on the fact that we've seen gold
- 1:23now you know it's we're A9 iron from $2000.
- 1:27Again I think you go back two or three weeks as they were raising
- 1:30rates again and a real amount of concern crawling back into the
- 1:34market about you know you saw the gold price push down to 1900
- 1:39and had just absolute fierce resistance at 1900 which I love
- 1:43to see. You know, I think we're at this
- 1:48turning point and we've talked about this a little bit in the
- 1:50past, but you're almost in this no lose situation for gold.
- 1:54And I've never really seen anything like this in my life
- 1:57where you've got inflation still proving far more difficult to
- 2:04deal with, central banks having now basically capitulated and
- 2:08said Okay, inflation's more difficult to deal with.
- 2:10We need to, you know, keep rates higher, move rates higher in
- 2:14order to deal with inflation. We're starting to see some of
- 2:19that inflation looks like it's abating hopefully.
- 2:23And that's good for everyone, right?
- 2:25That's good for all of our accumulated wealth that's no
- 2:28longer going to be eroded by inflation, which is the real
- 2:31risk. But I think in if inflation is
- 2:36going to persist, you want to hold gold, right?
- 2:38You want to hold gold and real assets in order to protect that
- 2:41wealth. And on the flip side, if we
- 2:45really are at a point where, OK, raising rates is starting to
- 2:49have that impact, you're you know we're getting to a point
- 2:51where we're going to start dropping rates again, then I
- 2:55think that's that's going to be rocket fuel for the gold price.
- 2:58And I think we've seen that here today and this week where I'm
- 3:02going back a couple of weeks. We're just everyone's baked in
- 3:06100% probability of another rate hike coming.
- 3:10But you know, now that the numbers in the economy are
- 3:16starting to show, maybe inflation starting to abate,
- 3:21then just an inkling of the fact that at some point rates might
- 3:26stop going up has gold up $100, right like and just imagine what
- 3:31happens historically when you go into a lower rate environment,
- 3:35you tend to see gold really go higher.
- 3:37And so I think we're in a very interesting position here where
- 3:41you know gold's going to win on all fronts.
- 3:44Yeah, it feels like I like to use the analogy that gold and
- 3:47silver and platinum, all the precious metals have been like
- 3:51sailing into the wind for the last two years.
- 3:54And any inkling like you said of of a of a potential pivot and
- 4:00like the price of gold and silver just want to take off and
- 4:03I think it's important for us to remember.
- 4:06As well, in particular the gold price.
- 4:08It's held in there pretty darn well over the last two years and
- 4:12and as you alluded to, it feels like 1900.
- 4:15I have a regular guest on my show, Buddy Rumble, the
- 4:18Louisiana gold guru. He says 19 Hundred's the new
- 4:21floor. You know, it feels like like any
- 4:24little chance, like any little shift in the wind and gold just
- 4:28really wants to take off. And I think on top of that and I
- 4:32want to get your read on this. Sentiment, from all the measures
- 4:35that I see, whether you're looking at the miners or
- 4:38especially the development and exploration companies are even
- 4:42toward the metal in general. Sentiment is still, to the
- 4:45extent you can quantify it, pretty darn low and the path of
- 4:49least resistance for sentiment is improvement.
- 4:52So if we get like you said, gold's within a nine iron of
- 4:57$2000. It's also within striking
- 4:59distance of a new all time high it just feels like to me.
- 5:02Yeah, if we get to this new all time high 21 fifty 2200 U.S.
- 5:07dollars per oz that it could really zoom from there, really
- 5:10go up quickly. Yeah, I think that's right.
- 5:13And you know a couple of things that I always think about in
- 5:15the, in the bigger macro picture we get pretty wrapped up in what
- 5:20the US dollar gold price is and we sometimes do that without
- 5:26keeping sight of the fact that gold's already at all time highs
- 5:30in almost every other currency on earth, right.
- 5:33Certainly euro, Japanese yen, you know Canadian dollar we're
- 5:39at add or like very close to the striking distance of of real all
- 5:44time highs and some of those all time highs have been set for a
- 5:46little while. So you know, I think that's
- 5:50another important thing. It comes back to to a couple of
- 5:54the other real fundamental drivers here.
- 5:57You know, gold we've seen hold in at 1900 despite there being
- 6:02record outflows in gold ETF's in the last, you know, month, two
- 6:06months. So you know when you talk about
- 6:10sentiment, that's one of the things that really echoes to me
- 6:13is that you've seen much of the investing world kind of moving
- 6:17away from gold and the fact that it's held 1900 in this context
- 6:24of, you know, a lot of the ETF's already selling, but a lot of
- 6:28that buying has been picked up by central banks, right.
- 6:33A lot of central banks that haven't bought gold previously
- 6:37are starting to buy gold. Do you know one of the most
- 6:39notable in reasonable size is the Central Bank of Singapore
- 6:44that you know announced its first sort of major gold
- 6:47purchases or increases in gold purchases over the last couple
- 6:50of months. Like the that activity in the
- 6:54central banking sphere is starting to really ramp up and I
- 6:58think that's likely in preparation as we've all seen
- 7:02here and you know we're hearing talk about it.
- 7:06I think we're going to know a little bit more over the course
- 7:08of the next 30 or 45 days is just the the BRICS country
- 7:13starting to talk about a a new gold back trading currency.
- 7:18And just imagine what happens when 30 or 40% of global trade
- 7:23now is going to be backed in a currency other than the US
- 7:27dollar. And and the fact that it's
- 7:28backed by gold is one thing, but just the fact that it's not
- 7:32backed by the US dollar I think is going to have a U.S. dollar
- 7:36to gold price move that you know even if if in other currencies
- 7:40the gold price doesn't move as much.
- 7:42I think you're going to see some impact on the US dollar gold
- 7:44price because of that. Yeah, it's very.
- 7:47It's, it's interesting And you know, I don't know that enough
- 7:50attention is paid to this fact that, yeah, the World Central
- 7:52Bank's last year bought more gold than any other year.
- 7:57It was either 195519 whatever year it was the the last time
- 8:02they bought this much gold, we were on a world gold standard.
- 8:05I mean and if you, you know read between the lines, what is that,
- 8:09you know what is that telling us?
- 8:11Yeah, I I want to I want to zoom in on on the bricks since you
- 8:14mentioned that. Even if we just look at the,
- 8:17what I like to call the ick in bricks the eye and the sea, the
- 8:21India and China, they both have 1.4 billion people living in
- 8:26their countries. That's compared to the US,
- 8:28that's 8 to 9 times the US population.
- 8:31Their economies are growing right there.
- 8:34I think I just saw yesterday China announced their economy
- 8:38grew it only and it was disappointing 6.3% in the second
- 8:43quarter. OK, only 6.3% those countries
- 8:47are are moving towards a gold backed reserve currency, trading
- 8:53currency. But I think it's also so
- 8:56important to realize that all those people in those economies
- 8:59that are growing, that have growing middle classes as well
- 9:03and they're, they're opposite of what we have in the West over
- 9:07there, everybody appreciates and most people own silver and gold.
- 9:12I mean, when I think about it, I'm like, wow, there's just,
- 9:17it's just astounding to think that number of people that are
- 9:20growing well, more wealthy that are moving towards precious
- 9:23metals. Yeah.
- 9:25And I think, you know, that sort of groundswell of support hasn't
- 9:30even begun to be felt here. You know, that's that kind of
- 9:34whether it's jewelry demand or it's coin demand or it's bar
- 9:37demand. You know, I think you're only
- 9:40going to see that grow particularly when the central
- 9:43banks finally, you know, decide that in order to guarantee trust
- 9:49between themselves, the only thing that's going to give them
- 9:52the trust in trading, they're not going to trust each other's
- 9:55currencies. You know, for transactions,
- 9:57they're going to create a new currency that's backed by goal.
- 10:00I mean I there's a lot of detail that we need to figure out
- 10:02before we can understand what the actual impact of that is
- 10:05going to be, but it can only be positive.
- 10:08The only question is how positive is it going to be or is
- 10:12this going to really usher in an era, you know, an era of
- 10:16meaningful, meaningful moves in the gold price.
- 10:19And that's where you know I start getting pretty excited not
- 10:23just because you know we're, we all live in this industry in and
- 10:27around this industry where the gold price is so important.
- 10:30But you know when you start looking at projects like we have
- 10:34at first mining gold, you know with millions of Oz of gold in
- 10:39the ground, the leverage that those projects have the higher
- 10:42gold prices is very significant, so.
- 10:46Yeah, that was, that was my next, that was my next question
- 10:49for you. Like, where's all this gold
- 10:51going to come from? Dan, do you have any idea where
- 10:54we might be able to find 10 or 12 million ounces of gold?
- 10:57That's. Let's talk about, you know you
- 10:59have a portfolio of projects all in Canada, right, which is
- 11:03becoming more and more important jurisdictions, right.
- 11:06You're Ontario, Newfoundland, but you have two big projects.
- 11:12Let's let's focus in on those cuz I think they're they're
- 11:15super interesting and and and and need to be explored by our
- 11:19audience. That's joining us today.
- 11:22Let's talk about Quebec first, the Duparque project.
- 11:25It's been about one year since you've kind of consolidated that
- 11:29project. What's special about the about
- 11:32the the dupart? What's not special?
- 11:35So many things are special about Duparque and the more that we
- 11:38get into it, the more excited we get.
- 11:40To be honest Ron, we're we're working right now on preliminary
- 11:45economic assessment which we should have out kind of at the
- 11:47end of the summer, early in September and I think that's
- 11:51going to be a great snapshot. It's not going to be the final
- 11:54answer, but it's going to be a great snapshot of what we think
- 11:57this project can be, which is a meaningful gold producer in the
- 12:03middle of the most prolific gold belt in Canada, one of the most
- 12:08prolific gold belts in the world.
- 12:10The Abativity's produced more than 200,000,000 ounces of gold
- 12:14over the last you know 100 and power many years.
- 12:18So this is you know not just we got three and a half million
- 12:23ounces of the M and I resource another million and a half of
- 12:27inferred. But what we're really excited
- 12:30about Ron that I think we're going to start demonstrating as
- 12:32we're drilling there right now. James Maxwell and our
- 12:35exploration team have done an amazing job and really over the
- 12:39last year building our understanding of this deposit.
- 12:42And I think you're going to see very quickly that what we're
- 12:46talking about here with these 5,000,000 ounces is really just
- 12:49the starting point. You know this is basically
- 12:53unexplored below 500 meters in a in an environment where you know
- 13:00the avitivity always say the real minds don't start until a
- 13:03kilometer down, that's where things tend to get bigger and
- 13:05higher grade. So just an amazing starting
- 13:09point with Duparquet and yeah, we you know we acquired it last
- 13:15year, it cost us about $25 million to consolidate this land
- 13:19package. And you know our goal is to
- 13:21demonstrate that this is something that has multiples of
- 13:25that in terms of fundamental value at the outset.
- 13:28And then I think from there as we talked about leverage to gold
- 13:31price as we talked about exploration success and our
- 13:35ability to grow that deposit I guess is pretty quickly going to
- 13:38ramp itself up to one of the biggest and and most economic
- 13:43and by the way for open pit mines, one of the highest grade
- 13:46gold projects in North America at this point.
- 13:50So and it is it accurate to say that when Keith Newmeyer founded
- 13:54the company this was something that was his intention was to
- 13:59consolidate this package and that you've been working on it
- 14:02for years and and that this is the first time that all these
- 14:06there was a lot of individual owners that now everything is
- 14:08under one umbrella. Which is First Mining gold,
- 14:12correct? Yeah.
- 14:13So we acquired First Mining prior to my arrival, but First
- 14:17Mining acquired Clifton Star, which had optioned the project
- 14:22and only earned into a 10% interest in the companies that
- 14:25owned the project. But First, Mining acquired
- 14:29Clifton Star in 2016, and that kind of started a process.
- 14:34We got to kind of know our partners in the project.
- 14:37You know, I joined in 2019. And from then, it was, you know,
- 14:41it was kind of three, 3 1/2 years of us moving down a path
- 14:45to, you know, A, getting the owners of the project
- 14:51comfortable with who we were and what our game plan was.
- 14:55And B, ultimately getting to a point where, yeah, they were
- 14:58comfortable seeing this, which was, you know, a real an asset
- 15:05that that was, you know, had some real emotional attachment
- 15:09to largely a family that had owned it.
- 15:12I've been in the family with some other friends and other
- 15:15shareholders, but since the mid 1950s.
- 15:19So this really was the first time Clifton never completed its
- 15:22option agreement. This was the first time that the
- 15:25ownership of this has been in the hands of someone really
- 15:29moving it forward since the mid 1950s, which is remarkable to
- 15:33find that in the middle of the most prolific belt in Canada,
- 15:38you know it really is. I think it's just an absolute
- 15:42once in a lifetime opportunity for us.
- 15:44And there and there were past producing mines on the on the
- 15:47property. It's a community that that's
- 15:50used to mining. From a location perspective, we
- 15:54aren't talking about helicopter rides to get to the mine side.
- 15:59Is that correct or is there is there interest, the
- 16:02infrastructure is unbelievable. I mean if you if you look at the
- 16:05ABBA Tibby broadly, you could kind of draw a triangle that
- 16:08would go from Valdor, Quebec to Timmins ON to Kirkland Lake ON.
- 16:14If you draw a straight line from Valdor to Timmins, you go
- 16:17basically over top of of Duparquet, which is about
- 16:20halfway. So when I say smack in the
- 16:23middle, I guess it's smack in the middle of the avitivity.
- 16:26So. So the town of Ruan, Naranda has
- 16:28the, you know, they've been mining there for 100 years.
- 16:31The old Naranda mine, it's Canada's copper capital.
- 16:34It's got a smelter that's been operating for almost 100 years.
- 16:38And Timmons again at one of one of Canada's great gold camps
- 16:41about an hour to the West. Ruan Naranda is half an hour to
- 16:45the South and a little bit east and the road between those two
- 16:48major mining centers literally goes over the top of our
- 16:51deposit. So this is no, the
- 16:54infrastructure here is unbelievable.
- 16:56And what that means for us is as we started getting into the
- 16:59exploration there, we've got fantastic exploration
- 17:03contractors, we've got great drilling contractors who believe
- 17:08it or not in the mining business, you know, they're kind
- 17:11of working five days on and two days off.
- 17:13You know, they get to go home at night, they can sleep in their
- 17:18own beds because right around here there's not a mining
- 17:21supplier in the world that isn't present within 200 kilometers of
- 17:28this project, right? That's the benefit of being in
- 17:30the middle of a gold belt is, you know, if you need a a real
- 17:34piece of kit, if it's not coming from Valdor or Ruin Oranda, it's
- 17:38coming from Timmons, right? Like major, major mining supply
- 17:43centers all within largely you know an hour, hour and a half
- 17:47drive. So just just remarkable
- 17:49infrastructure that way. And then and then a municipality
- 17:53that was actually built you know to to house people working at
- 17:59the mines in the 1930s and the 1940s.
- 18:01This is the definition of a mining town that was built
- 18:04around the mines and you look at I'll, I'll get you a a picture
- 18:09of the Crest of the town of Duparquet.
- 18:11It's phenomenal. On the Crest of the town,
- 18:15there's a moose, there's a fish and there's a pickaxe, right.
- 18:18Like we hunt, we fish and we mine.
- 18:21That's what we do in the town of Duparquet.
- 18:23So we've had, we have a great, great receptivity and great
- 18:27reception from the municipality and you know we really, really
- 18:32want to work to scope a project that is embraced by this
- 18:36community and allows the community to grow and develop.
- 18:40And you know, there's a lot of really maximize the benefit of a
- 18:44development going on, you know, in some people's backyards.
- 18:48Within that community and and I know there's a defined resource
- 18:53on that property, obviously there was a lot of work that
- 18:56went into defining that resource.
- 18:57I'm just curious, do you have any estimate?
- 19:00If you had to start from scratch and do now all that work that
- 19:04had been done over the last several decades, any idea how
- 19:08much roughly roughly how much that might cost to accomplish in
- 19:13today's dollars? Yeah, so not not to mention the
- 19:17time because you know lifting and their and their option
- 19:21partners did a ton of work. So just to give you some
- 19:24metrics, 270,000 meters of drilling in this project between
- 19:292008 and 20/14/2015 full scale metallurgical program including
- 19:36pilot plant testing of flotation and pressure oxidation, full
- 19:42environmental baseline report that was prepared,
- 19:45prefeasibility study that was completed in 2014.
- 19:50So all of that just an enormous amount of work.
- 19:53My estimate is somewhere between 75 and $100 million of
- 19:58replacement value of the work, not counting you know what you
- 20:03need to have in terms of infrastructure in a company to
- 20:06do that work over a six or seven-year period, right.
- 20:10So you can pretty quickly add that up that if you were
- 20:12starting today and trying to accomplish the same thing, I
- 20:15think it'd be 100 at least $100 million worth of value in this.
- 20:20Which is which is the the the, the full market cap of a lot of
- 20:25junior development companies right now?
- 20:27Including first mining gold by the way.
- 20:29Well that's I was going to let you say that but you know like
- 20:32but wait there's more right. You know so you you got this
- 20:35great project off a highway in a town that has a pickaxe in their
- 20:41in their in their town Crest. But there's there's there's many
- 20:45other you know exciting projects within the first mining
- 20:49portfolio. We're going to talk about just
- 20:51one more of them spring poll right, which is another
- 20:555,000,000 ounce development project that you've done a ton
- 20:59of work on. Any updates?
- 21:01I know there were some drilling results that came out and maybe
- 21:04possibly some more results that we can look forward to in the
- 21:08near. Future results, keep your eyes
- 21:10peeled here in the in the very near term, we expect to have
- 21:14kind of the final of the results from our fall and winter
- 21:17exploration program regionally. Around around spring polls.
- 21:22So spring poll sitting at you know 5,000,000 ounce equivalent
- 21:26because there's quite a bit of silver there too for the silver
- 21:29fans in the crowd, call it a 5,000,000 ounce equivalent
- 21:34resource that we have our prefeasibility study out in 2021
- 21:38that shows a big and very robust project.
- 21:41But in addition to the existing resource, we have 70,000
- 21:46hectares of. Almost unexplored Greenstone
- 21:49Belt where the really significant part of these
- 21:53exploration results that we're putting out Ron, is that they're
- 21:56demonstrating the gold endowment in this district.
- 22:02We've only started to scratch the surface.
- 22:04There's gold pretty much everywhere.
- 22:08You got a vector in to find what are going to be the economic
- 22:11deposits, but you know we've had.
- 22:14Very interesting results so far at three of the four targets
- 22:19that we have tested. And so a lot more work I think
- 22:23that we can do to demonstrate that you know the life of this
- 22:27district is going to be decades, not just as we had scoped kind
- 22:32of an 11 year mine life at Spring Pool.
- 22:35So and on top of that. You know, I think one of the
- 22:38things we're getting very excited about is we've got to
- 22:40understand the deposit better at Spring Pool.
- 22:43And that's a lot of the work that you do to define, you know,
- 22:46your geotechnical characteristics and your
- 22:48hydrology and your hydrogeology, your waste rock
- 22:52characterization. As we've done all of this work,
- 22:55we've kind of stumbled into a couple of things that are really
- 22:59getting us to understand that. Even just right around Spring
- 23:04pool, there's a lot of room for this deposit to grow.
- 23:08So we're we're actually just scoping out this week what that
- 23:13call it in pit resource conversion would be because we
- 23:16still have some I think probably 16 million tons of inferred
- 23:21material inside the pit from our feasibility study work that
- 23:25we've that's been ongoing. So there's an ability to convert
- 23:29that which improves the economics and then.
- 23:32There's a couple of different avenues that we'd like to vector
- 23:35into what I think could be pretty meaningful resource
- 23:38growth that starts taking this from that 5,000,000 ounce you
- 23:43know level and starts moving it up into you know the really
- 23:47rarefied air of those six, 7-8, you know 10 million ounce
- 23:52deposits that are truly by everyone's definition world
- 23:56class sitting in the middle of a of a largely unexplored
- 24:01district. That you know we're kind of the
- 24:04anchor tenants in mainland Holder.
- 24:06So lots of good work going on there making I think very good
- 24:11progress on our environmental assessments, lots of discussions
- 24:16with the indigenous communities around the project in terms of
- 24:18how we can maximize their participation and and you know,
- 24:24craft that ongoing longterm relationship, so.
- 24:28Lots of really important catalyst coming at spring poll
- 24:31over the course of the next 1218 months and all targeting that
- 24:34environmental assessment approval which were we're
- 24:38targeting submitting that finally a about a year from now
- 24:42and targeting that EA approval you know in call it mid 2025.
- 24:48SO22 massive development projects in Canada that are
- 24:52moving forward and the timing could be just right as the gold
- 24:58mining industry needs bigger projects and potentially just
- 25:04maybe we get a much higher gold price at the same time which
- 25:07makes the projects which are already attractive economically
- 25:11even more attractive. Is that is that a somewhat
- 25:15accurate statement? That is exactly the thesis right
- 25:18here. You know we always said going
- 25:20back to 2019 when I joined, our goal is to have these projects
- 25:25ready to go when the industry needs them the most.
- 25:27And right back to the first thing that you said in the in
- 25:31this interview, you know where's the gold going to come from.
- 25:38And I think that is getting to be a much, much bigger question
- 25:41in the industry right now. Because a lot of the producers
- 25:45are generating record free cash flow and really have very little
- 25:50Ave. for resource growth and they don't really have any new
- 25:52projects that they have in their own pipelines to build.
- 25:55They can incrementally expand in a lot of the, in a lot of cases,
- 26:00but for that new productive capacity particularly in Tier 1
- 26:05jurisdictions, particularly of projects that can produce you
- 26:08know 200,000 ounces a year plus. It's just a really, really small
- 26:14list and getting smaller all the time.
- 26:17So you know from our standpoint it just you know the the
- 26:20indicative benefit of the gold price.
- 26:23Maybe look at our spring poll prefeasibility study Every $100
- 26:28on the gold price translated into $150 million of after tax
- 26:34NPV. On our project, $250 million of
- 26:37pretax NPV. So you know, just for context,
- 26:43it's basically more than our market cap with every $100 on
- 26:48the gold price above $1600, which is where we benchmarked
- 26:51that one, right. We do a study today.
- 26:53Yes, there's been cost inflation for sure, but we do a study
- 26:57today. You're going to run that at a
- 26:58higher gold price number. And you know that's where I
- 27:02think if we're in a situation where maybe inflation is kind of
- 27:06coming under control. Maybe the supply chain
- 27:09challenges are fixed and you get to a point where you know,
- 27:13there's some factor labor availability because there's a
- 27:17bunch of projects getting built right now that get completed and
- 27:20then there's kind of nothing else to build.
- 27:22Well, that's a good time to be looking to scope the building of
- 27:25our project. So yeah, you know, they had a
- 27:28$2500 gold price. You know my mask not that good,
- 27:33but 9/9? 9 * 150 million dollars on the
- 27:39increment on our on our spring poll after tax NPV, you know
- 27:44that starts and what's that 1350US incremental NPV on top of
- 27:51a billion dollar NPVI mean that's you know there you're at
- 27:54$2.00 a share just on spring poll NPV inside first mine two
- 27:59and well almost $3 a share. So it it it, it appears to be an
- 28:03asymmetric risk reward profile to the upside to the benefit to
- 28:09the upside. So if anybody out there and and
- 28:12those are just two of the company's projects, if anybody's
- 28:15wondering where the gold might come from.
- 28:17Well, you know, you might want to look at first Mining Gold and
- 28:20I want to mention you've been so generous with your time this
- 28:23morning, Dan, but I I do want to mention that there's four other
- 28:27projects owned by the company or that have been partnered out.
- 28:31You've got the Hopebrook project in Newfoundland that you've
- 28:36partnered out with Big Ridge Gold.
- 28:38That's an exciting project. There's the Pickle Crow Project,
- 28:42who you partnered with Atiko out of Australia, that's also in
- 28:47Ontario. That's an attractive project.
- 28:50And there's the treasury metals Will you own, is it 10 or 15%?
- 28:54About. 15% still, yeah, you own with the Goliath project in
- 28:57Ontario And finally there's Cameron, which is still 100%
- 29:02owned by the company and that's if I have a correct alone that's
- 29:05in Ontario, but there's a resource that approaches
- 29:091,000,000 ounces of gold, it can.
- 29:11Yeah, it's about about half a million ounces of.
- 29:15And I at about half a million oz have inferred and again that's
- 29:19that's the starting point as far as we're concerned there.
- 29:21You know it's it's Cameron's a little undiscovered gem sitting
- 29:24inside the company. You know it was a project taken
- 29:28to feasibility twice in the 80s and 90s.
- 29:31It's got a ramp down 300 meters. It's developed into or
- 29:35underground on 3 levels and located the 80 kilometers from a
- 29:39mill at Rainy River. For a mine that's going to run
- 29:42up more in the next two or three years.
- 29:45So now we think it's, we think it's it's an absolute and and on
- 29:50top of that the existing resource at Cameron is only a a
- 29:55small portion of what is a 40,000 hectare like we talked
- 29:58about the spring pool, a 40,000 hectare district scale
- 30:02exploration opportunity at the intersection of two major major
- 30:07crustal geologic features. And we've got a dominant land
- 30:12position there and a lots of kind of walk up exploration
- 30:16targets. So still some work to do on the
- 30:19community front there. We've got one exploration
- 30:22agreement signed with one of the the communities in the area and
- 30:26moving toward the building out on that with the with a few of
- 30:30the other communities. But no, I think we need to.
- 30:35Find a path for people to understand a little bit better
- 30:37what Cameron is because it is a real kind of hidden gem sitting
- 30:40inside the company. I've heard several times over
- 30:43the years as I followed the company.
- 30:46Keep new new Keith Newmeyer speak very favorably regarding
- 30:50Cameron and it and it's it doesn't get a lot of attention
- 30:53right now but I think at this point there's there's no
- 30:55question where the gold can come from.
- 30:57It can come from first mining gold if if people want to learn
- 31:01more about the company firstmininggold.com.
- 31:04Yeah, Best spots website www.firstmininggold.com, there's
- 31:09a lot of information there including you know if you're so
- 31:13inclined get into our 10,000 page plus environmental
- 31:16assessment on spring poll through that Channel and you
- 31:20know keep keep watching the news wires here.
- 31:23We've got a couple exciting things I think coming out over
- 31:25the course of the summer and really focused on delivering
- 31:29that that first. Sort of our first cut of the
- 31:32economics and a concept for development at Duparque in the
- 31:35fall, which I think is going to be very exciting.
- 31:37Yeah, well, I have to throw in my disclaimer.
- 31:39I'm not offering financial advice, but it's a company that
- 31:43I've owned for years. I followed closely for years.
- 31:47There's a couple other factors that I find very attractive.
- 31:50That is that I know you, you know, have a lot of your own
- 31:54money in the company, your own skin in the game.
- 31:58And the other thing that I really like about first mining
- 32:00is the decisions that I've witnessed you make in particular
- 32:05in the last three years are always longterm focused and
- 32:09strategically focused. And I do believe that in the
- 32:13long run you know shareholders hopefully including myself will
- 32:17be will be rewarded by by believing in the company.
- 32:22So Dan, on behalf of everyone who's joined us today, it's
- 32:26always great to talk to you. Thank you for sharing
- 32:28information about the company, but also your your thoughts on
- 32:31the general gold and silver market as well.
- 32:34Well, thanks Ron. It's always a pleasure to be in
- 32:36the basement, if only virtually and no way.
- 32:40As as always, immensely appreciate the support that you
- 32:44give to us and really you know, value your insights and and how
- 32:49you're building. Such a great community around
- 32:52gold and silver, around you, like minded, like minded
- 32:56investors and yeah, really appreciate everything that you
- 32:58do Ron. So thanks for that.
- 33:00Well, thank you, Dan, and we'll see you soon.
- 33:02Absolutely. Take care.