Latest / Kitco MINING / Mackay Gold & Silver Targets Nevada’s Famous Comstock District | Darwin Green

Transcript

Mackay Gold & Silver Targets Nevada’s Famous Comstock District | Darwin Green · Kitco MINING

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Kitco Mining with me, Paul Harris.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Today it's Thursday, July the 2nd, and we are talking gold.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Investors almost always have an appetite for a good story, and the past couple of months have seen some real crackers coming to market with Ross Beatty's Luminum Metals in Poland, Tom Kaplan's Sunshine in Idaho, and Cinder in Guanajuato.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: These are for copper and silver, respectively.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: The gold sector has also seen a wonderful new IPO story in the famous Comstock District in Nevada, and that is in the hands of McKay or McKee uh Gold and Silver.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: And joining me to tell me all about it is CEO Darwin Green.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Darwin, welcome to Kitco.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, great to be here, Paul.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Good to see you.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: First question: what's the correct pronunciation of the company's name?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question, actually, because it's uh most people get it wrong.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's Mackey, and it's actually named after John Mackey, who was uh, you know, he he worked his way up through the mines as a laborer and became one of the wealthiest men in America on the back of uh the Comstock.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're gonna be talking a little bit about the history of the Comstock in just a moment.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: So uh maybe Mr.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Mackay will come back into this, but uh first I want to talk about the gold price.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: The gold price has been highly volatile so far this year.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: At the moment, it's holding around just over that 4,000 US dollars per ounce level.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Having just done an IPO, I imagine this has sent you through a range of emotions, Darwin.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: How how tough was it completing an IPO for an exploration company at this very volatile moment of time?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, uh for us, I it I mean, it has been volatile.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you step back, like look, step way back and look where this industry's been the last few years, I think we're still in a in a great spot.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it certainly has been volatile.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for us, uh, I think our timing couldn't have been better in terms of the coming to market.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when we put the put the financing together, we had a tremendous tremendous amount of interest in our financing, and we've we've actually been trading up significantly from the from the IPO price.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: You raised 60 million US dollars.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Congratulations there.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very substantial raise.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be talking about what you're gonna be doing with that money in just a moment, but uh let's turn our attention to Comstock.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: The Comstock is one of the historic names in US gold production, and the properties you are working with have previously produced more than 8 million ounces of gold at 35 grams per ton and more than 119 million ounces of silver at more than 700 grams per ton.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Darwin, you're a geologist, so maybe start with um what is the con stock from a geological point of view?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it's it's one of the greats in terms of epithermal gold-silver systems.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it what it's known for is fantastic grade, um, like the number she just spoke of.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very, very, very rich uh system, um, and a really old system, too.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was it was discovered in 1859.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, epithermal systems, they're a class or category of of gold-silver deposits.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's a portion of Nevada called the Walker Lane that this sits within.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's kind of part of that, I guess, gold, silver belts.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and this is this is one of the standouts there.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when I went through university, you know, we all learned about the Comstock.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's so it's a real privilege, actually, and a lot of fun to be to be working working on it.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now you're at the the northwest end, the top end of the Walker Lane trend, just outside of Reno.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's an obvious pedigree there.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I guess an obvious question, another obvious question is what makes you think there are precious metals left there to exploit, given that it's had such a rich production history?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, two things.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one is these big systems, these giant systems, of which Comstock is one, clearly, they just have a way of keeping on giving.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think if you look at the track record of a lot of them around the globe, uh, the big systems, there's always there's always more to be found.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um you you kind of marry that with the fact that this is a district that had a very big and strong mining history, but that history was really primarily in the late 1800s.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's been kind of frozen in time to some degree.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's little bits of work here and there, but due to the fragmented landscape of the of the ownership, that's what we think is a big part of the reason why it's gone so underexplored.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got this this opportunity, this really big system uh that generally are known to generate a lot of gold the more you you explore, the more you find, coupled with uh a district that's gone uh way, way, way underexplored.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's kind of mind-boggloggling when you when you think of the jurisdiction we're in.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh yeah, it's that's this kind of story for us.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: I want to thank you.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about the land package um because earlier this week I spoke with Andrew Pollard, who is CEO of BlackRock Silver, who's to the south of you in the Walker Lane trend.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And he said to me that um uh a key part of the success he's having at Tonopar West was the company's ability to piece together a very fractionated historical land package.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: That interview will soon be on our YouTube channel for people to watch.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a similar story for Mackie?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you've got a you mentioned a fragmented a fragmented land package, and is part of your story, your your creation story, you've managed to piece that together, put the project together in a way that you can start exploring that using modern tools?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's key.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely key to the opportunity here.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know it's got the pedigree, you know the geology is is phenomenal, the barrier to exploration has been fragmented land ownership, right?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you gotta remember that a lot of this, the vast majority of this uh mining district was all staked up in the like starting in 1859.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, that predates the mining laws of 1872 in the US.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it goes way, way, way back.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, you gotta realize that you know, it was held by dozens and dozens of different owners uh at the time.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um they all felt like they had a piece of the richest square mile on earth.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so from the standpoint of the ability to consolidate these historic districts is very difficult.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: It just takes time, uh, a lot of time.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we just happen to be the right, you know, at the right time and place to be able to start putting it together.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, when when I first looked at this, it was a year and a half, a little over a year and a half ago.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: We had the makings of a good starting point, uh, but we've grown that land package 300% over the last 18 months, and and it's been, you know, it's it's awesome.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's a it's really, really difficult to do this in these historic districts because there's so many different owners.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: But uh you put your head down and you get to work and you negotiate fair deals, and next thing you know, you you know you control a district.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it's quite wild.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you just announced another piece of consolidation in the past uh couple of weeks there.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you know what what what kind of land package do you have today?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, what we've got now is is I we've got um we've got a land package that that covers the three main historic uh vein structures.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh each of them is several kilometers or several miles long.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there was the main Comstock load itself, and then there's a parallel structure called the Occidental.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what those were the two that we've been working on consolidating uh the majority of.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um this latest deal gave us what's called the Silver City Load.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um so now we we in essence kind of control the better part of the district, almost the entire district, which is, as I say, very, very difficult to do in these kinds of environments.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and that acquisition, not only did it bring unify, you know, the main vein structures, uh, mineralized structures for the very first time uh in history, in the 167-year history here, it also came with established ounces, uh, you know, non-43101 ounces, but there's there's established deposits there and uh and a permitted uh facility, processing facility.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, now you you mentioned uh in your comments a moment ago that um you know going back in time, a lot of people thought they had the most valuable square mile in the United States.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: So in terms of the the deals you've done to put this land package together, um in general terms, how much are you paying out in cash or stock?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh over what sort of time frame to sort of bring this package together?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it's um it varies on the deal, depending if it's just a single isolate isolated claim to to a big large claim block.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, from a few tens of thousands to this last deal, if you look at it all in, it's about a$30 million deal.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: We we spent$20 million, or we will be once it closes, it'll be$20 million on close with 2 million shares and an additional uh$7 million in 18 months, um, which we think is a fantastic deal.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the I think the resale price on the processing facility alone would is is is worth more than the purchase price.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it's variable.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we just happened to be in a very fortunate position.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: When we raised, we went to market and we raised the capital for the company.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: We you know, we we went looking for 30 to 40 million, uh, and uh that was to give us two or three years worth of runway of exploration and some extra to go do acquisitions.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we ended up having a massive amount of interest, um far in excess of that.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we we ended up settling on 60 million and we we left a lot on the table still.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason we went and took that extra money is it allowed us, put us in a position to be that much more aggressive on the consolidation.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's just incredibly fortunate timing that the vendors of that large consolidated block they did a lot of work to consolidate that over the years, that that that portion of the property.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so in one fell swoop, we could do a deal where we, you know, bolted on, control the district, get ounces, de-risk the future with with processing, permitted processing facility uh in space.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they were in the mood to sell.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it was it was just perfect timing.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I think it's win-win.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's great for them.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: They did great work pulling this thing together in the first place.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: But they went in a different direction, and and um, you know, just uh fantastic to come out of the gates like this and be able to do such an aggressive move uh and still be sitting with uh north of 40 million USD in our bank account to go out there and do more acquisitions and drill, drill, drill.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: So um you raised 60 million, you said you've still got about 40 million of that left.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in terms of your sort of exploration and your work programs, what unanswered questions do you aim to answer using that money?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's um that's uh that's a it's a good rook rule kind of question, that one.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for for us, uh it's it's about what's what's left.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean it's really tantalizing to go back to the main Comstock itself.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, lots of folks go back to mines that shut down in the 1990s or early 2000s.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there's, you know, given the economics of the gold price now, you can go in and find a lot more gold and silver left behind that's economic.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is a mine that shut down mostly in the 1890s, right?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: If not sooner, some of that.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so we know, or we we have a fairly high degree of conviction there's going to be a lot of uh mineralization, potential mineralization left behind on that main com stock.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's unbelievably underexplored in in terms of a modern context.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was very extensively explored the hard way in the 1800s, which involves sinking shafts and drifting along the hang wall and doing crosscuts, uh, but it really hasn't been drilled uh in any sort of substantial way.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: That said, our the real unanswered question for us is the occidental, which is a parallel structure.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's about a mile to the east of the Comstock.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's got the same strike, it's the same length, you know, about three miles long, the same dip, and it's virtually unexplored.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, in Nevada, for decades, well, globally, uh, people go around looking at these types of epithermal systems, and then you go deeper on them to find out where you want to be.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: In epithermal systems, where you sit vertically, like when the deposit formed, makes a difference on where the gold and the silver sits, or the strongest parts of the gold and silver sits.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, the Occidental, our interpretation is that it's been downthrown relative or down dropped relative to the Comstock.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: These these veins, uh, these mineralized structures, they actually are fault structures that the veins are coming up and they're active during and post-mineralization.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: As you go to the east, everything steps down.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so what that means is the part of the vein system you're seeing exposed at surface at Occidental is actually higher in the system.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the part that you see exposed on the Comstock would should, in theory, be that same level would be deeper on the Occidental.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really never been tested at all.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that's the opportunity for us right now.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: If the Occidental can be, you know, half as good as the Comstock, we're gonna be really, really happy, guys, and our shareholders as well.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of the real fun question that's in front of us.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it's really mind-blowing to me that a you know, a district of this pedigree in a jurisdiction like Nevada, you know, 40 minutes from Reno, um, to have one of these kind of systems sitting there essentially undrilled is is is kind of mind-blowing.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's that's one main unanswered question.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Does it have these bonanzas at depth?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're gonna go targeting those.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: But more near term, uh, we've actually got a uh, you know, the stuff that was at surface, which was too low grade for anybody to care in the 1800s.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, there was a little bit of small mining all the way along this thing, uh, but it was lower grade.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've we've got a zone that's already known that extends for about 300 meters that's in outcrop.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's high grade for oxide in Nevada, like we're you know, gram type mineralization.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's up to actually 25 meters of 13 and a half grams in there.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that's very high, yeah.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's high grade for underground mining too.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we've got the zone that's wide open that we're gonna we're gonna go see if we can fairly quickly frame in one or two million ounces at better than a gram of near surface oxide mineralization.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you get a real duality of of kind of targets that we we can get after.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's those are what's the unanswered questions we want to get after in the next 12 to 18 months.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thank you, Darren.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to sort of you know recap, re-highlight what you just said about Occidental, make sure I understood it correctly.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um are you suggesting that the Occidental is could be potentially intact over that three miles of its strike?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: It hasn't hasn't been exploited, it's intact.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's intact, but you're at the very upper parts of the systems.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So when at the upper parts of these epithermal systems, they start to splay more.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: The gold and silver grades are different than what you'd see at lower depths.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so and we've got one piece of evidence, just one, uh, about its depth potential or its depth projection, and that was this tunnel that was built in the 1870s.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was built as a drainage tunnel that came four miles in from uh a valley way off to the east on an incline with the whole purpose of draining by gravity water from the main Comstock load.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And on its way through, it cross-cut at right angles the down dip projection of the oxygen, and it hit a hundred-foot-wide or thirty-foot wide uh zone of uh of the of the uh the vein itself.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time it was too low grade to be economic, but it was described as mineralized.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can't access that tunnel now, but no one's put a put a drill hole down there.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and why that's significant and relevant to us is it it just it's proof that that vein structure keeps going.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's about you know, like jumping back and forth between metric and uh and imperial here, but it was about 450 to 500 meters down dip or vertical down uh from surface and uh or almost 1,400, 1,500 feet below surface.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the only data point out there at all.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's been nothing really drilled below 300 feet as far as we can tell on the main the main uh occidental vein structure.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so very important to say it's there, it's alive and well.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so it kind of opens it up for us for exploration.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're pretty excited about it.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well let's talk about the exploration you're doing.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: You recently began your inaugural 20,000 meter drilling campaign.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: What does that aim to do?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: What information does that aim to get you?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, two things.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess it rate this 20,000 meters is split to into 15,000 meters of RC drilling, which is focused on the shallow near surface, low grade by historical Comstock standards, but high grade oxide by in comparison to modern uh Nevada uh operations.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so 15,000 meters of that is focused, you know, on trying to frame in one or two million ounces in the next 12 months.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's a you know, there's a reason we've come up with that that target number, and it's based on there is a little bit of drilling adjacent or near there that we're we're stepping out from that was drilled in 2018 to 2021 by previous operators, and every oil hit mineralization, very good mineralization, over 300 meters, and it's wide open on this, it's at the very southern end of this occidental structure.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so we did a detailed soil grid over about a kilometer north of that.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Very strong geochemical response, uh, very strong gold in soil.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Anomaly is a long trend from that.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we've we we feel pretty confident the system's gonna keep going.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can sort of do some back of the envelope math on what we see on what's been drilled already, and you know, take it down dip two or three times, uh, which given it's only a 35 to 40 degree dipping vein structure, uh, you don't have to go very deep uh to do that and take it along trend, you know, three to four times, and you get into the one and a half to two million ounces pretty quick, we we think.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, that you gotta have the drills cooperate and the geology cooperate and then that geology keep going.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if we were able to reproduce this down dip and a long trend, you should be looking at something on that scale.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's our target there.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh we think those would be very high value ounces given their near surface, would have a low strip and are high grade.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: The other part of the drill program, the other 5,000 meters of the 20,000 meters, that's core drilling.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that core drilling is going to be focused on deeper parts of the system.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when in the with the lack of any other information, or in the absence of any other information, we will be drilling in and around that sutro tunnel intersection, that drainage tunnel intersection.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so these are longer core holes, and the plan there is to kind of drill it on 100-meter space centers on the on the vein structure, in and around where that uh sutro tunnel came through.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's initially it's information gathering, right?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: We we want to see really what does this thing look like, what does it grade, uh, what sort of you know, what changes do you see with that sort of drilling, and then from there we will you know design a follow-up drill program that would be looking uh more broadly at the deeper parts of the uh of the occidental.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so with the 15,000 meter RC program, if you're able to sort of you know give an indication of one to two million ounces of near-surface gold oxide, I mean that that, as you suggest, uh presents itself as a you know potentially a very mineable um um deposit that um you know many people would be interested in, perhaps even Mackey, you'd be looking at developing that yourself.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh going to the 5,000 meters, of course, the deeper drilling near where the water tunnel was, what would a hit mean for Mackie?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I think it's not this is one of those places where it's not hard to dream and imagine what it what it could be, because you've got the occidental, you know, formed nominally at the same time as the Comstock.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: You've you got an example right next door, which is one of the all-time greats.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so you've got this vein system that's, as I say, the same strike length, same dip, uh, same strike orientation.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if it starts to show any signs of similarities with drilling at depth to the Comstock, uh, you know, it's that's that's pretty exciting.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we've seen something like that.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that would be pretty exciting for Nevada in general.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, you got to temper expectations here a little bit.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you don't build Rome in a day here, but look, this is the we are here to go find something big and of scale and and and meaningful, and and I think this is the place to do it.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And these are the kind of opp these types of opportunities are rare.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've tried to think out there of of other examples, and I think Mag Silver is a is an interesting comparison in that it was a you know it was a well-established silver-producing district.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think they've been producing there since the 1500s on these main veins, and uh in in the Fresneo district, and they found some other blind uh blind vein structures, and then Mag Silver, Peter McGaugh came along and said, look, there's stuff along trend here.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're seeing no gold and silver at surface, but we're seeing indications that you're you're probably at the very uppermost reaches of an epithermal system.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: We got to go deeper.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the top of that silver system they got into on the Wanisipio Vane was was 200 meters down, and it's it's one of the great silver discoveries of the last 20 years, and it's it's sitting right there within this established mining camp that's been mined for hundreds of years.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I think these types of districts offer those types of opportunities.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: And Occidental isn't you know the only opportunity for us.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: The the crazy thing here is we actually control the district, right?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of people talk about.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: You hear a lot in this industry district scale land positions.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is a land position that actually defines a district, which is a bit unique.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's one that's been frozen in time, and you know, no guarantee, but you know, we've got incredible conviction uh that there's a lot more ounces to be found in in this.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: District, and uh you know, we we're in a privileged position to have a healthy treasury, uh a great team.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my board and and technical advisors, they've done it before, they've got they've got tremendous experience in Nevada.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we've got we're put building out a great technical team on the ground, and and uh you marry that with uh sufficient capital to get out there and do it.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, give us some time.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it could be uh, I don't know, we're we're really excited about the opportunity in front of us and and just think it's an incredibly unique opportunity uh to have.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: I want to talk more about people.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned about Peter McGorr and how you know he he took the you know he made a blind discovery at Wannacipio, which has become one of the better uh um silver discoveries recently, and obviously part of a very big MA transaction in the not too distant past.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um you're in a the great location.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a, as you mentioned, a very strong and capable board of directors, management, and advisors.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get into some of those names because many of those names will be familiar to our audience, um, which really highlights the fact you've got a lot of Nevada and Great Basin expertise.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Jeff Pontius, he had great success selling Corvus Gold to Angler Gold Ashanti with projects further south in the Walker Lane trend.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Moira Smith, she's got a great deal of experience in the Great Basin.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Johns Robbins of the Discovery Group, Michael Gray, uh to name some of them.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: How did you manage to put such a talented group of people together?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: And what kind of support are you as CEO getting from those people?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's um well, I guess how did it manage to I ask them?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, it's uh, you know, they're they're they're they're people I've known for a long time.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um look when you're putting together a company, uh you you want to board an advisory team that are going to contribute something meaningful to what you're doing.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and honestly, you know, if I'm being uh completely transparent and honest here, I I know Nevada reasonably well, but I'm I'm not what I would consider an expert on Nevada coming in.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I hope to be over the next four to five years as we grow this out.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I reached out to people I trusted um before getting involved in this, and that included Moira Smith and Jeff Pontius, the first two people I called.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I think Moira, there's no better geologist, Nevada geologist than Moira.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh she's she's she's just a great explorationist.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: She's a she's uh uh you know got discoveries to her name, and I like her approach, and she's a great person.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um Jeff Pontius similarly, he's uh he's just had a lot of success, success, a very pragmatic explorationist.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Go out there and discover the ore and uh and sell.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, I first worked with him about 25 years ago uh running a project in northern Ontario.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so you know that was the kind of initial steps there, and then and then build out from there of people that I thought all could contribute something meaningful.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and they all have, and and they've all put reason you know, good-sized checks into the deal.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're all very supportive, not just with with their time, but uh with their checkbook as well.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I want to get to a very, very forward-looking statement now, if I may, Darwin.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what would success with a company look like in sort of three to five years' time?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, we're not here to find a half million, a million, two million ounces.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: We think this is the environment.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can I think there is definitely five to ten million ounces plus in the district left to be found.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: The real question in my mind is can we do it?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And can we do it in a timeline that that's meaningful for our shareholders?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh I think if the stars align and we're having success with the drill bit, and you're starting to frame in that multi-million ounce system, there just aren't that many opportunities, I don't know, in a jurisdiction like Nevada, in a district like this, um out there.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think all the senior producers, you know, these these are the types of assets the biggest and the best in a jurisdiction like this are going to want.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, that's that's the ultimate goal.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I've said this before a few times, like discovering order deposits is is tough business.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not easy.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're gonna do it, you might as well focus on jurisdictions that have the potential for the biggest and best.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we think Comstock has that proven pedigree.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we don't know what's left behind, but we think it's a great place to be finding more of that.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you want to do it in a jurisdiction that everyone wants to be in.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, I guess the sky's the limit.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna put a number out there what we want to do, but that that's our goal is to find a multi-million ounce system and and do it right.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's a it's a tremendous, uh it's a really cool uh environment.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's a really neat, rich history there.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do it in a way that's respectful of that history.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Virginia City is a fantastic place.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, but one of the things we've been doing that's maybe atypical for a junior uh explorer, like within the first you know few months of training, is trading is we're going out there trying to de-risk the future now.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you have to think ahead, long-range thinking.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: If we are successful, where are the right places for processing and uh your your or you need the space and the room and the the right place for facilities and things like that.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we're thinking about that now.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, actually it's interesting.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: You talked about, you know, what is what does the board give?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And a guy like Jeff Pontius, we know of his, I think many know of his history and success in Nevada with Corvus.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he also had tremendous success with a similar play to Comstock in Colorado.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, it was one where they they put together, they made a discovery, but they didn't do the consolidation first, they did it after, and then the prices just kept going up and up and up.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: So he wanted to do it differently this this go around.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Fair enough.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Let's bring things into the next 12 months.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um you've just started drilling.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: So what are some of the catalysts that our viewers can expect to see from you over the next 12 months or so?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're, I mean, it's drilling, right?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Where it's uh we just started up mid-June.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's going very well, the short holes, RC holes.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's really refreshing to see the pace of pace of drilling that that you can do in a place like Nevada with with RC drilling.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh you know, we're telegraphing to the market.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably late summer, uh, you know, late August, early September that we'll see the first round of results.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: But once those results start start coming in, we should start seeing steady results for, you know, you know, certainly through till Christmas and beyond.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've got enough uh cash in the bank that we can just keep on drilling for for a couple of years here, uh based on positive results.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll have two rigs turning.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: We've got the the one rig turning now, which is an RC rig.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have the core rig show up August 1st.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you may see some other land transactions, um, but really it's gonna be uh it's all it's time to let the drills do the talking.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, congratulations on a successful IPO.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Looking forward to seeing the drilling results as and when they come out.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Darwin Green, thank you very much for joining me today.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you, Paul.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate it.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, Mackie Gold and Silver trades on the TSX V under the ticket M A C K.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, if you like what you see, don't forget to hit that subscribe button.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Paul Harris, and this is Kitco Mining