Economists Uncut

Gold Why It Could Soar in 2025 (Uncut) 01-31-2025

Goldshore’s Massive Gold Discovery – Why It Could Soar in 2025

This is Jay Martin. Three Goldshore Alpha, take one. Michael, it’s good to see you.

 

Thanks for coming in today. Yeah, thanks for having me, Jay. Good to be here.

 

No, I’m excited. And a couple of different directions I want to go. Here’s where I want to start.

 

I always ask this question to begin. I want to hear your perspective. Because you, you know, storied career in the mining sector, structural geologist at Newmont for many years, now running your own company.

 

How would you describe the current climate for gold equities, gold investors right now? I mean, you’re talking to investors all the time. How would you gauge the sentiment right now? Uncertain. I think that’s the key word for me.

 

There’s so much uncertainty out there. It’s very difficult for me to sort of start prognosticating on the market because it’s simply there’s too much in the air right now. So our job is simply to react to what’s actually happening as it occurs and take advantage of windows when we see them for financing.

 

So when investors are ready, we need to, we need to be ready for them. Yeah. Ultimately.

 

Let me like make a comment to you. So, you know, I ask that question all the time and I sit down with a lot of entrepreneurs that used to be bankers, some entrepreneurs that used to be promoters and some entrepreneurs that used to be geologists. And if I were to label it, I’d say that the geologists seem to be the most patient when they ask that question.

 

They’re the least convicted and at the most, I don’t want to say apathetic, but like more of like, it doesn’t matter. It’s not my job to control sentiment. My job is to build a company.

 

And I get that answer most frequently from the entrepreneurs with the geology background. Yeah, I think it’s because we’ve, you know, if you, if you work for Newmont Mining, you see the cycle and you know that you have to progress at all times. So I think that’s as a geologist or a technical person, you go through that cycle, you know, the kind of time it takes.

 

And so, you know, that’s what we’re operating under is that sort of framework. As I said, in on the market side, as an entrepreneur, I mean, you just need to be, you need to get your timing, right. And so you need to be in front of it.

 

You know, when those windows come, you’ve already talked to everybody, you’re ready to go when you see that window in the market and the money’s there, you take it. Yeah. And I think that’s the key.

 

So from a patient’s perspective, I think, obviously we want to demonstrate that we can advance the asset with intent. Yeah. And that’s the job.

 

And then of course, timing your capital is a huge part of that. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Okay. So I just hosted the Vancouver resource investment conference. One conversation that kept on coming up was the concept of peak gold right now.

 

I don’t know if I believe necessarily in peak anything because, you know, technology usually disrupts peak something, right. We’ve seen that many times, but the concept was clear was that majors can’t just keep buying each other. They have to go downstream and look for the new deposits.

 

Like that’s definitely a trend that will probably emerge in the next couple of years. Okay. So following that thread, I want to walk into GoldShore, walk us through the conception of this company, where you guys are at and what you’re doing.

 

And then I’m going to pull on some threads from there, Michael. Sure. I mean, GoldShore is a large scale asset just to the West of Thunder Bay by about 110 clicks off of the trans Canada.

 

We got 6 million ounces in a single conceptual open pit. They’re, you know, roughly 1.1 to 1.2 grams between inferred and indicated categories. And then there’s a satellite deposit about 13 K away with roughly 600,000 ounces.

 

That sort of makes up the resource base. The interesting thing about the moss deposit is it’s kind of new in a way. You know, a lot of assets have been around for a long time.

 

They’ve been, they’re static. They’ve been drilled out. They’ve been recycled.

 

They’d be recycled. Maybe there’s been some historical issues associated with the development of them. In this case, the moss deposit came out of West Dome in 2021.

 

And it had a roughly a 3 million ounce resource when it came out, you know, 17 months of drilling by GoldShore about 78,000 meters. And here we are at 6.7 million ounces. Doubled the resource.

 

Doubled the resource. And that growth trajectory for me isn’t done. You know, you don’t see a steep incline like that in resource growth and that’s we’re just going to plateau.

 

So our project’s not static. There’s all these opportunities, even within the conceptual open pit to add ounces, which is very rare. So the deposit hasn’t been drilled properly yet.

 

And then there’s the sort of the blue sky potential around it. This was a real surprise to me. I mean, usually you get into a deposit of scale and it’s being explored thoroughly in the region.

 

And in this case, some of the basics haven’t been done. Why is that? Why is that? I think it was just, you know, West Dome were the first to consolidate it all, that whole land package. And so it used to be, you know, one junior would have part of it, the other junior would have the other.

 

And so it was difficult to really make it all happen. Sure. Okay.

 

So lack of information. Lack of information and West Dome consolidates and, and, you know, we’re really taking advantage of that at the end of the day. Okay.

 

Yeah. And then walk me through the transaction with West Dome and why did they take their hands off of it? Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, I think, you know, they were really focused on high-grade underground mining.

 

And so this is a departure from that style of production for them. You know, obviously I wasn’t around at the time. I took the CEO role here in May of 2024.

 

But that would be my assumption, you know, it just didn’t fit with what their mandate was. You know, they saw a good deal for it to get spun out into Gold Shore and, you know, they took it. Yeah.

 

Okay. So drill program currently underway. Yep.

 

Right. Walk me through the scope of it. How, what are you doing? Yeah, it’s a, it’s a 15,000 meter program and it’s all target.

 

It’s all within the conceptual open pit. And one of the things that we’re doing here with that is to try and add ounces in the top 150 meters. Right.

 

Trying to add ounces in the top 150 meters. Okay. That’s right.

 

So that, that speaks to the fact that it hasn’t been drilled properly. Yeah. Right.

 

And so we’ve got to do that job. Why are we doing that? Well, we’ve got G mining currently conducting a PEA for us. Right.

 

And, and it’s, it’s done prior to any of this drilling. So, um, Oh, okay. So there’s a, there’s a PEA due.

 

Yeah. You know, we have a PEA due from G mining sort of towards the very end of March. Um, it’s going to be solid, but we wanted to give guidance early to our investors.

 

Look, this is what it really is. Here’s a guidance on CapEx. Let’s get it into reality.

 

Here’s the profile. Here’s the average grade people can make informed decisions. Like in our opinion, it’s going to be solid.

 

Right. But what we see quite often in this industry, sadly, is you go from a PEA to a pre fees, economic performance drops off. Maybe CapEx wasn’t estimated correctly.

 

We’re trying to just take a, an approach of being the realist upfront with everybody being very transparent. And that PEA becomes the base case because with the drilling that we’re doing, adding ounces in the top 150 meters, that’ll impact the economics very positively because you’ll bring ounces forward in the mine life. Right.

 

Okay. So that’s why I put the PEA out now and continue the drill program, even though those results will not be included. That’s right.

 

Okay. That’s right. So our job is to, to be conservative right now and demonstrate, Hey, in a conservative mindset, this thing’s going to work now we can add to it and that’ll be the beauty.

 

So, you know, our goal will be to at a minimum maintain economic performance, but I would hope that we could improve upon it. And by using G mining who, who did the feasibility study at Greenstone, Equinox is mine. Yeah.

 

You know, we have real cost estimates. We know what it’s going to be. So we’ll give proper guidance and people can be like, yeah, no, that’s totally fair.

 

So by playing the base case scenario and being able to add to it, you know, we want to be a little bit different, differentiate ourselves a little bit, you know, and improve as we go. Yeah. Okay.

 

So then the majority of this 15,000 meter drill program is that like infill drilling, you’re trying to learn more about the deposit. Are you stepping out or what’s the. It’s amazing.

 

So as I said, you know, some of the things that we’re doing is just mineralization is being hit at depth, but never drilled near surface. That’s really interesting. Yeah.

 

It’s like the low hanging fruit. It’s as low hanging fruit as it gets. So of course you want to go and get those ounces into, into the economic, the next economic study.

 

Yeah. So we’re really converting waste to ore in this program, reducing the strip ratio and demonstrating that it’s going to be better than what the PEA puts out. Okay.

 

Okay. Interesting. So in terms of news flow, prospective shareholders looking at the story, drill results probably is what they should look forward to.

 

Yeah. So we just put out news here last Friday. We had 20, 79 meters of 1.28 grams per ton in the top 150 meters.

 

We made some share zones that we knew about wider. They were higher grade than the resource model. We extended share, share zones from depth towards surface worked perfectly.

 

So that theme was just going to continue in the next series of news releases coming into the PEA that gets released. And then of course, you’ve got sort of the blue sky potential. You know, one of the things, again, that kind of surprised me about this area and the moss deposit in particular was some of the basic exploration steps had never been done.

 

So we have all these mineralized structures that we know about right adjacent to the deposit that have never been explored. No geochemical survey, no geophysical survey. So let’s go do that work.

 

These are the satellite deposits, the sort of optionality plays. Yeah. I mean, look, we want to do this work because we want to know, is this going to be bigger than 10 million ounces? Is there a million ounce pod at two grams per ton out there? That’s going to be highly accretive.

 

There are some high grade veins that we don’t know about. Nobody’s done that work. So let’s go do that.

 

And again, sort of show that this can be evolved into a district scale play. Okay. And cash position right now around like 16, 17.

 

So this program’s funded. Yep. Yeah.

 

We’re fully funded through the PEA, through the drill program. We’ve got our environmental work ongoing. So we’re fully funded for now.

 

And you touched on this, but I just want to, so, you know, these drill programs are really like the process of answering the unanswered questions, getting more intelligence, and then deciding what to do next based off of that. Right. And so how much of what you’re learning right now is influencing and what are you deciding and what’s the direction you’re going to be pushed? Well, I think it’s, it’s just two prongs, right? I mean, inside the deposit, I mean, our job is to make the economic performance better and that’s very simply, that’s it.

 

Add ounces. So let’s just add ounces early in the mine life. Now we know we can extend it at depth.

 

You know, the Southwest end of the deposit, you know, hasn’t been drilled to the same depth as the rest of the deposit. So sure, we could add a bunch of ounces at depth, but that’s not going to necessarily impact the economic performance early. Cause it’s all about your first years of mine life.

 

How fast do you pay it back? What kind of grades are getting into the mill? And that’s what we’re trying to maximize right now. Okay. Okay.

 

Now the other portion of the technical program is, can we find something new? Yeah. You know, and so if you talk to Pete Flindell, who’s our VPX, also ex-Newmont, you know, he’s super keen to get after it because he really thinks that it’s going to be much, much bigger. You know, as a CEO, of course, you’ve got to be a little bit careful about what you say in terms of your arm waving, but do I believe there’s discovery potential right adjacent to the deposit? A hundred percent.

 

Work’s never been done. And in my experience, you know, it’s very rare. Do you get a 6 million ounce deposit that just sits there by itself? Usually there’s a satellite somewhere or another and that’s the job that we have right now.

 

Yeah. Let’s go find that thing and really know what we’re dealing with as a company. Yeah.

 

Yeah. Yeah. All right.

 

So like six and a half million ounces right now, thereabouts. Yeah. Thereabouts.

 

Yeah. 1.5 is indicated, right? Four and a half is conferred. Yeah.

 

Yeah. Thereabouts. Okay.

 

We’re going to continue this drill program, 15,000 meters, cashed out for it. Walk me through your team a little bit, Michael. You mentioned, you know, you brought, you know, your VP of X from Newmont with you, right? No, he was there, which is extremely fortuitous for me.

 

So Pete was there from the beginning, since the inception of Goldshore. Yes. And so I got to meet Pete and I immediately, you know, realized who I was dealing with.

 

I mean, the guy’s done 10 development projects globally, taking them through all the studies and watching them go into production. So the beautiful skill set. And I asked him numerous times as I was about to take the job, you’re staying, right? And fortuitously he is.

 

So we’re just in very solid hands from that perspective. Okay. You know, I’m much more of a growth geo, so our skill sets compliment one another in that regard.

 

Okay. And then the team itself in Thunder Bay is just, you know, top rate. I mean, our exploration manager, you know, was there at Rainy River the whole way through.

 

So it’s just, again, you know, we’ve got a team that’s been there and done it many times. Um, you know, I really liked the, uh, the external team we’ve put together, obviously having G mining coming in and doing your PA, we all know of their reputation. We know of the work that they do, the quality work that they do.

 

And then on the permitting side of things, we brought in one 80 consulting to help us sort of lead our external permitting team. And, you know, that’s not something we ignore. It’s not just a lip service for us.

 

You know, everybody talks about permitting, but at the end of the day, you have to put the time in the money, the effort, you know, uh, evolve your relationships with the first nations, make sure all your, your environmental work’s done understand, you know, how to navigate through the regulatory process. And, and our job right now is to kind of compress the timeframes as best we can without being reckless, you know, and that’s why we’ve engaged with one 80. You mean answer those questions as quickly as possible.

 

Exactly. Like when you enter the permitting process, there’s always some, there’s elements of uncertainty. Definitely.

 

So you have to pick the two or three things that are the most important to your project. Like what are stakeholders really interested in, in making sure it goes well. And so that’s the purpose of one 80, you know, and, and for me, if I look at, you know, the next 24 months, this is an example, you know, what would be a great outcome for me? Yeah, please.

 

Yeah. We want to, you know, move forward, move towards IBA negotiations, uh, with the two. Sorry, move towards what? The IBA negotiations with the first nations.

 

We want to have all of our environmental work complete and we want the drill out done, you know, so we can move, so we can move into pre feasibility and the permitting process at the same time, roughly, you know, two years out. Yeah. It’s ambitious.

 

I think it can be done. Yeah. Um, you know, obviously capital will be a big part of that.

 

I feel like you have the capital group support to get there. Well, certainly from our, you know, we, we have a strategic shareholder that’s just opened up all sorts of doors for us. So, uh, South group individuals came in, Brian Pace Braga in particular came into the story, uh, in November of 2023.

 

And, you know, there was a management change associated with that investment and here I am. Um, but at the end of the day, to have that strategic support to open up networks within the capital markets, I think that’s another really important differentiator for a junior, you know, and I’m very thankful that, you know, Brian’s supportive as he is and that he came into the story and, and all realistically, that was a huge reason to take the job because I knew that support would be there. It’s so vital.

 

We hosted a panel on this, on cash being the most important resource in the resource business at my show. And you know, it was kind of hotly debated and you know, I get it, you know, as it was cash, no people is first. And I actually, we agree with that, right.

 

But where we landed was the cash is the most undervalued resource in the resource business, which kind of speaks to what you just shared. Yeah. I mean, if, if you don’t have access to capital, it doesn’t matter how good your project is, it just languishes and your investors, you know, not going to see any return on it.

 

So again, for me, you need to differentiate yourself. And that is a key piece of differentiation, strategic investor, you know, to me, that was mission critical to accept the job. And then, you know, other differentiations for us will be, we’re off the highway, off the trans Canada highway.

 

Beautiful. We’ve got high grades early in the mine life. There’ll be a great starter pit.

 

Perfect. You know, we’re just trying to build the case why this is different, why it can work. And I think, you know, all the elements are there for us to succeed over the next 24 months to get to that goal.

 

That goal being, you know, pre-fees 24 months. These are the goals, right. Ambitious, but this is, this is what you’re hunting down, right? Yeah, that’s right.

 

Pre-fees, 24 months out, environmental assessments done. Environmental assessment, but the environmental work to enter the permitting process. Yes.

 

Okay. Thank you. No clarification.

 

Yeah. Community negotiations underway or complete 24 months down the road. PEA Q1 2025 in like two months.

 

Yep. More or less right around there. Right.

 

And have the deposit fully better understood. Right. Yeah.

 

Just really what its potential can be, you know, I mean, anytime, anytime you can add ounces into the first few years of production, I mean, that’s just going to make a massive impact on, on the, on its performance. Right. And so we have that low hanging fruit.

 

Of course, we gotta go take advantage of it. You know, I think the bigger question for gold shore in some ways is, you know, I think we can get through the studies. I know we can get through the studies.

 

I know that we’re going to have a solid asset. Like I say, it can be a top 10 producing gold mine in Canada, but it’s the unknowns. What happens with that exploration? Like, do we go over 10 million ounces? Like that’s where this story as a development story is beautiful because you have this wonderful exploration potential that can change the game.

 

Yeah. You know, once he’s, you know, and I, and I really believe that we can have that success. We just have to do the work and that’s what we’re currently doing.

 

Right. So it’ll be great. 2025 is going to be a really exciting year for us.

 

You know, first economic study, good drill results inside the pit, new targets to be drilled. Let’s get after a discovery, hopefully towards the end of 2025, I think Goldshore is going to be pretty attractive and well-positioned for, you know, for producers to take a hard look at. I love the aggressive goals.

 

I love the aggressive timeline and that you’re moving fast and that means lots of news flows for investors to grab onto. Yep. And you know, it appears you have the cash to execute on that aggressive timeline right now.

 

Yep. We do. And you have the capital connections and partnerships to dip back in if you need to.

 

That’s right. Yeah. Okay.

 

Okay. Yeah. Generally speaking, I mean, I just feel very positive about the direction of Goldshore.

 

We’ve got the right team of people. We’ve got a great asset. It’s totally, it’s the doability factor of it for me is so great.

 

I mean, again, I can’t, you know, when I first flew into Thunder Bay on my first trip to the asset, you know, you fly in, you get picked up in a pickup truck, you grab a coffee, you’re still drinking the coffee when you arrive on site. I was like, it’s amazing. I’ve worked in 42 countries.

 

I think that is the best I’ve ever seen. It impressed me in that regard. And I think it speaks to the fact that eventually that will be built.

 

Okay. Yeah. Okay.

 

Well, let’s look forward to you, Michael. I appreciate you coming in today. I’m looking forward to that news flow and look forward to doing this again.

 

We have somewhere to talk about. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me and looking forward to keeping everybody abreast of what we’re doing.

 

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