Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Revival Gold (TSX-V: RVG) CEO Hugh Agro on Plans for the 2,000 Acre Arnett Creek Gold Project in Idaho

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is CEO and Director of Revival Gold (TSX-V: RVG), Mr. Hugh Agro. Mr. Agro is a mining engineer and executive with extensive experience in the mining sector, including roles with Kinross, Placer Dome, and Barrick. Now Revival Gold recently started trading under the ticker symbol RVG. The company is focused on growth in North America and recently consolidated a 2,000 acre land position in west central Idaho. Hugh, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

Hugh Agro: Thanks, Gerardo. It's great to be here.

Gerardo Del Real: Well I touched very briefly on your background there with Kinross, Plaster Dome and Barrick, but could you share with me in a bit more detail your previous experience in the mining space? Because it's pretty extensive.

Hugh Agro: You bet. I'm a mining engineer but with a business development bent. Spent my career assessing growth opportunities in the mining industry and executing on growth strategies. Long history in the business. I was schooled at M&A at Deutsche Bank and acquired a good deal of my business experience in mining with Placer Dome.

I did not work directly for Barrick, but certainly worked for Barrick in the M&A world with Deutsche Bank. At Kinross, I led the effort to rationalize the company's asset portfolio and ramp up our exploration effort and successfully rebuilt the company's presence in Russia, which has underpinned a lot of the company's financial success over the years.

I retired in late 2009 near the top of the last cycle, but I think the timing now is great for a return and so I'm back at it. Over the past two or three years I've been looking at opportunities and have reviewed over 150 investment opportunities in the mining industry. Revival Gold is myself and my team's new growth company in gold.

Gerardo Del Real: Well we're excited to help tell the story. Any time I see an executive with your type of background and your experience, who obviously timed retirement perfectly in 2009, right near the top and you decided to come back out here with Revival Gold, and spent the amount of time that you spent looking at potential acquisitions, and now going public, that gets me excited. Now companies in the mining sector, and especially in the junior space are all about people and, of course, I would add share structure to that list and we'll definitely talk about that because Revival has an excellent one.

But I'd like to talk about the team in place. Along with yourself, can you tell me about the group that you've put together?

Hugh Agro: Sure, I agree entirely with you. It's all about the team, and what I would tell you is that Revival Gold's team is comprised of individuals with successful track records at both large and small companies.

Our strategic advisors include Wayne Hubert, the former CEO of Andean Resources, which was sold to Goldcorp in 2010, and Tye Bert who serves on the board of ArcelorMittal, and was CEO of Kinross from 2005 to 2012. On our board, we have an individual by the name of Don Birak who's an Idaho resident and the former VP Exploration for both Coeur Mining and AngloGold. Steve Priesmeyer, our VP exploration was previously VP Exploration for Soltoro, and was responsible for defining the El Rayo project in Mexico, which was sold to Agnico Eagle in 2015. Pete Blakeley, our Salmon, Idaho based general manager was the previous site manager at Meridian Gold's Beartrek project, and he was chief engineer with Andean Resources.

Revival Gold is uniquely positioned in this space with a broad business development network, financing capability, and proven individuals who can execute on the company's growth ambitions.

Gerardo Del Real: That's an impressive list of names. I'm familiar with all of those names. Congrats on putting a great team together and putting a great team in place. Now, you've managed to consolidate a very large position, especially for a junior in a region that is underexplored and in my opinion very prospective. Tell me about the work that went into consolidating the land position and why you decided the package was worth the effort. You had mentioned that you looked at over 150 investment opportunities and you obviously landed on the position that you were able to consolidate. What went into that? What motivated that?

Hugh Agro: Yeah, great question. I think Idaho has been rediscovered. The state's mineral endowment and mining history are very well-documented. From silver to gold to cobalt and phosphate, Idaho really has it all. What we're seeing is a shift in attitudes towards job creation and responsible mining in the United States, and that's created opportunities in places like Idaho where there's such a strong mineral endowment. You contrast this with what's been happening of late in places like Guatemala and Tanzania. We're starting to recognize that the relative opportunity is here in North America and so companies like Revival Gold are capitalizing on that.

Our acquisition of the Arnett Creek Gold project in Idaho reconsolidates a large property position in a brownfields camp with open-pittable oxide gold mineralization that hasn't been progressed since the 1990s when gold was below $400 an ounce. So a lot has changed since the 1990s. With the consolidation, although the consolidation was tedious for Revival, we now own, or have rights to 100% interest in 95 claims comprising 2,000 acres.

We believe the project has potential for an economic resource and we have no further to look than 6 miles to the east where the Beartrek mine is a great operating model for what we might be able to do.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, now, what's the next step at Arnett, Hugh? What's the plan in place to kind of unlock that value and move the project forward?

Hugh Agro: Sure, well the first step will be to build a modern database of historic drill data. There were about 200 holes drilled in the 1980s and 1990s at Arnett Creek with some pretty interesting intercepts, for example, 115 feet of 0.095 ounce-per-tonne, 105 feet of 0.088 ounces-per-tonne. So this is in the range of 30-35 meters of 3 gram material, and very close to surface.

So, back in the day when this project was studied in the 80s and the 90s by the likes of Pincock, Allan, and Holt, and Kappes, Cassiday, and Meridian Gold, there weren't the computer tools that we now have to interpret and assess and display geological information.

So, that'll be our first step to get the modeling effort, the data in the right shape. In parallel with these efforts we'll be in the field this summer and fall to prospect, map, and select collar locations for a core hole program aimed at confirming the continuity and the grade of mineralization at Arnett Creek.

The next step, of course, will be to prepare and submit a permit application for the drill program, and of course we're in growth mode at Revival Gold so I think we'll want to expand our land position even further in Idaho.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, excellent. Now I mentioned that share structures are important to me. It's the way that I was brought up in this business, it's one of the first things you look at, right after the people, is the share structure. Revival Gold has a very, very tight share structure, which is important, of course, because it does allow you the flexibility to seek out other projects while keeping dilution to a minimum.

You mentioned the fact that you are in growth mode at Revival, despite the very large land position, can you share with us the current share structure, and are there plans to use that deep network that your group has to seek out other projects?

Hugh Agro: We have about 25 million shares outstanding, 87% of which is in the hands of management and supportive corporate and institutional high net worth holders. So there's very little stock available at current prices, as you can probably see from our recent trading activity.

But I think that bodes well for incoming investors who do manage to acquire a position. We have about 5 million warrants and options outstanding, with most of these issued in connection with our most recent financing, which has a price of $0.45 a warrant.

Now that we've established the platform and the beachhead in Idaho, I think our attention will turn to expanding on the opportunities to leverage that platform and the beachhead that we have in Idaho. So, absolutely we'll be looking for additional growth opportunities and leveraging our capability in the platform.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. You mentioned the recent financing. So you recently completed a financing, which will fund the cash property payments and of course the phase one exploration program.

You have a tiny market cap. I think it's sub-Canadian $12 million if I'm not mistaken. Now what can shareholders expect here in the next 6 to 12 months? Because there's obviously a lot of upside, especially considering the experience that this group brings.

Hugh Agro: Yeah, you're right. Tiny market cap. Current cash will allow us to progress Arnett Creek and sets the foundation for our team to grow the business.

Our objective is to build an institutionally relevant business, one that offers shareholders upside to gold, leverage to quality exploration and development projects such as Arnett Creek, and the liquidity to enter and exit the market as they desire. Shareholders can expect to see a lot of activity from Revival Gold in the next 6 to 12 months.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, excellent. Hugh, I want to thank you again very much for your time. Is there anything else that you'd like to add that maybe I missed?

Hugh Agro: Just a thank you, Gerardo. It's been a pleasure talking with you. I hope that we'll have an opportunity to update you on Revival Gold's progress.

Gerardo Del Real: I really appreciate that, Hugh.

I encourage everybody to go to the website, and the website for Revival Gold is revival-gold.com. The 2,000 acre land package is a huge, huge land package. I encourage everybody to get familiar with all of the surrounding projects. You mentioned the Beartrek mine, there's other producing assets and past producing assets that I think make for a compelling situation there that, hopefully, inspires more news in the months to come.

Hugh Agro: Thank you.

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you very much, Hugh. Talk soon.

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