Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Revival Gold (TSX-V: RVG) CEO Hugh Agro Details Drilling Program at the Newly Acquired Beartrack Gold Mine

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is President and CEO of Revival Gold (TSX-V: RVG), Mr. Hugh Agro. Hugh, how are you today?

Hugh Agro: Very good.  Glad to be back on.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, I wanted to have you back on immediately. You and I had a brief opportunity to catch up at the Beaver Creek Precious Metal Summit. You had a lot of attention being paid to the acquisition of the Beartrack Mine. I know you were busy there with meetings. Just quickly, can you give me your overall take on the conference and the productivity of it?

Hugh Agro: Yeah, very upbeat. I would say the attendance on the part of corporates was up quite a bit over previous years, and I think that is indicative of how much pressure they are feeling, the bigger companies that is, to fulfill their inventory of projects to mine and gold to produce. So exploration and development is back on, and Idaho was certainly a state of focus.

Gerardo Del Real: I absolutely agree. I met with several analysts and had several conversations about Otis Gold's project, Midas Gold's project, and of course, the Beartrack Mine and the Revival Gold agreement that was just finalized yesterday. You received approval for the agreement on Beartrack in Idaho, and you announced the initiation of the drill program. Can we talk about both of those pieces of news, Hugh?

Hugh Agro: You bet. This is standard course to have the stock exchange approve a transaction. We are delighted to have the Yamana transaction on Beartrack approved now. So we've paid our initial cash consideration of $250,000 US and our initial share consideration of a million shares, and we roll into our earn-in arrangement and our spend to take us out to the earn-in on the project. It's a great milestone to pass, and along with that, of course, we got drilling at Beartrack. We now have actually two rigs on site, working away, and we're going to make the most of the season here to get through the program we have planned for 2017.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Now, I understand that the 2017 portion of an overall program that will total approximately 11,000 meters will initially consist of 3,000 meters. Is that accurate, Hugh?

Hugh Agro: That's correct. We'll be targeting both oxides at surface in the historic resource at Beartrack, which numbers 1.3 million ounces in material at surface. Then we'll also be targeting the deep potential beneath the historically mined resource at the Beartrack along the 5 kilometer strike length within the Panther Creek Fault, which is open at depth and open to the southwest.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Now, you mentioned the historic resource, and I know that past drilling was very, very rigorous. I also see in the news release, that you detailed that the focus in 2017 will be around diamond drill hole BT12-175D, which intersected 71 grams per tonne gold over 9.75 meters, with an estimated true width of approximately 4.88 meters. Can we talk a bit about the focus with the two rigs, what you're focusing on, and what the plan is to update that historic resource and make it compliant?

Hugh Agro: The first rig is targeting the historic oxide material within the historic 1.3 million ounces close to surface. It is pre-43-101 Standards, so we do we have to go back in there and follow the correct protocols with QA/QC. And we'll be drilling with core holes so we can understand both the grade and the geology there. So  that's objective number one close to surface in that historic resource. As you pointed out, we can feel pretty comfortable about the historic resource because, of course, it's been mined before, and we have mining tallies actually recovered gold, reconciliation against the historic block model, which underpins the historic resource. So, we can feel pretty comfortable about that, but we've got to get in there with core holes, and we've got to get in there with 43-101 Standards, to be able to talk about that in a 43-101 parlance.

The second objective is, as you point out, the deep potential. And we're going to be following up with some targeted holes, in an area called Ward's Gulch where at about 480 meters depth a drill hole intercepted the 71 grams over 9.75 meters. So that's a pretty obvious place to go looking for more gold.

Gerardo Del Real: I agree 100%. Now, we talked a bit off air. Hugh, I know you're taking a very pragmatic approach to the exploration process. That's going to also include some metallurgical work, and of course, Beartrack being a past producing mine, there is a lot that you understand as to what was mined previously. But you mentioned the exploration upside and the potential there. Can we talk a bit about the process outside of the drilling, maybe the rock chip sampling and some of the metallurgical testing that you're going to undertake?

Hugh Agro: At Beartrack, you're quite right, over the course of the two-year program, we have a plan for Beartrack. We will be looking at metallurgy. The historic mining was focused on the oxides. We want to have a better understanding of the sulfides and the mixed sulfides and oxides. We also need to understand better the potential metallurgy of higher-grade material. As we've seen, there is quite high-grade material at Beartrack at depth, and the historically mined material was of a lower-grade nature close to the surface. That's the effort with respect to metallurgy. As to, you mentioned rock chip sampling, we have got underway at Arnett Creek next door, 6 kilometers next door to Beartrack. It's our initial land position. We've been out there, prospecting and mapping and understanding the landscape for our plans to get in and drill it at Arnett Creek next year. In connection with that, we've done some rock chip sampling.

We'll have those results in due course, but suffice to say we're getting our arms around a large property position there. We'll be in with our plan of operation application and permanent application so that we can pursue drilling in the 2018 field season there.

Gerardo Del Real: That's important because Beartrack, obviously, is the flagship, but Arnett Creek is not inconsequential.

Hugh Agro: Yeah, so Beartrack is the former producer. Arnett Creek, next door, is very complementary, because there is a historic oxide resource at Arnett Creek. It has never been exploited in a modern sense. It was the basis, or a base, of production back in the late 1800s, early 1900s from placer mining. So we know that there's lots of gold in that area. We just need to get a handle on where exactly it sits, how it sits, how it's orientated. But it's very complementary to what we have at Beartrack and the combined land position, which is just under 10,000 acres in Idaho, is very prospective. We like the idea of being in a place where we've got historic resources that we can work on. The combined contribution of material may help us do a restart there a lot faster than any one of these projects standalone.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, so you have the past producing Beartrack mine, exploration upside there. You have Arnett Creek. Obviously, there's exploration upside there, and truly, a district-scale land package. I'm excited to get out to the project, Hugh. I'll be there in a couple of weeks. I want to thank you in advance for the opportunity, but I'm definitely looking forward to bringing back some insights from the trip. Is there anything that you'd like to add, Hugh? What can we expect here in the next couple of months? Obviously, assays, we'll be anticipating excitedly and looking forward to those. When do you anticipate those starting to come in?

Hugh Agro: I would say we'll certainly have results out before the end of the fourth quarter, and then going into the first quarter next year, we'll have further work and assessment. We've talked about this before, but there's a lot of geological modeling and so-called desktop work that can be done. The team is in the field right now, and once we get out of the field, we'll get to some of that, and that will help us better understand the prospects and possibilities. And we'll start, over the coming quarters, we'll start defining targets for our 2018 drill program and get that all squared away. Of course, we're permitted at Beartrack to do that, so lots of news flow over the next, I would say, over the next two years. Because we are permitted for the two field seasons at Beartrack.

Just the one other thing I want to add, is that we are doing, getting a few folks out to site. I always love getting people out to site and looking at the geology. Geology is a creative process, and the more minds we get on it, the better, so we're going to have lots of good thinking around the project. Looking forward to having you out there as part of that exercise, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, thank you again, Hugh. I definitely appreciate the opportunity, and I'm looking forward to it. And I'm looking forward to having you back on soon to talk about the site visit, and of course, as we get some assays start trickling in, of course, talk about those.

Hugh Agro: Perfect.

Gerardo Del Real: Hugh, thank you so much for your time today.

Hugh Agro: Okay. You have a great day.

Gerardo Del Real: You too, now.

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