Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

New Placer Dome Gold (TSX-V: NGLD)(OTC: NPDCF) CEO Max Sali on Latest High-Grade Gold Oxide Intercepts at Flagship Kinsley Mountain Gold Project, Nevada

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the founder & CEO of New Placer Dome Gold — Mr. Max Sali. Max, how are you this morning?

Max Sali: I'm fantastic, Gerardo! Thank you for having me again.

Gerardo Del Real: We had what I think was 6 or 7 months of lab delays with the results from Kinsley. And now it seems like we're finally getting some momentum. We had more numbers today. 

You drilled 9.83 grams per tonne gold oxide over 7.6 meters and 2.13 grams per tonne gold oxide over 9.1 meters at Kinsley Mountain.

I would love for you to provide context on the 14 drill results that you announced today. In particular, I would love for you to touch on the high-grade oxide gold values because I know those are significant for a mine plan moving forward. And then, we can get into some of the deeper stuff and what's next.

Max Sali: Alright, so what we released to the market today was the results from the Main Pit North shallow oxide targets. And what that is is Kinsley, between 1995 and 1999, produced 140,000 ounces through an ROM heap leach in this specific area.

And what we did is, when we looked at the technical report, we noticed that there was a very, very high-grade intercept that was just on the edge of the pit shell. I think it was 15 grams oxide over 4 meters that Pilot Gold, the previous operator, had drilled.

And what happened though is – after they started hitting from the Western Flank with these high-grade sulfides – they kind of walked away from the oxide. And initially, they went and they Swiss-cheesed the whole top of the mountain looking for more oxide. And then, when they started hitting the high-grade sulfide, they moved over.

And so I think people forget that, it's not just this really high-grade sulfide that is the big winner right now because the network was done so we know the sulfide works; it floats a very high concentrate. But I think that people are forgetting, “Hey, listen, what if we go back to the oxide pit and see what's around there?”

And so, our geo said, “We should just drill a couple of step outs and see what happens.” And so we drilled a 75 meter step out from the last hole that was right on the edge of the pit shell. And, essentially, what that means is now we've pulled the pit shell out 75 meters to where these new holes are.

And that warrants immediate follow-up drilling because – how this particular oxide worked in this pit is – it's like blocks; high-grade blocks that were mined. And so maybe we're on the edge of another big block.

And so that gives us tremendous potential. Because when we acquired Kinsley, Gerardo, we were expecting to target the deeper sulfides because of the grade. And this is kind of the low hanging fruit, and it has rewarded us very, very nicely.

It's also not that expensive because you're only going down to 150 meters So you can get there with a small RC rig. And the nice thing about round two is we can get up there quickly; the road is ready to go. And we can poke a bunch of holes, step outs from that 75 meter step out, and see if we can find another high-grade block of oxide near-surface.

And so to me, that is why that particular hole in this area is very important because this was not something that was the focus of Kinsley for us in 2021… and now, obviously, is a significant focus.

And there's three zones to Kinsley. There's the Western Flank zone, which is the sulfide. There's the Main Pit North, which is the oxide. And then there's a lower zone, the transverse fault, which is a mix; sulfide and oxide. And so now we've demonstrated that we could hit significant values on two of the zones.

And what you'll see in the next few weeks are the results from the third zone. And if anything hits in that third zone, it would be considered a new discovery. And so we're very happy. Finally, the labs are giving us what we want, and we have news flow to show the market, "Hey, this is what we did with the money we raised."

Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk about the plan moving forward. And I'm going to play devil's advocate a bit here. There were some holes that missed. I'm aware because of my history with Kinsley and New Placer Dome Gold that this was essentially – because of the lab delays – a blind drilling program. 

You did not have the luxury of being able to drill in an area, wait for the assays, move the drill, and react accordingly, right? You basically had to go out there and pick the most prospective target areas and drill all around them to get an idea of the controls, the structural controls, and which way things were going.

Walk me through the holes that missed and how that's informing the next exploration program, which, of course, is going to be a lot more targeted, I imagine.

Max Sali: Exactly. Kinsley is over 10,000 acres. We've really only drilled about 20% of the property. And, essentially, the drill program for 2021 was Liberty Gold's full blown drill program back in 2012 – which was Pilot Gold at the time – that they would have done before, obviously, the markets came off and the price of gold.

And so we have this 20,000 meters of drilling on a program that they had all over the place. And some was outside of the resource; some were new areas where we could be testing the Secret Canyon shale and other shale units.

And I mean, a lot of holes missed just because it's such a big area. And you learn. We drilled a few holes near the resource that had nothing. And then, we drilled that step-out hole to the northwest, Gerardo, which we released two weeks ago, and we hit 24 grams over 4.5 meters.

And so you poke and you poke. But when you hit, you hit a big, big number. And now we can hone in on that hole and use step-outs around that. Like you said, we were drilling blind. Kinsley's a deeper asset; deeper targets. You're going to have to spend money. But when you hit, you hit.

And that's the nice thing about the oxide being so shallow. You're going to get a lot less dusters there because it's just a lot closer to the surface. It's like if I was to tell you to stare in the corner of your ceiling inside your house and put my cell phone on the ground across the room and say, "Hey, I'm going to take a drill rig, and I'm going to drill a hole the size of a pop can down 600 meters and hit that cell phone,” right? 

And that's what you're trying to do essentially. And I had a banker from Raymond James tell me that. That's how he explained it to his kids. It's not like we're just on-surface drilling. There is a surface-grade oxide from surface. But when you're drilling these deeper shale units, that's how it is. And so for us to be able to hit some of those, it's pretty phenomenal. And yes, immediately follow up with some of those holes.

This year's program will be much more honed in to where we're having success rather than “maybe let's drill here and hope.” Now we know. 

Gerardo Del Real: You mentioned the discovery potential from the 13 holes that are pending. That includes all of the core holes. I know from prior news releases that there were visual indications of mineralized rock, although, we all know – because we've been in the business for a while – that could turn out to not mean a thing. The assays will be the truth machine when it comes to that.

But tell me a bit about the 13 holes that are remaining; the depths. I couldn't help but notice that some of the depths on some of those core holes were deeper than anything I had seen at Kinsley before.

Max Sali: We drilled 8 core holes. I think the final hole we drilled, we were drilling through the Secret Canyon shale. And we were still in the Secret Canyon shale – which is the high-grade gold zone at the bottom; I think it's 650 meters – just because we wanted to understand the geology and see how deep it goes. It goes deep; that 650 meters is incredible.

But the main part of testing the transverse shale with these core holes is just to understand the geology and see what is down there. Because on the whole property, you're going to have the three stacked shale zones; you get the Dunderberg at the top, Hamburg in the middle, and the Secret Canyon in the bottom. 

And so one drill hole can go through three stacked mineralized gold-bearing zones. So you have three shots, essentially, with that one hole you're drilling. And so we're looking for oxide; we're looking for sulfide. But there's not really been a lot of drilling in this particular area.

However, we do know that these shale units don't just stop halfway through; and they continue. And so, can we find more of these pearls of gold, you could say, which is what the resource looks like, on a different part of the property? And that would add ounces very quickly if we could do so. And so, I'm very excited.

Visually, everything looks great. But like you said, we had a frack gun; you can see the arsenic levels. And usually hot arsenic is associated with gold. And at our BOLO offset, it tends to line up pretty good. When you hit arsenic, most likely you hit some gold mineralization. But we shot the gun on a few things and it looked great. And then it came back negative. So you just don't know with Kinsley; it's just that kind of a beast. But when the beast delivers, it delivers well!

Gerardo Del Real: Looking forward to the assays! Kinsley Mountain is an asset that has seen, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe at least US$30 million spent just between Liberty and Pilot and New Placer Dome Gold, right?

You currently have the option to earn into 80% of the project and have a market cap of C$20 million. And let's be frank with the listeners and our readers; the reason that is is because the market anticipates that you're going to have to do a financing, and you're not being rewarded for the good news. I think that's the opportunity. Would you agree with that, Max?

Max Sali: I think that's very correct. And the market does understand that. But what happens when you put news like this out is it tends to wake other people up; individuals that like the space. And so, we've definitely got the attention of a few people now that we've put up back-to-back-to-back numbers at Kinsley.

And so I think moving forward, this summer, we're going to be able to track a lot more of a fund-based interest and higher net-worth investor interest just because I think people see what we're doing. And this is an opportunity, especially at this valuation, for sure, to make some real money.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent! Looking forward to getting down to site once the weather is more favorable. Anything else to add, Max?

Max Sali: If there's no quarantine, Gerardo, I'll join you onsite!

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent! I'm looking forward to it! Assays hopefully in the next couple of weeks?

Max Sali: Yes, sir.

Gerardo Del Real: Perfect. Looking forward to having you back. Thanks again, Max.

Max Sali: Thank you.