Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Calibre Mining (TSX: CXB)(OTC: CXBMF) Senior VP Corporate Development Ryan King on Hitting High Grade Below the Jabalí Mine Within 10km of the Libertad Mill

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the senior vice president of corporate development for Calibre Mining, Mr. Ryan King. Ryan, it's great to have you back on. How are you?

Ryan King: I'm excellent, thanks. How are you doing today, Gerardo?

Gerardo Del Real: I am well. Listen, the last time that you and I chatted, which wasn't too long ago, gold seemed like it might test the low 1,800s, and here we are two, three weeks after and gold looks really primed to break through that 2,000 level convincingly. A great time to have the kind of news that you had this morning. Let me read the headline. 

Calibre intercepts high grade gold below the Jabali Mine and resource and identifies three additional gold targets all within, and this part's important, all within 10 kilometers of the Libertad mill. The initial results include 10.80 grams per tonne gold over 14.3 metres and 8.44 grams per tonne gold over 8.9 metres.

Listen, the widths are excellent. The mineralization clearly is top notch. To have that all within the Libertad Mine complex is a huge bonus. And we talked a bit off air, it sounds like you're pretty excited at the potential for expansion here.

Ryan King: Yeah, no, I mean, thanks again for highlighting that. I mean, exploration, it's a tough gig, right? You're very difficult to find economic gold deposits that can justify the build and the time that goes into the mine, tailings, processing plants. So this is where Calibre has a bit of an advantage, is that we've got a large 2.2 million tonne per annum mill on site. We've got the employees, we've got everything that's been running for a number of years, and of course we've been operating a hub and spoke approach. So any new, call it 50, 100 to multiple million ounce deposits can be very accretive for us in this type of a scenario.

So having a discovery like this that could potentially expand heavily beyond what it currently is right now, those intercepts are about a 100 meters below the current resource estimate. So it looks like it's got some great potential at that operating mine. And then we also came out with a number of new intercepts, new kind of discovery type intercepts on new zones on the property that is on trend of a 200,000 ounce open pit resource at our Vulcan deposit. So it looks like some really good potential. And again, it's great because we've got that operating mill with surplus capacity on the property, so very low capital cost to realize value from these types of things.

Gerardo Del Real: Calibre really is in the sweet spot if we're going to get the type of gold market that you and I think we are in the process of seeing set up. You’re producing, you're exploring, you're cashed up. For those that don't know the investment proposition for Calibre, can you explain that and just give us a brief overview?

Ryan King: Oh, of course. Again, we acquired assets from B2Gold in 2019, actually structured a deal so it was a win-win deal. B2 is our largest shareholder. They're a 25% equity holder in the business. And at the time when we acquired these assets, we were anticipating a 50 to 70,000 ounce a year production and not too sure what the future was going to look like. Now today, we've evolved that significantly in utilizing the processing facilities at Limon and at Libertad and going through the exploration development permitting phases of a number of satellite pits and bringing those into existing infrastructure responsibly. And we've done that over the last four years now. We've delivered quarter over quarter for 16 quarters. We've gone from a $4 million cash position at the end of 2019 to as of the end of Q3 here we almost had a $100 million U.S. in cash.

And keep in mind, that's after significant investments back in exploration, back into mine development. So we're really looking to bolster the future, and that's evidenced by our 280% increase in reserves and now add a consolidated 5.4 grams per tonne gold. So that's the highest consolidated grade amongst the reserves we've ever had, and yet we still have a million tonnes of surplus capacity at the Libertad facility. We fully use the Limon facility, and we only use about 70% of the Libertad facility.

So any of these incremental pits or incremental discoveries that can turn into underground or open pit deposits have a dramatic impact, not only on the sustainability of the operations, but also on the potential increase in net asset value of the business. And then of course, you layer on the rising gold market environment in which we believe that could lead to a rising gold market environment. And you've got a really solid business. I mean, as of today, we have less than $20 million of debt, and that's for equipment purchases. As mentioned, we've got almost a $100 million in cash, and that cash grew 26% from Q2 of this year, and 72% since the beginning of the year. And again, that's after probably about $20 to $25 million if not more, every quarter of investment back into this business.

Gerardo Del Real: No, listen, a lot of boxes checked from the company when you're looking to position yourself with quality exploration potential, production capacity, expansion capacity, and a team that clearly knows how to do it. Congrats on all fronts. Looking forward to the next set of results and looking forward to seeing you in New Orleans. If anyone is looking for quality gold exposure in this space, I encourage everyone to stop by and say hello to both Ryan and myself. Calibre will have a booth. I understand you're also going to be giving away a one ounce gold coin to anyone that shows up to one of the events that you're hosting.

Ryan King: Yeah, no, that's right. For the first time we've had some one ounce Calibre gold coins minted, and I would encourage those that are interested in the story come by, enter an opportunity to win that one ounce gold coin. We'll be hosting a presentation of course on the company as well. And that's where I'll be drawing a name for that opportunity. So encourage your listeners to come by and happy to have further conversations.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Ryan, always great having you on. Thanks for your time, sir.

Ryan King: Thank you. Take care. Talk to you soon.

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