Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Calibre Mining (TSX: CXB)(OTC: CXBMF) VP Ryan King on Exploring, Producing and Re-rating During a Gold Bull Market

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the senior VP of corporate development for Calibre Mining, Mr. Ryan King. Ryan, you and I chatted a few months ago. What a difference a couple of months make. How are you?

Ryan King: I'm excellent, Gerardo. Thanks very much and thanks for having us back on the show here.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, listen, we chatted two months ago and at the time, I think you were trading around the $1.40 range and we were trying to communicate and explain to everyone the value proposition. Let me be absolutely clear. You're trading at $1.80 now. You're substantially higher, but there still absolutely exists a lot, a lot of value that I believe isn't yet appreciated, especially given within the context of a $2,300 gold price and with escalations in the Middle East and geopolitical uncertainty everywhere, central banks buying gold as a hedge. I don't see that gold price going lower. I see it going higher.

So I say all of that to say is you've had a lot of news. You've been very busy over the last several weeks and months, including some exploration success at the Leprechaun deposit where you hit 46 grams per tonne gold over 5.3 meters. So I thought it'd be a great time just to have you on and get an overview of everything that's going on because you have a lot of catalysts set for 2024.

Ryan King: Sure. Yeah, no, it's a very exciting time and it's been a catalyst-rich quarter for Calibre, particularly as you mentioned, with the close of the Marathon Gold transaction. And I truly believe that this is going to be marked as a transformational acquisition for Calibre. As we talked about in the past, this diversifies the company in a very significant way as we continue to advance and construct and get ready for operations at the Valentine Gold mine in Newfoundland, Canada. Very exciting because we're over 60% through construction. We've recently announced some pretty significant new hires from Jason Cyr as VP operations for Valentine to Andre as manager of our plant and operations there. So it's going to be a very pivotable time as we transition from a junior gold producer, kind of that 200 to 300,000 ounce range, to the 400 to 500,000 ounce range. That puts us in a mid-tier category.

And with that comes valuation re-rating. Look at our peers in that spectrum. It's the Oceana, Eldorado, Lundin Gold, even Alamos, right, that 500,000 ounce a year production profile. Calibre's got about a billion dollar market capitalization now, but those peer groups, they're 2 to $5 billion, right, US. So we have an opportunity in front of us. We've got to deliver on expectations. We've got to deliver the Valentine Gold mine, and I believe we will do that, but it does present a very compelling opportunity. Yes, gold is doing well, and yes, companies are seeing share price performance, but there's a lot of exciting things happening, in particular, the development of this Valentine operation that diversifies the company and puts us into a whole new category of a mid-tier gold producer.

Gerardo Del Real: And I think you make an important point. It's so easy to think, "Well, I missed the 30% move. The easy money has been made," but really, the gold equities have been so depressed. Whether you're a producer, a developer, an explorer, the baseline that a lot of the equities are coming up from is so low that the runway is an absolutely spectacular opportunity. There is a ton of runway here. So for anyone that may be looking at their favorite stock and going, "Well, I should have bought it 30% ago." Well, that might be true, but also don't mistake a 30% run in a week or two for missing what's going to be triple- and quadruple-digit returns during the cycle because I absolutely believe that we're in the midst of a commodity super cycle that you only see every decade to decade and a half. And I don't think it's a coincidence that everything's running. Gold's running, silver's running, copper's running. Uranium has put a new bottom and it looks poised to surge back again. Lithium looks half bottomed and is making a U-turn as well. So I think there's a lot to like in the commodity space. Gold is always going to lead that, and I think it's going to be a heck of a 2024.

Anything to add to that, Ryan?

Ryan King: Well, sure. What's also exciting, and I might've mentioned this in the past as well, I think it's a really key point for any resource focused business. Finding more material of whatever the company is looking for or developing or producing is always very accretive and critical. And this year, we're doing 130,000 meters of diamond drilling across our portfolio in Nevada, in Nicaragua, in Newfoundland. And if you look at our track record, I mean, we've continued to invest in the assets. We've grown production 28% on average year over year since becoming a gold producer. We have significantly grown reserves, I think the tune of about 390% after producing 700,000 ounces of gold. And I think this year's a significant year because our real focus is on resource expansion as well as discovery drilling.

And you made the point in the beginning of the call about 46 grams over five meters. Well, that was ore control drilling for the Valentine asset, one of the pits of the Valentine asset. And we are now diamond drilling underneath this and on strike to the southwest of this where there has been no drilling in the past. So you talk about the exploration potential at Valentine, and this is an opportunity that I think very few come along in our careers like this. I mean, we're talking about multiple kilometers of the shear zone that hosts this gold mineralization that really has had very limited exploration across the whole property. So to be able to find this discovery and then no drilling right beside it is unique. And we're very excited about the upside potential of Valentine, which would be Atlantic Canada's largest gold mine.

Gerardo Del Real: Lots of catalysts, lots to like, exciting times, for sure. Ryan, thank you so much for making time. I appreciate it.

Ryan King: Always great being here. Thanks very much.

Gerardo Del Real: All right, we'll chat soon.

Click here to see more from Calibre Mining