Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Cross River Ventures (CSE: CRVC) CEO Alex Klenman on Why Share Structure, Cash and Exploration Has Positioned the Company for Success

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Cross River Ventures, Mr. Alex Klenman. Alex, happy new year to you.

Alex Klenman: Happy new year to you, Gerardo. Thanks for having me.

Gerardo Del Real: I think 2021 is going to be a year of significant discoveries and it really makes my heart smile to see, the first effective trading day, to see gold up over 2%, some $40+. Silver up over 2% as well. Cross River Ventures has spent the last several months, especially the last several months, setting the table for what I think could be a very, very exciting 2021. You just recently closed a flow-through financing of nearly $2 million. I would love for those that are maybe new to the space or new to the company, for you to provide a brief overview of Cross River. And then let's talk about why 2021 should be an exciting one for everyone.

Alex Klenman: Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for that. No, the main thing here is we're a pure exploration play. We're located in Northwestern, Ontario. We have 28,000 hectors, which is a lot of ground. District-scale land packages. We have multiple projects in the neighborhood of 10 or 11 of them currently, and we're going to be very busy explorer in 2021 and we're looking for discovery of something significant. And when you have location, which we have, we have size, which we have. The one project, McVicar, for example is 11,500 hectares. It's basically controlling all of the major faults and breaks of the Lang Lake Belt, so we have a greenstone belt to our ourselves.

And we're set up well, we have a great technical team led by Dr. Rob Carpenter. Dr. Carpenter was the CEO of Kaminak when Kaminak sold for half a billion dollars, him and his team were the people involved with the discovery of the Coffee Gold Deposit in the Yukon. It became a 5 million ounce deposit. So we have a technical team that's been there and done that in a very successful way. And we're capitalized and ready for 2021.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk about what that looks like. You recently raised the 2 million that I mentioned, where is that money going? It's a flow through private placement. So obviously it's going in the ground, right?

Alex Klenman: You bet ya. And that was the important thing to do was get those budgets set early and make sure that we're ready to roll in Q1, which we are. So there's several initiatives going on at the moment. One is permitting. So we're looking at reaching out to First Nations groups, for example, other stakeholders in the areas of the priority properties, basically McVicar would be the number one there. And we're getting involved with the permitting process. So we're ready for a heavier exploration in the warmer months, i.e. drilling. So that's underway. We're also in the middle of our data drive. And what we're doing is for all of the Ontario properties, we're doing thorough data compilation and technical review. And that's the technical team under really the guidance here of Dr. Carpenter and Lori Paslawski, our exploration manager.

That'll be done over the next 30 to 45 days. And the result of that is really a better understanding of the geology and the endowment potential of each property based on that available data. And from that, we'll get our targeting initiatives outlined to the next phase of exploration, which is the drilling part. And then we're working on our budgeting really, once we get all the data compiled and we know where we're going to be drilling and what's required, we'll put our budgets into place for Q2 Q3, and we'll be ready to roll.

Gerardo Del Real: Alex, you and I had a conversation a few months back, and we talked a bit about the .com bubble and I'm a trends person. I like to get ahead of trends. I like to position myself strategically, but in very consequential ways, I like to take big positions ahead of the herd as Mr. Jim Dines would say. Can you speak a bit to that history and your background there? And then I have to get your take on precious metals here for 2021 because the setup, I think couldn't be better.

Alex Klenman: No, I agree. A hundred percent. I mean, you look at all of the things that led to the record gold price in 2020 are still very much on the table. I mean, yes, we have a vaccine or vaccines in the mix now. So we do have light at the end of the tunnel, but that tunnel is still lengthy. It's going to take quite a while to get the vaccines rolled out and to get enough people vaccinated, where we begin to see this pandemic in the rear view mirror. And I still think we're going to see a lot of financial distress and a lot of economic issues resulting from 2020, throughout 2021. I mean, commercial real estate is one sector that I think is going to take a big hit, but there's still a long way to go.

So all of the things that were in play, and then obviously look at what's happening with the U.S. Election and the very real possibility that trillions in stimulus will get passed. And obviously the printing of money is always a good thing for the price of gold. So we're headed in a good place, I think for the price. I think there's no reason at all that we can't surpass what we did in 2020 in terms of the gold price. And if that's the case, obviously we're in a very commodity friendly market and gold will shine. So we're an explorer that you have to look at in that environment because, we could be the next big thing if we are able to pull off what we think we've got.

Gerardo Del Real: You're set up properly because of the share structure. And I take Bitcoin. I know a lot of people won't make the connection, but we've seen the recent performance of Bitcoin and a large part of that is very simply the structure. There's only so many coins, more and more people are waking up to the fact that the counterfeiting of money, the printing of money is going to continue at a record pace. And so you have more dollars chasing finite assets. And quality exploration companies that have good share structures and succeed, I think are going to be in for extraordinary gains. Can you go over the share structure briefly for us?

Alex Klenman: Yeah, absolutely. Well, 22 million out prior to the financing. So I've got to get you an updated number there. We did 1.9 million at 37 cents. So there's some math to do. I'm sorry, I don't have that in front of me, but still extremely tight. And what you want to do is really get to discovery with 35 or 40 million out. If you can stay in that 30 to 40 million range, even 50 on the outset isn't terrible. But if you have that type of a tight structure, when you make an impactful discovery, then as you've mentioned, you get that supply demand scenario that usually results in dramatic pricing increases. And, we all like to talk about Great Bear resources. I mean, they had 30, 35 million out when they had a big hole and the rest is history. And I think that's really how we're set up. We have the right team to do it. We have the right size land packages in the right areas and you add it all up and it really ticks a lot of boxes for investors.

Gerardo Del Real: A lot to like Alex, thank you so much for the update. I'm looking forward to having you back on as we get some more data in the field and interpreted, and obviously setting up for exciting drill programs.

Alex Klenman: You bet ya, and I appreciate getting into your audience and letting them learn more about the company. If anybody has any specific questions, you can certainly email or call and we'll get right back to them.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. The website is crossriverventures.com. Alex thank you so much.

Alex Klenman: Thank you Gerardo, have a great 2021.

Gerardo Del Real: You as well.