Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals / Gold Stocks

Daura Gold (TSX-V: DGC) CEO Luis Saenz on Advancing Multiple Gold Exploration Projects in Peru’s Prolific Ancash District Nearby to Majors

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Daura Gold (TSX-V: DGC) — El Señor Luis Saenz. Luis, how are you today, sir?

Luis Saenz: Gerardo, it's a pleasure to be with you today. I'm doing very well.

Gerardo Del Real: Well listen, this is the first time you and I have had a conversation publicly on the air. And I want to talk about the very important community agreement you just signed and the initiation of the exploration program you announced earlier this month because it's a milestone for the company. 

You're in a region where you have several big companies surrounding you, including Barrick, Highlander Silver, and Vale. And I could continue but you have a big land package and you have a very committed team. I want to talk about your background first. Can you tell people a little bit about yourself?

Luis Saenz: Yes, and thank you for the opportunity to talk a little bit about Daura Gold and what we're looking to do. My background has always been in mining, mainly on the finance side. I was with a company, now defunct, called Brandeis, which was a broker for the London Metal Exchange. 

Then, I was with Merrill Lynch in New York on the commodities side where I was focused on mining in Latin America. And then later, I had a long stint with Standard Bank, a South African Bank, where I managed their operations in Latin America based out of Lima, Peru.

After that, I did a number of things, including being on the business development side for a major engineering company and being on the mining side myself, privately. And until the Daura opportunity came, I was running my own advisory boutique focused on mergers and acquisitions, corporate strategy, and the like. Again, always in mining, and very focused on Latin America, particularly in the Andean region. 

I'm actually Bolivian by birth. I've lived in Peru since 1998 and have always been involved in the mining side. I actually know the district where Daura has its properties very well having looked at projects there, including our neighbor — Highlander Silver and their San Luis project — very closely in the past. So that was a matter of background, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. And listen, with your background and with the network that brings, you clearly had opportunities to look at many, many projects, be it in Peru or be it in other regions. What is it about this specific land package that attracted you? And then, let's talk about the community agreement and the initiation of the exploration program leading into that.

Luis Saenz: Yes, that district has always been an interesting one. The San Luis project is not a new project in the market. It's been around for a very long time and has always been known to be a very attractive high-grade project that was held first by Esperanza, then Silver Standard, and, today, Highlander Silver. 

I've known about that project for a very long time. When the founders of Daura invited me to join, they already had acquired part of that land package, and I was very interested in seeing what was going to happen with that district and that project in particular.

That district itself has had issues around community relations and social issues in the past. And that's why San Luis, to a very large degree, was held back for some time. So there was the opportunity but there was also the challenge. As you very well know, issues around social license in Peru, and everywhere really, are at the forefront of any decision making in terms of a company. 

It was exciting to see that the people behind Daura had placed a bet on that district. We are adjacent to the San Luis project, and SSR was committed to resolving the issues and advancing San Luis, understanding that it was a non-core asset for them.

In fact, we had conversations with them before Highlander Silver acquired them. So it was an important part of the decision for me to get involved. I really like the district, which brings us to where we are today. Daura held through it, had its properties, and they consolidated around the time of the pandemic. We held onto the properties after the pandemic and through the downturn in the markets, etc. 

We came back to market last year. Our listing was earlier this year. And since then, we've moved quickly to deploy our team and our resources toward advancing what, as you well say, is a fairly large land package into different work streams.

And in that, it's important to really talk about what goes on with the communities. Obviously, Highlander has been advancing their properties, and we share some of those communities. We've already started our community work in that area of the district. And what we have achieved is an agreement with the Pampas Grande community, which is south of San Luis where some of our other properties are. It is a milestone for us. 

We started only a couple of months ago, and we already have a community agreement that we are, as we speak, mobilizing, or we already have people onsite looking at starting work on the sampling program that we had told the investors that we were going to be starting on all of our properties. 

So this is a first step and a first milestone of what we expect are many others that will cover our entire land package in terms of our first work program.

Gerardo Del Real: Clearly, you're wanting to systematically derisk the targets. And I know a lot of times for shareholders, people get impatient. But it's such important work, especially in the region, to do the kind of work you're doing not only on the social license side but also as far as derisking the targets because you have such a large land package. What can we expect for the rest of 2025?

Luis Saenz: As you mentioned, the word ‘derisk’ is really our focus. We have a large land package. Only the portion of the land package that is adjacent to San Luis, namely our Antonella target, has been explored. There’s a lot more. 

We are also talking to other concession holders in an effort to consolidate our land package even further. You can expect milestones in terms of the work we're currently doing in the Pampas 1 and Pampas 2 area because we will have results on those samples in the next couple of months at the latest.

We are working on community agreements in other areas that will also lead to other work programs that include sampling and some delineation of drill targets. We are starting work on the drill permits so we can also be ready for that later in the year. A lot of work going on.

You mentioned earlier that there are a number of large players there. Obviously, paying attention to what Barrick is doing… Rio Tinto and Vale are also there. Nexa Resources and, of course, Highlander Silver is right next to us. And they recently raised funds to put them to work in the area.

We're trying to keep ourselves up to speed with what they're doing. Obviously, we are maintaining dialogue with them because we want to be aligned in terms of the social aspects of the whole district. We’re excited about where gold and silver are today. So that's also good news and a lot of exciting times coming forward.

Gerardo Del Real: I am looking forward to chatting again, Luis. It's been an absolute pleasure. You have an exciting year. You have the perfect gold environment with gold above $3,400 today and looking like it's headed higher. Anything to add to that?

Luis Saenz: We are very excited about the gold price. Of course, it doesn't look like it's going down anytime soon. That only helps the market sentiment. But we need to focus. We need to focus on community first and our work programs on the back of those community agreements.

We’re looking at how to advance and take advantage of these markets and to basically show investors that value as we do the work ourselves and in conjunction with our neighbors.

Gerardo Del Real: Luis, thank you for your time, sir.

Luis Saenz: Thank you, Gerardo. I look forward to talking to you again.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. 

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