Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Gold Mountain Mining (TSX-V: GMTN) CEO Kevin Smith on Hitting High Grade & Expanding Elk Gold Project

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Gold Mountain Mining, Mr. Kevin Smith. Kevin, how are you today?

Kevin Smith: Gerardo, I'm doing fantastic. How are you doing?

Gerardo Del Real: I am doing excellent. The gold price is heading upwards again which is a positive of course and Gold Mountain Mining shares are at an all time high. Congratulations on that front largely due to the most recent release which outlined that Gold Mountain has encountered high grade gold intercepts in down dip drill program. That was the headline but let me give it some context and then I'll let you go ahead and give us a summary of the results. Quinton Hennigh who I had the pleasure of speaking with yesterday, he commented that the Elk Gold Project hosts one of the most predictable vein systems he has ever seen. That's high praise from someone who has seen a lot of these systems.

Kevin Smith: Yes, absolutely. We're very fortunate to have Quinton onboard. He's been a huge supporter and actually these deep drill holes that we just did they were a big part of that was him encouraging us to push deeper and start really building out that underground potential. He tried to buy this project five or six years ago, was unsuccessful so he's come on board with us to help us push it forward. And he's looking at it as his second shot to get this thing into production and push it up over a million ounces in the near term. So we're super excited. I mean anytime you can intercept 41 for 41 on your drill holes on an 8,000 meter program, super encouraging and it gives us a ton of confidence going into this next phase 2 program that'll start at the end of this month.

Gerardo Del Real: Yes. 41 to 41 is not a bad hit rate. Let me read off some of the intercepts here. 1.42 meters averaging 37 grams per tonne gold. 1.22 averaging 16.23 grams per tonne gold and 1.30 meters averaging 7.95 grams per tonne gold. It appears that the grades are getting higher the deeper that you chase them. I know this is something that you modeled prior to the drill program commencing, but it's got to be satisfying to see it play out the right way, right?

Kevin Smith: Yes, absolutely. I mean, we had a ton of ounces the PEA that we put out in August that didn't make it into the pit just because they weren't economic from an open pit perspective. But now that we've engaged JDS and they're looking at bolting on that underground scenario along with a really high grade open pit, it allows us to really start focusing, as you said on that deeper, higher grade. And they seem to be getting a little bit thicker as well so we're super encouraged by the results of these deep drill holes and we're just fine-tuning phase 2 right now. And that's going to be a big part of phase 2 as well as just to continue to define ounces deep in that underground scenario so that JDS can include them on the economics of the PFS which we're anticipating sometime towards the end of the summer

Gerardo Del Real: In phase 2 and correct me if I'm wrong, but that's going to consist of drilling and relogging of the historic core, which is important, right?

Kevin Smith: Yeah we have snow melting right now so during breakup the drill just shakes itself into the ground so it's not very efficient. So during that breakup period we are doing a massive relog. We did a relog at the beginning of this phase, of phase 1 and we found that 216 grams a ton that had been missed by prior operators, so we're taking some modern technology and going through that 127,000 meters of historic drilling and combing through that core and seeing if we can pick up new vein lits and new intercepts that just got missed because that's really cheap exploration for us as the drilling is already complete.

And then that gives us time to really fine-tune that phase 2 drill program just so we're super efficient with time. We're very aggressive as you've mentioned a few times before. So we've got to maximize all the days in the calendar as we intend to go into production. We'll construct in June and we'll be mining waste rock July, August and then start mining ore September with a goal of delivering to New Afton in October with payables in November. So lots of exciting stuff still to come for sure.

Gerardo Del Real: Sounds like a fun Christmas. It also sounds like you'll be drilling in May, correct?

Kevin Smith: Yes, absolutely. So that'll start in May the phase 2 and if everything goes to plan we're just going to keep the drills turning after that as well. We still have a really healthy treasury. If we get similar results where the geological models playing out where we're intercepting on 100% of our holes, it's going to be pretty hard to turn the drills off. So goal is to just keep pushing. We told our shareholders we want to march this up to a million ounces. That's our goal and we're working hard at doing that. I think we'll be able to get a resource update out to the market sometime in the next month, month and a half just to show how efficient we can be with 8,000 meters of drilling. I think it's going to be another exciting couple of months for the company.

Gerardo Del Real: A lot of catalyst, a lot of news flow, congrats on the all-time highs. I think we're going to be saying that often for Gold Mountain and congrats on some brilliant execution.

Kevin Smith: All right. Thank you so much. Gerardo

Gerardo Del Real: Chat soon. Take care.

Kevin Smith: Bye.