Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Magna Gold (TSX-V: MGR) CEO Arturo Bonillas on Forthcoming Assay Results from the Mercedes Project, LOI for The San Judas Project Acquisition & Evaluating Additional Acquisitions

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Magna Gold (TSX-V: MGR)(OTC: MGLQF), Mr. Arturo Bonillas. Arturo, buenas tardes. How are you, sir?

Arturo Bonillas: Gerardo, muy buenas tardes. Que gusto verte!

Gerardo Del Real: Igualmente. It's an absolute pleasure to have you back on. You and I had the opportunity to chat in Beaver Creek. You've been very busy. Despite the fact that Magna Gold is a new company, you have a lot going on.

The flagship project, the Mercedes Project, is on the verge of releasing, I believe in the next week or two, the first set of drill results from that project, the new drilling. There has been historic drilling in the past, but I know we're excited to see if we could verify the historic drilling and what we came up with in the new zones.

But in the meantime, you just entered into a letter of intent to acquire the San Judas Gold Project in Sonora, Mexico. Can you tell me a bit about the project, Arturo?

Arturo Bonillas: Of course. The San Judas Project is a group of claims that are located within the very famous and prolific Sonora Mojave Mega Shear. It's in a geological environment that we know very well.

It is located not very far from the San Francisco Mine from Alio Gold. We've had our eyes on that project for a long time but we have never been able to reach good terms on an agreement.

What is it? It's, as I mentioned, in the southern end of the Sonora Mojave Mega Shear. That trend hosts of various important gold-bearing deposits and I'll mention some of them. You are aware of La Herradura, Soledad-Dipolos, which is a multi-million ounce deposit, the Nochebuena deposit, which all belong to Fresnillo.

Gerardo Del Real: Correct.

Arturo Bonillas: The San Francisco Mine from Alio Gold. The El Chanate Mine that belongs too now to Alamos Gold. The old La Choya Mine and also on the American side, a part of that trend are mines like American Girl, Cargo Muchacho, Betty Lee, et cetera.

We are very excited with this acquisition. It is currently a letter of intent, but we are very certain that we will acquire it. We have fantastic terms on the acquisition, a 5-year deal that is very good for us to proceed with. We are now moving to take advantage of the first 90 days and we'll do some work. We will come up with an important exploration program at the end of that period.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Arturo, there are two things that stand out to me. The first is I can't help but mention that the gold belt that you referenced there has combined gold reserves and resources, within that trend, that total I believe in excess of 20 million ounces of gold. This is a very well-known geologic belt that has a lot of potential.

The second thing that I can't help notice is the deal is structured in a very friendly way to shareholders. And what I mean by that is a lot of it is backend loaded, so it is an early-stage exploration project, but you really get the opportunity to test the targets out without a lot of dilution up front. Was that something that was conscious on your part?

Arturo Bonillas: Correct. This is a very friendly deal, as you said. It's almost the perfect deal, where you have all your big payments towards the back end of a 5-year deal. It gives us time and allows us to spend the sufficient money to move the project forward in a much faster way without worrying about the big payments, option payments, or acquisition payments at the beginning.

Yes, this is something that I really like and again we are very familiar with that geology. We're very familiar with all bodies in the area and we're ready to go again like we are going with our flagship project, south of the Mercedes Mine up in the mountains. Again, this should help us move faster and quicker. We are very active. We continue to be very active in looking at other things.

Gerardo Del Real: That was my next question. Are you still looking for other deals? I've mentioned in the past that your Rolodex, your network of contacts in the industry, is as good as anybody out there, especially in Mexico. Are you still looking for other deals?

Arturo Bonillas: Yeah, so the network is rolling in and we are actively signing other letters of intent, looking at the possibilities of acquiring more advanced projects, because we think that as a group we are ready to pursue that. And yes absolutely, we are full speed ahead. These are the good times, the appropriate times to do it.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk Mercedes. I know that drilling, I believe, is either complete or almost completed. Correct? I know that you drilled over 2,000 meters of reverse circulation drilling in 17 holes.

Is that drill program complete? Are we just waiting for assays or are you still wrapping that up?

Arturo Bonillas: We're still wrapping up. We are going to complete the almost 2,500 meters of drilling in 22 holes. They're not finished yet and we will have to wait for the assays on those. But I can tell you that we are happy, very happy with the results that we're getting. Also, we are more excited about our new findings around the core area of the Mercedes Project.

We will be putting out interesting results soon, within the next two, three weeks. It's just a matter of us waiting for assay results and compiling all the data and putting it in a readable form for the topic.

Gerardo Del Real: Arturo, you picked the absolute perfect time to come back. We do have a new gold bull market. I'm excited for assays from Mercedes. I'm excited for you to finalize this deal with the San Judas Gold Project. And obviously I'm excited to see what else you're working on behind the scenes.

Is there anything else that you'd like to add?

Arturo Bonillas: Not really. Just that we are working very hard on these acquisitions of things that that have been there for a long time and have not been properly explored or moved forward. And also our priority is liquidity in the markets. So we will keep coming up with the very good news on everything we do and we will not stop. That's our mission.

Gerardo Del Real: Arturo, I'm a happy shareholder. I can't wait to see what you get done here the rest of the year. Hopefully we can have you back on soon, as soon as the assays are in.

Arturo Bonillas: Absolutely. I will be there and we should talk right after the next press release goes out. Should be soon.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Thank you very much. Arturo, you have a great afternoon.

Arturo Bonillas: You too, Gerardo. Gracias.