Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Millrock Resources (TSX-V: MRO) CEO Greg Beischer on Alaskan Drilling and Exploration

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president and CEO of Millrock Resources, Mr. Greg Beischer. Greg, how are you this morning?

Greg Beischer: I'm doing very well Gerardo, thanks. It's a gorgeous, sunny, clear day here in Anchorage, Alaska. A little on the chilly side though. It's only around probably minus 10 degrees Celsius, but with this kind of a time of year, it can be like, can be really bad, or it can be really good. This is good for this time of year.

Gerardo Del Real: It is the time of the year where it starts to freeze up. And of course, up north, as both you and I know, me having lived there for 17 years and you still in Anchorage, this is a dicey time of the year to venture into even a small drill program. And I was worried after hole seven, which was very encouraging visually because of the alteration, I was worried that you wouldn't be able to get back out until the springtime after everything thawed away. So I was surprised to see the announcement from Resolution announcing the recommencement of drilling for, it looks like hopefully, two holes to follow up on hole seven, correct?

Greg Beischer: Correct. Yeah. Frankly, this has been a terrible time to be starting a drill program, especially just a short one like this. In the winter in Alaska, once you're drilling off an ore body, you get yourself set up properly so that all the people are comfortable and safe in the cold conditions, it's not a problem. But, these short fits and starts that we've unfortunately had on this project, that's the way we've had to operate. And so it can get a bit dicey. Travel times, equipment just seems to break a lot more easily when it's really cold. Worry about getting adequate water to the drills for lubrication, because it's getting cold, it doesn't like to stay liquid too long once it gets real cold. So it's tougher. I was worried, especially since the contractor we'd used all year had to move on to other things, a bigger contract. And so we had to scramble, get a new one. And so anyways, they're on site and the drills should be turning as of this morning, as far as I understand. So yeah, if all goes well, we'll pound out two more holes and that'll get us pierce points on that big juicy vein that we hit at two different locations, probably each around 100 meters away from the original pierce point. And you know, that's pretty good step-out. There are certainly good examples at Goodpaster deposit and Pogo next door where a hole could intersect good thick quartz veins, looks good, has sulfide but little if any gold. And that's what we got with the first hole, but it can change very rapidly over just a few tens of meters or even tens of meters. We studied some of the drill intersections across the way at Northern Star Goodpaster. It can change in a hurry and I'm sure hoping that we prove and see that change coming with these next two drill holes and that'll set the stage then for a great year next year.

Gerardo Del Real: Given the weather conditions right now, are you confident you can, at the very least, get the first hole completed?

Greg Beischer: Yeah. If the drill's turning now, it's almost a certainty then that we'd be able to complete at least one hole. We're running up against a couple of things. Of course, it's getting colder and darker every passing day. Days get five and a half minutes shorter each one. And on top of that, we're also starting to run up against a budget. If that first hole for whatever reason had to run long, it's possible that Resolution may not have enough money for the next hole to run it to completion. So it's a play by ear sort of thing, but that is the plan, but there's adequate budget there for full 1100 meters of drilling, being a bit of a rough start. So that's going to eat into that money a little bit, but hopefully we will pull off both holes and get both those intercepts and maximize the chances of hitting a vein with gold in it.

Gerardo Del Real: You're also continuing to do trenching work at the E1 prospect, and the goal there, as I understand it, is to identify future drill targets. So again, just stepping back a bit, we've spoken about the multiple types of targets on the property. And so can you tell us a bit about the E1 prospect?

Greg Beischer: You bet. Yeah, that work wrapped up just late last week. Again, really pushing the end of the field season to be doing that sort of outdoor activity. Pretty hard on the personnel, but they're a hardy bunch and managed to collect a series of samples after an excavator had opened up the soil and exposed the bedrock. We know that there's gold in this E1 prospect area. It seems to be more of a type that's disseminated intrusion hosted, like perhaps the Fort Knox gold mine near Fairbanks, as opposed to high-grade, discreet, vein-style mineralization. And so that's what we're looking for. And rocks apparently looks pretty good and we'll be anxious to receive our assays a few weeks from now on that.

And, way out to the East of Pogo, we wound up the program there on the boundaries prospect, did all kinds of surface work and airborne geophysical surveys. And we're crunching all of that information together now. And I know there's some dandy drill targets in there for next summer, as well as at E1 and hopefully a major delineation program at West Pogo to go with it. So, that's the plan. Yeah. It's a huge property. There's a multitude of prospects and we've got the next two drill-ready.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. You also recently rolled in a couple of very exciting projects in Alaska. Can you speak to those a bit?

Greg Beischer: Yeah, sure can. Treasure Creek and Master Dome on the outskirts of the city of Fairbanks, and Treasure Creek is probably, it's about 20 kilometers due West of the Fort Knox Mine operated by Kinross. We're targeting very similar in style in the normalization, and there's a whole, quite a good few indications of that style right at the surface from prior drilling and trenching. This is the first time the project is really being looked at in a modern gold price environment where half a gram or a gram over numerous meters can make a big ore body. And, one of our friendly competitors, Freegold Ventures, pulled some really high grade hole not too far away from our claim block and that set the market on fire for their shares. So we're hoping to bring same thing there. As per usual, Millrock will bring in a partner to fund the exploration on these projects and the Fairbank's camp in general.

And, it's a very similar story to the Goodpaster where there's one great mine. There's been a couple of other prospects, but there's lots of open land and all kinds of potential to discover yet more. It reminds me of the gold camps like Red Lake Ontario, or Valdor Quebec or Kalgoorlie Western Australia for that matter. And we just need to tear into it, when we plan to do very systematic exploration across the whole district and really rethink the district all together. We've got the partner is quite sound technically as well as financially. So we're looking forward to that collaboration, too.

Gerardo Del Real: A lot going on for… no, sorry to interrupt there, Greg. I was saying it's a lot of potential catalyst for a company with a sub $13 million market cap. That's Canadian.

Greg Beischer: Yeah. And the way things are going, we're going to be drilling all the way through 2021 on five or six different projects. So lots of chances for discovery.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, I get the sense we'll be chatting again soon. Any idea on when you anticipate assays from, at the very least, the first hole?

Greg Beischer: Yeah. I would say they'll come pretty quickly. If we drill this hole in the next two weeks, have it processed into the lab a week later, so that's three weeks, that takes us to late November. Three weeks in the lab seems reasonable this time of year. So hopefully we'll have a nice Christmas present for everybody.

Gerardo Del Real: Looking forward to it, Greg, thank you so much. I appreciate the update.

Greg Beischer: Well, as always Gerardo. It's my pleasure.

Gerardo Del Real: You be safe out there. Thanks again.

Greg Beischer: Same to you. Bye now.