Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Revival Gold (TSX-V: RVG)(OTC: RVLGF) CEO Hugh Agro on Preparing For a Golden 2024

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of Revival Gold, Mr. Hugh Agro. Hugh, how are you this morning?

Hugh Agro: Very good. Thanks for having me, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Well listen, 2023, I think we're going to look back next year and recognize that as far as the gold space goes, it was an inflection point. I think we're going to see new all time highs, and I think companies like Revival Gold that are in good jurisdictions that have a robust asset with a lot of blue sky potential and significant infrastructure are going to be re-rated in a very significant way. You closed out the year by intersecting oxidized mineralization in untested targets at Beartrack-Arnett, and so I thought it'd be good to have you on and talk about that, but also talk about what was accomplished this year and what to look forward to next year.

Hugh Agro: Thank you, Gerardo. Listen, we've already hit an all time high just recently in the gold price, and I agree with your prediction that the outlook is fantastic for gold and that that only surfaced in the share prices of the gold juniors as the industry is dearly short of new opportunities for growth to feed future production.

Gerardo Del Real: Couldn't agree more. Tell me about the most recent release and then what the motivation was for testing these untested targets, and then how pleased were you to have oxidized mineralization in areas that just hadn't seen that before?

Hugh Agro: Well, just to set the stage to start, I mean, this has been a busy year for Revival Gold. We raised close to $10 million of equity. We completed a resource update taking ourselves up to 4.6 million ounces now, second-largest new discovery of gold in the United States in the last decade. We've completed a PFS on the first phase aspect of this project, as you know. The phased approach is capital efficient and it allows us to move more quickly into a cash flow situation. We've been adding to our team.

We brought on Larry Radford, former COO at Hecla. We brought on Dan Pace as chief geologist, bringing some really new and exciting geological ideas to our team. And of course we've been drilling and the results that we just put out are in new areas for Beartrack-Arnett. Three of the four targets we tested this year were entirely new targets for Revival Gold. And in fact, the results that we've just released from Ridge and from Midlands are untested undercover targets, completely blind, and we hit gold in both of those oxide gold mineralization. And this is really exciting to the overall picture and potential for the project.

Gerardo Del Real: 2024, we agree on the Macro trend that looks to be very, very bullish. What specifically is Revival looking at doing in 2024?

Hugh Agro: Well, look, I think we have to understand that with all of our technical progress, we've got a stellar asset and we need to surface the value of that asset in the public company. And I think for us in 2024, that's going to involve some kind of a corporate transaction of one kind or another. I think we recognize that the operational and technical work has gone well, but we need to surface that value for our shareholders. And so, we're squarely focused on business development, looking for opportunities to elevate the valuation of the asset for the benefit of our shareholders.

And that could be anything from strategic partnerships to looking at potential corporate M&A, either as a buyer or as a seller, but we need to be active in the market, getting our results into folks' hands and into a better corporate construct to surface the value for our company and our asset. That's the principle focus for our team as we head into the start of 2024. There's a lot of work that goes on in the off season and the off drill season around geological modeling, building up our understanding of the results and what those mean and developing business cases for future exploration programs. But I think for Revival Gold, the start of 2024 is all about surfacing the value that we've already discovered in the asset into our share price.

Gerardo Del Real: You have major company experience, your background is a very accomplished one, Hugh, and that was a part of why the Revival proposition was so attractive to me. And then of course, the asset just kept getting better and better. How is the behind the scenes feel on the potential, and I'm not referring just specifically to Revival, but just in general, are you seeing a pickup in interest and chatter across the sector?

Hugh Agro: We are. Buying corporates, those that are producers that have capacity to buy development projects are being cautious. But you saw, of course, Barrick put an investment into one of our neighboring peers in Idaho, in the last couple of months, a $30 million investment in an exploration company. Just the other day, Dundee bought a development project in Namibia at an FS stage. So, there is some action going on, and I know there's a lot of looking, there's caution, there's definitely people are taking care with the projects they get into and how they go about doing that.

But we are seeing more interest in the sector, more interest in the development and the exploration businesses and it makes sense. I mean the margins that the producers are earning right now are close to 50% gross margins on overall as a margin to ASIC and the current gold price. That's a good place to be. And so, there's cash on the balance sheets and there's cash being generated and debt levels are low. It's a time to position for growth and filling those pipelines, and I think we're starting to see that happen in some of these recent transactions that have been announced.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, I think it's also a great time to position for a boom in the gold juniors in 2024. Hugh, have yourself a great Christmas holiday, New year, and we'll chat on the other side of this year, sir.

Hugh Agro: Very best.

Gerardo Del Real: All right. Thank you very much.

 

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