Categories: Base Metals / Precious Metals
Topics: General Base Metals / General Precious Metals

Rockridge Resources (TSX-V: ROCK) CEO Grant Ewing on Commencement of Two-Phase Exploration Program at the Raney Gold Project in the Swayze Greenstone Belt of Ontario

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Rockridge Resources (TSX-V: ROCK)(OTC: RRRLF), Mr. Grant Ewing. Grant, how are you today?

Grant Ewing: I'm doing excellent. Thanks for asking.

Gerardo Del Real: You and I chatted about a month or so ago, and I just joked off air that it's a drastically different market. Companies that have exposure, not just to gold, but now gold and copper, are increasingly getting the attention of not just institutional investors and speculators, but the retail side and their generalists. That's very positive, obviously, for companies like Rockridge, because you have an exciting gold project, but you have a very exciting copper asset, as well. 

For people that are new to the space – because there's a lot of them – can you provide a brief overview of the company and the assets? Then we can talk about the latest bit of news here, from this morning?

Grant Ewing: Yeah, certainly. So Rockridge is a mineral exploration and development company focused on its main gold asset at the moment, the Raney Gold Project. As you mentioned, we've got a second asset, a copper-dominated, massive sulfide deposit. Both projects are located in very mining-friendly jurisdictions in geologic settings that have world-class potential. We see this company's value driver as being exploration and discovery, going forward.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Excellent overview. Let's talk about the news from this morning. You've commenced your summer exploration program at the Raney Gold Project. Now, you had a very, very eye catching intercept from the phase one program that, I believe, cut something like 6 meters of 28 grams per tonne gold. Obviously, you're looking to find the structures along a very long corridor that hopefully will make it to where this just wasn't a one-off. Is that accurate here? Is that what we're doing with this phase of the exploration program?

Grant Ewing: Yeah. That's right. We're really just scratching the surface so far with the exploration drilling conducted at this project. The Raney Gold Project is just under 30 square kilometers, so a good-sized project. It's in a real favorable geologic setting. Historically, there was quartz veins at surface discovered that were gold-bearing. All of the drilling was focused in this small area that measured about 250 meters long, and shallow drilling to test these quartz veins that were found at surface. 

Our first program that we conducted earlier this year was the first activity on this project in over a decade. We ran in with a small drill program to follow up on the historic work. Our highlight intercept was 28 grams per tonne over 6 meters, as you mentioned. So, a very strong intercept.

What we've come up with is a new geologic interpretation on this project. We have a wide structural corridor measuring a few hundred feet wide, vertical structure, and it's wide open at depth and long strike. We just tested a small area with our drilling. Now, what we've done today is mobilize a summer program and that'll have our geologists in the field. We'll prioritize areas to follow up on this long structural corridor. We'll do mapping, sampling, some geophysics, and this will help us dictate where we're going to put the drill holes. That would be phase two of this program that would start later in the summer, and into the fall.

Gerardo Del Real: It'll be a relatively quick turnaround, in part because of the excellent access and infrastructure. Frankly, you're in the right address. Again, for those not familiar, can you talk about some of the proximal deposits that are nearby?

Grant Ewing: Yeah. So, we're in the Swayze Greenstone belt, which is a sub-province of the Abitibi belt. This is a world-class geologic setting with major deposits discovered in the Timmins and Kirkland Lake areas, to the northeast. Newmont's newest gold mine is the Borden mine, and that's about 35 kilometers due west of our Raney Gold Project. Our claims, actually, are contiguous to the Newmont claims to the west. Off to the east we have IAMGOLD's large development project, the Cote deposit. In addition, there's several other juniors exploring in this area. It's really an underexplored area in Ontario that has a great geologic setting.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Can we talk about the Knife Lake deposit and that project? Because again, I think that, slowly but surely, copper is back on the radar of a lot of speculators. That's a quality asset. That's a perfect compliment to Raney.

Grant Ewing: Yeah, it's a great compliment to our Raney project, with the copper-dominated, massive sulfide deposit. This was discovered back in the '60s and Rockridge has the option to earn 100% interest in the asset. We've got a significant drilling completed that defined the Knife Lake deposit. It's a near-surface project, with the higher grades of copper occurring near surface. 

That would bode well for future potential development of this asset as a starter pit. Our real focus area is new discovery. We've got several priority targets outlined on our large claim holding that have had the groundwork and the geophysical work. What is required next is drill testing in an attempt to discover additional massive sulfide deposits here.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. I believe you just raised some money. How is the treasury looking? Is this program fully funded, the exploration program?

Grant Ewing: Yes, we've got a strong treasury, just under $2 million dollars. We just did a raise here, and the money would go towards our field program at Raney, and then into the drill program phase two. So, that's all fully financed. We'll look for some active news over the coming weeks as we get going on this Raney program.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Grant, thank you for the update. I appreciate it. I'm looking forward to having you back on to go over those targets, and obviously the results of the multi-pronged exploration approach that you're taking here to Raney. Thanks again.

Grant Ewing: Yeah, thanks. Great talking to you today.

Gerardo Del Real: Take care, Grant.

Grant Ewing: Okay. Bye bye.