Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Rockridge Resources (TSX-V: ROCK) CEO Grant Ewing on Completed Earn-in & Drilling Update at the Raney Gold Project in 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 this morning?

Grant Ewing: I'm doing great, thank you.

Gerardo Del Real: You picked a great day to provide the market with an update. Rockridge has completed its 100% earn-in at the Raney Gold Project, and you provided a pretty interesting update from the fall 2020 drill program. 

The most interesting part to me, and the part that I think the market's receiving well, is the part where it says that the majority of the drill holes have successfully intersected alteration similar to what has been seen in previous high-grade holes drilled on the property. Now, we've all been around long enough to know the proof is in the pudding, we'll know when the assays come back, but I'd much rather see the alteration than not. Right?

Grant Ewing: Yeah, that's true. Certainly it's nice to see some visual alteration that matches with previous areas that ran nicely in terms of grade. So that's a great sign. Also, it's real nice that we've earned our 100% interest in this project now.

This program is really intended to test three main features. This down plunge area of previous high-grade drill intercepts, we'll be testing that. About half the holes have been focused on that. That's where we're seeing some nice alteration in some of the holes drilled to date. The assays have been submitted, so it's just a waiting game now for the assays.

Secondly, we'll step out along strike and test this magnetic low structure that's coincident with the Raney Gold Zone. We'll do about half the program to test that area of this project.

The other real interesting drill hole that we'll put into this current program will test this quartz feldspar porphyry. This is an intrusive body that just lies south of the Raney Gold Zone. It's been mapped in the past and sampled on surface, but very lightly assessed in terms of any drilling. We'll position one drill hole to go through this intrusive body that is highly altered and has nice gold surface showings. We'll go through that body and then deeper to test the down plunge of the Raney mineralization. We'll test two targets with the one hole, so that's nice and convenient.

Gerardo Del Real: You're halfway through the program. I couldn't help but notice that you expedited the earn-in. It's ahead of schedule, right?

Grant Ewing: Yeah, that's right. This project was picked up by Rockridge in a much different gold environment, so it wasn't a very expensive project to earn into. We've done the two programs now that will fulfill the earn-in in terms of work expenditures. Real pleased that we've done that now.

Gerardo Del Real: Have to ask you about Knife Lake. Copper's at $3.12 a pound. It hit $3.14 in the spot. How are things there? I know that the focus right now, obviously, is the Raney Gold Project. But I have to believe that there has to be some consideration given to Knife Lake in the context of this copper environment.

Grant Ewing: Yeah, that's right. We've been watching with interest as copper creeps higher. Our Knife Lake project is certainly a high-quality asset located in a very mining-friendly jurisdiction. Right now there's some early-stage planning going on with regard to some geophysical surveys and then some drill testing of some high-priority targets. We'd looked at that potentially in the early part of next year, but really we'll just keep our focus on Raney for now and then continue to evaluate when's the right time to reactivate the copper asset.

Gerardo Del Real: Pivoting back to Raney, how is the communication with the assay labs? I know a lot of companies are seeing delays. Have you been in touch? Have you received feedback on the expected turnaround time?

Grant Ewing: Yeah. It's that typical sort of four to six-week turnaround time that's been communicated to us from the lab. They are fairly busy. The nice thing about this project, though, is it's in a real established mining district. You have labs in Timmins and labs in Sudbury, Ontario. They know how to handle volume. But we are in the waiting game here, like a lot of other companies. You get the assays submitted and it's usually that four to six-week turnaround normally.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, excellent. Well, a lot going on. High-grade gold catches a lot of attention. I'm curious to see the widths of the mineralization and the intensity of it, and then looking forward to the assays. Anything else to add, Grant?

Grant Ewing: Yeah, that's right. We're well-financed here. So should we see the results we're expecting, we can quickly look to another program at this project. With a small market cap of 50 million shares out times about $0.18 a share here. So around a $10 million Canadian market cap, we think we're well positioned to deliver some real value.

Gerardo Del Real: Agreed, agreed. Grant, well said. Thank you so much for the update.

Grant Ewing: Excellent. Thank you.