Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Rockridge Resources (TSX-V: ROCK) CEO Grant Ewing on Upcoming 3,000-Meter Drill Program at the High-Grade 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 today, sir?

Grant Ewing: I'm doing excellent. Thank you.

Gerardo Del Real: Thanks for coming on. You just announced a minimum – and I think that's important – a minimum 3,000-meter diamond drilling program at your high-grade Raney Gold Project southwest of Timmins, Ontario. Can you provide some details and what the goal is and why a minimum of 3,000 meters?

Grant Ewing: Yeah, certainly. So this is a follow-up program. Our first drilling in this area since Rockridge just held the option on this project occurred earlier in the year. We did a 2,000-meter program. The highlight intercept was 28 grams per tonne over 6 meters. Part of this program is designed to follow-up on that, as well as extend along strike and at depth, and drill off along this corridor that we've defined as being quite prospective for gold mineralization.

Before the drilling commences here though, we just finished a summer program which involved our geologists in the field. We did prospecting, mapping, and also flew a detailed drone magnetic survey. So this has provided some really nice data for us to fine-tune now the drill targets as we follow up on that high-grade hit from the last program, and then continue to look along strike and at depth for further high grade.

Gerardo Del Real: You're looking at a minimum of 10 drill holes, and I mentioned a minimum of 3,000 meters. I imagine that if you have the type of success that you're hoping for, that that program will be expanded. I know that infrastructure is excellent, I know the access is excellent.

Grant Ewing: Yeah. That's certainly the case, we're fully financed for this initial program. We've got just under $2 million in the treasury. So we could certainly step this up if we felt the need right now after this 3,000 meters is done. We could certainly continue and go further. Really it's results-driven, but we're quite optimistic that we've got some really nice targets here to test in the coming program.

Gerardo Del Real: How many targets have you identified to date on the property?

Grant Ewing: It would be more of a structural corridor that is over 2 kilometers long. Within that corridor, our new magnetic data is showing that there's some disruptions. All of this area is going to provide some nice target areas. Once you test one of these targets, you may do a lot of follow-up in that area depending on results.

Initially with this program, we'll drill the down plunge of three historic high-grade intercepts that we drilled in this project. With this summer field program, we've further refined the geologic setting of the vein systems, and we now have a pretty good idea on the plunge. These are open down plunge, all these high-grade intercepts from the past.

Gerardo Del Real: I understand that corridor is open along strike, and like you just mentioned at depth, correct?

Grant Ewing: Yeah, that's correct. The more work we do, the better understanding we gain here. Because we've really just scratched the surface on this project in terms of assessing its potential. We're just focused on the very small area of this 30 square kilometer claim holding.

Gerardo Del Real: What have been the biggest insights that you've observed since the first program? Obviously, you've done some follow-up work since then and you have a bit more confidence going into the second program. You had that one highlight interval that I'm sure everybody is hoping you're able to duplicate, right? What are the biggest insights from that summer field program?

Grant Ewing: I think the biggest insights would be just that the gold mineralization we've identifies is associated with a subtle magnetic low feature. With our detailed MAG survey it really provides a nice contoured MAG low setting where we can target our drill holes. Along this as well, we've mapped that with some of our field work, our mapping and sampling.

So really what we've learned on this is a lot more detail on the geologic setting of these vein systems, and therefore we're able to target the goal of mineralization a lot better.

Gerardo Del Real: For people that are new to the Rockridge story, there's a lot of activity near you. Can you provide a brief overview of the majors that are nearby?

Grant Ewing: Yeah. Newmont opened its newest gold mine just last year called Borden. That's directly west of us, contiguous to our claims, about 35 kilometers as the crow flies. Just last week IAMGOLD and its joint venture partner Sumitomo announced that they're going to build the Cote project. That's a very large-scale development project, 7 million ounces in reserves. That'll be one of IAMGOLD's core flagship projects when it gets built. 

So very active majors in the district. There's also several juniors that are very active. It's a great setting for the gold exploration and development.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Grant, anything else that you'd like to add?

Grant Ewing: I think that tells the story fairly well here. One other thing about Rockridge is we've got a great technical team, management team and cover all aspects of the business with our board and senior team. And a nice tight capital structure, 50 million shares outstanding, and fully financed as mentioned with $2 million in the treasury to conduct this program and continue exploration.

Gerardo Del Real: You also have a tiny market cap below, I think it's sub-$8 million Canadian right now?

Grant Ewing: Yeah, that would roughly be it. So certainly a micro-cap company. With drill results, we certainly could see some rapid advancement in the price if we're successful with our drilling.

Gerardo Del Real: This market is rewarding success and it's doing so very, very quickly. I'm looking forward to the program, I'm looking forward to the results. Grant, thank you very much for coming on. I appreciate your time.

Grant Ewing: Excellent. Thanks very much.