Categories: Base Metals
Topics: General Base Metals

Rockridge Resources (TSX-V: ROCK) CEO Jordan Trimble on High-Grade Step-Out Drill Results at the Knife Lake VMS Project in the Flin Flon Camp

May 7, 2019

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of Rockridge Resources (TSX-V: ROCK), Mr. Jordan Trimble. Jordan, how are you this morning?

Jordan Trimble: I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.

Gerardo Del Real: Listen, the last time we spoke we talked about the fact that I was excited for the exploration drilling at your Knife Lake project. You obviously have a high-grade historic resource. The last set of assays that you reported confirmed the high-grade nature of it, but you reported on some exploration drilling that was a significant step-out, and you hit 2.42% copper equivalent over 37.6 meters. As important, it starts at 11.2 meters down the hole. First off, congratulations. It's a wonky market, but that's a heck of a hole.

Jordan Trimble: Yeah. No, it really is. It's probably the best hole drilled at the project. As you pointed out, it's an expansion hole. The previous holes that we reported last week being confirmation holes, all of this working towards an NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate which we should have out at some point this summer. But a very, very high-grade zone, very shallow, starting at, as you point out, 11.2 meters, and with copper equivalent with the credits from the cobalt, the zinc, the gold, the silver, you're looking at a higher grade zone. Within that 37.6 meters, you have a zone that grades almost 5% copper equivalent over 13.2 meters. And again, that's within 37.6 meters of just over 2% copper and just over 2.4% copper equivalent. So it doesn't get much better than that.

We're obviously very pleased with the hole, and I think it's a testament to really our general strategy with the company, and more specifically at the project. When we put this company together just over a year ago, we built a team, continuing to do that, and we went out there looking for projects in historical prolific mining districts like Flin Flon. We're on the west side of it in Saskatchewan – again ranked #3 in the world in terms of mining jurisdictions – going into these districts, using some new techniques and some new thinking. So projects that have had a lot of historical work that we know are geologically prospective, but haven't had a lot of modern or current work.

That's exactly what Knife Lake offers, and these results, in particular Hole 3, show the potential of going into these brownfields area and projects with a new look at the exploration, some new thinking and yielding and discovering new higher grade mineralization. So it's a great news release. We have 7 more holes yet to report from the 12-hole drill program. We've drilled just over 1,000 meters. They're all relatively shallow, all within 100 meters of surface, so it's a great start to the program with a lot more to come.

Gerardo Del Real: We mentioned that this was a step-out where you hadn't drilled before. Can you provide a little bit of context? We know that with VMS deposits, they tend to happen in clusters. You have to be excited about the fact that you're hitting this high-grade mineralization near surface away from the historic resource. How far off is it from the historic resource, Jordan?

Jordan Trimble: Well, you can see on the plan view, right? It is in the deposit area. It was drilled updip of the hole that we announced just a week ago, Hole #2.

Gerardo Del Real: Got it.

Jordan Trimble: And so it's in a zone that there were no historical assays reported from. So as far as the historical resource goes, the numbers that we report on our website, now they're not 43-101 compliant. This was done back in the '90s, and that's one of the things we're working towards is upgrading it to a 43-101 resource estimate. But this high-grade result from the third hole, we expect to improve that historical resource given it was in an area that there were no historical assay results from. So it's quite significant.

I think it also does show the potential for more high grade to be found in and around the deposit area, right? The fact that we were able to go in and early on in the drill program, in our first drill program, find this kind of high-grade mineralization. Again, I just think there's a lot more that we're going to find over the coming years with additional drilling, not just at the deposit area, but also regionally, and that's an important part here.

You talk about this deposit, this project being VMS. VMS deposits typically do not occur in isolation. You get clusters of deposits, and given that most of the historical work was very one-dimensional, it was very focused in on the historical deposit, which is on a topographic high, so it was easier to find back in the late '60s. They basically focused almost all of the exploration drilling, drilling the deposit, and so they didn't do a lot of regional work, they didn't do a lot of deeper drilling. So there's a lot of exploration and discovery potential both at depth and regionally on the project. That's what we're going to be looking at come this summer.

So just to kind of go through the next few news releases and catalysts for the company, obviously we still have over half of the drill holes to report. That will be coming out over the next several weeks, followed by a 43-101 resource estimate likely this summer, and we will be doing a field program this summer where we'll go back in with some new geophysical surveys and technique, some ground work to further refine drill targets in and around the deposit area, but also regionally.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. I understand that a power line runs I think within 16 kilometers of Knife Lake. How is the infrastructure generally?

Jordan Trimble: Yeah. There's a power line just south of us. We're about 45 kilometers northwest of Sandy Bay. There's a highway that goes through the town, so infrastructure is good. I mean, that's one of the big things with the Flin Flon camp. It's got a long history of mining, over 100 years of mining in this jurisdiction in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

There's been some pretty notable recent developments as well in the area which we talked about previously, but just to re-highlight them, you've had a company called Foran partner up with Glencore, the largest commodity trading company in the world, on a project just south of us, again a VMS deposit called the McIlvenna Bay Deposit. They're advancing that project through a feasibility study.

Then just east of us on the Manitoba side of the border, you have a couple of notable news stories and headlines over the last several months that are worth talking about. HudBay, the big multi-billion dollar mining company that's been in this district for many, many years, they're the big dog in the camp. They've announced a new discovery right beside their producing Lalor mine, a new high-grade zinc-copper discovery, so that's significant.

Last, but not least, a company called Rockcliff – again, not to be confused with Rockridge – has recently raised $30 million dollars through a private equity group in London to go and develop a handful of VMS deposits that they have, similar to what we have at Knife Lake. They're doing what's called a hub and spoke strategy, so developing the deposits and they'll be mining from them and feeding a central mill called the Bucko Mill which they have a lease on.

So it's just good to see that this area, which has a long history of mining and exploration and discovery success, is really coming back to life. We're one of the few junior companies, that's active in the area. And I really do think with the news today and with additional news releases in the near term that we're going to continue to garner attention, and it's I think just a matter of time before you see the market respond and get the credit that I think these results deserve.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, congratulations again, Jordan. We have 7 holes still pending, so I'm looking forward of course to getting you back on and seeing the results there. It's looking really interesting.

Jordan Trimble: Absolutely. A lot more to come.

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you, Jordan.

Jordan Trimble: Thank you.