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Rockridge Resources (TSX-V: ROCK)(OTC: RRRLF) CEO Jon Wiesblatt on VMS-Style Copper Mineralization at Knife Lake Deposit & Gilbert Lake Target Area — Saskatchewan, Canada
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Rockridge Resources — Mr. Jonathan Wiesblatt. Jon, how are you today?
Jonathan Wiesblatt: I'm excellent, Gerardo. How are you doing?
Gerardo Del Real: I am well. Thank you for asking. Let's start with the news earlier today. The headline reads:
Rockridge Intersects 1.95% Copper, 0.11 g/t Gold, 7.41 g/t Silver, and 0.53% Zinc — or 2.34% Copper Equivalent — Over 14.02 Meters at Knife Lake.
The last time you and I spoke, you had increased the land position. You were very encouraged by what you were seeing. And we talked about the fact that this exploration program is true exploration, right? You're not twinning holes. You're not going in there and drilling into a system that's well understood. This is a first.
And so I'd love to get your take on the progress of the program and the initial results that you just announced.
Jonathan Wiesblatt: Yeah, so thanks again for having us on your program. We are very encouraged by the results that we released this morning. So let's break the discussion into two parts.
Let's talk first about the maiden deposit — the Knife Lake deposit — where, historically, there have been 300 holes drilled and quite an extensive amount of drilling. So the headline hole that we saw was further confirmation of a VMS high-grade copper deposit. So 2.3% copper equivalent will help us to upgrade the resource from Inferred to Indicated. It should add marginally to the deposit as well.
But now let's talk about the more exciting part of the program which were the other 8 holes that were drilled 6 kilometers away from the maiden Knife Lake deposit on a brand new area called Gilbert Lake.
Now, it's really important to understand that, historically, there has been absolutely no exploration, no geophysics, no drilling done on this Gilbert Lake target. This is a brand new target for the company. If you go back a couple months to the late-winter, early-spring, we flew a VTEM survey over this part of the property, and we came away with some very interesting targets to go in and drill. We later started that program in March and we saw a lot of encouraging results.
These are low-grade mineralizations, which are encouraging, in the first holes ever drilled. So we saw mineralization in just about every single hole. So we do believe we are on the right track to making a potentially significant new discovery.
Again, Knife Lake, we do believe is a remobilized VMS deposit — something that is part of a much larger system. And within the surrounding areas of Knife Lake, we do believe that there will be other clusters of similar size deposits. And Gilbert Lake, we believe, has the high probability of being one of those.
So we are able to take this data, go back to the whiteboard, and start to plan out the next stages of exploration to advance the project. And we are just now putting together all of the various steps for a continuation of the drilling program to occur later in the fall.
Gerardo Del Real: There are assays pending. I believe there's three holes yet to be announced, correct?
Jonathan Wiesblatt: Correct.
Gerardo Del Real: Excellent! Before I let you go, Jon, I've got to get your take — given your background and experience on the markets overall — the reaction to the Fed in the commodities market and specifically as it relates to copper, right?
There was some news earlier this week out of China, which I interpret the movements as noise and chatter. I don't think the fundamentals have changed at all. But again, given your background and experience — I'd love your take on things.
Jonathan Wiesblatt: So there's always going to be posturing in China about the prices of commodities. They are the largest consumer of commodities globally. And when prices rise, the Chinese will historically do what they can to put some cool water onto the market. So let's just move aside some of the noise coming out of China.
The demand for copper globally over the next decade — those trends remain intact and very firm. In fact, they continue to strengthen. And supply, as we all know, remains an issue on a global scale. There just clearly hasn't been enough capital spent in the sector over the past decade or so, since the last cycle ended, in order to bring forward new production.
Existing mines, large mines — in the part of the world that don't really have the socioeconomic backgrounds that are supportive of growth in the copper sector — they're struggling to commit more supply to the market. So long-term trends and supply and demand remain quite favorable for the commodity.
Now, let's talk a little bit about the Fed because the Fed has come out with some interesting points — not surprising to somebody like myself. They just move the dots along and are expecting to raise rates by a certain degree over the next year/year and a half.
And what that tells somebody like me is that there is concern over inflation which is why you're seeing the commodities take a step back. But if you think about rising inflation over time — this is very, very bullish for commodities in the medium to longer-term investment horizon.
So we are staying-the-course at Rockridge. We are very bullish on the copper price; very bullish for commodities overall. Copper looks better than it has in many, many years. And our project, the exploration excitement at Knife Lake, at Gilbert, and some of the other target areas on the property — we're just getting started and are super excited to come back with more results.
Gerardo Del Real: Very well said… that's why I asked you. Thank you for that! I appreciate you coming on. I'm looking forward to the last three holes, and I'm looking forward to details on the upcoming program once you process and analyze the data set. Thank you so much, Jon.
Jonathan Wiesblatt: My pleasure. Have a great day.
Gerardo Del Real: Alright, chat soon.