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

Rockridge Resources (TSX-V: ROCK)(OTC: RRRLF) CEO Jonathan Wiesblatt on Drilling for High Grade in a Gold Bull Market

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Rockridge Resources. Mr. Jon Wiesblatt. Jon, it's great to have you back on. It's been a bit, how are you today?

Jonathan Wiesblatt: I'm doing really well, Gerardo. Thanks for having us back on your program.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get right into it. Look, gold is near new all-time highs. It's stubbornly holding, finally, above that $2,000 level. Silver's cooperating as well. Copper's still holding at $4 a pound. And I got to say the last time that you and I chatted publicly, we were talking about the Knife Lake deposit, a copper VMS style asset that I really like, right? That's got some near surface copper, cobalt, gold, silver and zinc in it.

But you also have a gold project that I really like that historically has provided some very, very good high grade intercepts and I know privately the company feels has a lot of exploration upside. You just completed a non-brokered flow through financing and of course it's flow through, so you're planning to commence the drill program at the Raney Gold project. So I thought I'd have you back on to get an update and ask you why gold? Why now? And then let's get maybe a good overview, a good corporate update of where everything is asset wise and the focus moving forward.

Jonathan Wiesblatt: Absolutely, Gerardo. So as you know, I pay very close attention to the macro and with rates looking to stabilize, the US dollar has also stabilized and has declined from its recent highs, which has been a very good catalyst for the gold price. In addition to that, we have seen another financial banking crisis here in North America that's even spread across to Europe with Credit Suisse, which is very, very important for the price action in gold.

So gold has captured a lot of the headlines this year, and so now we believe it is a very opportunistic time because of the macro to refocus our attention on our second core asset, which is the Raney Gold project. In addition to that, when you look at our company overall, we completed the earn in at Knife Lake, which is the copper project in Saskatchewan that you suggested and discussed earlier in this conversation. And so now that is complete, we can start to direct our resources and our efforts to Raney Gold. So what is it about Raney Gold that we really like?

Well, Raney Gold, since the program or the property was first discovered many decades ago, there has only been 9,000 meters in total of drilling. The program that we are putting together right now is going to be a minimum of 2,500 meters up to 4,000 meters. If we drill the full 4,000 meters, we'll be increasing the total exploration at this property by more than 45%. So lot of a lot real potential here. In addition to that, we have been very successful in the past. We haven't drilled there since 2020, but we have been very successful in the past finding some very high grade intercepts.

One of the holes that was put out into the market back in 2020, it featured 28 gram per tonne over six meters. So there is high grade, there is a very prospective chance of finding more holes like that. We will go back up to the project and we will follow through.

Gerardo Del Real: I think you were going to answer my question. I know once we get going we're usually pretty good and I think you were leading right into what I was going to ask, so please, please continue.

Jonathan Wiesblatt: Yeah, I was going to say that the purpose of the upcoming campaign is to really evaluate the strike, the depth and the expansion potential of the high grade zones of gold mineralization that we discovered back in 2020. So super excited to get back up there.

As you mentioned, we just closed a flow through financing and we are fully funded now to go and do the work at Raney later this spring.

Gerardo Del Real: No, listen, I'm excited for gold to be where it's at. I'm excited for you to go back to Raney and go and investigate what it is potentially that is there. Where is the market cap right now, John? We talked a bit off-air about how for a lot of companies it's been really, really tough to gain traction unless you're drilling and unless you're hitting. And I'm happy to see that the company's positioning shareholders for that, but where is the current market cap? Because we've both seen these cycles in the past and we know how quickly it can change with one drill hole.

Jonathan Wiesblatt: Yeah, so it's a good question because the market cap is quite low at this point in time. At the current price, the market cap trades between three and three and a half million, and what that translates to is less than two pennies per pound in situ of copper in the ground. As you know we do have a copper resource in Saskatchewan. So you are paying around a penny to a penny and a half for that asset, which would imply you are getting negative enterprise value contribution from the gold asset. So it will not take much success at our program, our upcoming program at Raney, to really excite the market and to hopefully drive value. So I think that the risk reward from this current market cap is excellent.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, I'm looking forward to having you back on once that drill is turning and obviously looking forward to having you back on once we start seeing results from the program.

John, always a pleasure catching up. Anything to add to that?

Jonathan Wiesblatt: I don't think so, Gerardo, I think we covered off everything. Thank you so much for your time and it's always a pleasure to come on your program.

Gerardo Del Real: Great chatting. Thanks John.