Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Westhaven Gold Corp. (TSX-V WHN)(OTC: WTHVF) CEO Gareth Thomas on Multiple Catalysts for an Exciting 2022

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of Westhaven Gold, Mr. Gareth Thomas. Gareth, how are you?

Gareth Thomas: I'm well, Gerardo. Thanks for the call. And, yeah, been a while so nice to catch up.

Gerardo Del Real: No. Look, it has been a while. I wanted to have you on because I think there's a pretty compelling opportunity in the stock right now with tax-loss selling season and the recent pullback. I'm a contrarian by nature and so whenever I see a takeover of Great Bear for $1.4 billion, clearly there's an appetite for new discoveries in safe jurisdictions, with good location, with good grade. And when I look at Westhaven Gold, you're onto one. And I think the market is being very, very not selective in throwing out the baby with the bath water in this case. So, I thought it a good time to have you back on. You have a lot pending, a lot of news flow for early 2022. And so, I just wanted to get into it and let you provide an overview of how things are coming along.

Gareth Thomas: Yeah no, and that'd be great. And yeah, great news about Great Bear. And yeah, we were discussing that earlier with Sean and Sean here and the gang and it's yeah, great kudos to them. And especially for a non-resource but, obviously, a pretty fantastic discovery there with that group. So yeah, kudos to that. And it's nice to see in our sector getting some M&A and activity happening. So yeah, it's definitely positive.

And yeah, on our note, a lot of news coming out in January where, of course, as you've probably heard this lots, Gerardo, a lot of people waiting for assays. They're quite gummed up for various reasons. But yeah, we're going to have an influx of news coming January, and including we'll have our resource, our inaugural resource, on the South Zone out early January as well. So yeah, lots to look forward to, and I think that's going to be a nice... Without going into obviously too much detail, I think it'll be a nice thing to put on our group here and give us something hardened to value our group at. And of course, like many CEOs say about their own company, we think we're pretty undervalued at this point, but that's the way she goes. Yeah but lots of news on the horizon.

Gerardo Del Real: You have 38 holes in the lab pending, obviously a boatload of assays that are coming. You have the resource update in early 2022 but I wanted to talk about a release actually that you had back a month ago. It was the metallurgical results, the prelim met work at Shovelnose. And I want to talk about that because you can have a phenomenal resource, you can hit the kind of grades that you've hit. 15.97 meters of 9.15 grams per tonne gold. And all that could mean absolutely nothing if you don't have good met work, right? And so, when I saw the 95% gold and 96% silver recoveries, I was impressed by the recoveries. Can you speak to that work a little bit?

Gareth Thomas: Yeah and this is something where it was... I hate to sound loosely or a little bit nonchalant about it, but saying we kind of always knew that, just with the vein sort of system we're dealing with these low-sulfidation epithermals that it would be good metallurgy, but we're certainly... you can't, it just sort of solidifies our thoughts and are certainly non-refractory and amenable to recovery with a standard industry process.

So yeah, it's great. It's just super good news. We were it's always kind of been there where we knew it was going to be there, but it's nice to have it out and it gives us just another sort of box to check as we sort of get this thing more and more de-risked as we move ahead here. And of course, with the resource coming, this fits well into that. And it's going to be... we're excited here about the way things are looking. Unfortunately with the, not tax loss as an excuse, but it's the way she goes right now, but yeah, lots of good news flow on the horizon.

Gerardo Del Real: You temporarily halted drilling at Shovelnose because of the flooding situation in Merritt. How are things as it relates to that?

Gareth Thomas: As good as they can as well. Yeah. Another good question. So yeah, we halted in mid-November due to these catastrophic floods. It's been a very trying year in Merritt and surrounding areas. Talking to some of the locals in the area there just yesterday, one, they're quite involved in the Lytton... Obviously, the fire devastated that community and it's been a trying time for us.

On the upside, it's the Coquihalla highway, which the... our property is right on is opening believe it or not on Monday. You may have seen some of the images or some of the listeners who may have seen some of the images. And I was going, you know what? This could be months, if not year, to the fact that they're opening in just over a month, at least to commercial traffic is just kudos to the government there as well. It's pretty crazy.

So that's great news for that. And I think obviously it's a major artery to Vancouver up to the rest of the province and to the rest of the country. So it's something they certainly put a lot at, and it's great news. And our road to Coldwater is right there to the Shovelnose.

So, but between the fires, which sort of decimated half of our property, we were evacuated there, as you know, for four weeks, then with the floods here, we had to shut down due to the water situation in Merritt. But yeah, we'll be back. Long story short there, Gerardo. We're going to be back turning around January 15th. So this will be the earliest we're back after the new year, back on the property. And that's because we're very excited about what we're seeing at the FMN zone, which we'll have results out early January as well. But with any luck we're seeing what could potentially add ounces there as well. So it's coming together nicely and yeah.

Gerardo Del Real: You and the team should be commended. I know it was a challenging 2021. Despite that you were able to check off a lot of milestones. I'm excited for 2022. Again, I think there's a really good, compelling opportunity in the stock right now. You have the resource update coming up, you have 38 holes in the lab, drilling will resume. And of course thoughts and all the best energies to everybody in Merritt. Anything to add to that, Gareth?

Gareth Thomas: No, just appreciate updating the listeners and our shareholders and yeah, we're really looking forward to 2022. And it's going to be, as you mentioned, hitting our milestones here, but it's going to be nice to come out with a bang come early January and just hope the market turns for the better and yeah. Things look up and yeah. Positive thoughts everywhere.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Gareth, thank you for the time. And the update. Enjoy. Enjoy the holidays. Enjoy Christmas, enjoy New Year's and we'll chat in 2022.

Gareth Thomas: Yeah. You as well. Gerardo. Appreciate it.

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you.