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

Zeus North America Mining (CSE: ZEUS)(OTC: ZUUZF) CEO Dean Besserer on Advancing the Flagship Cuddy Mountain Project, Idaho, Adjacent to Hercules Silver’s Recent High-Grade Copper-Porphyry Discovery

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & CEO of a new story to Resource Stock Digest, Zeus North America Mining — Mr. Dean Besserer. Dean, how are you today, sir?

Dean Besserer: I am excellent. Thank you for having me.

Gerardo Del Real: Well listen, let's get right to it. I mentioned that this is a new story to our audience. It's an interesting story for many reasons. The first and most obvious one to me is that both copper and the precious metals appear to be entering a bull market that I think is going to be one for the books. 

I think it's going to be really important in this cycle to find companies that are in good jurisdictions because, as I don't have to tell you, the world is definitely changing at a pretty accelerated pace, and I think that's going to be a key attribute here for companies moving forward. 

That brings me to Zeus Mining. And I wanted to have you on to help tell the story and introduce it to our audience. Can you give us a brief overview of the company? And then, we can dig into some of the assets and the approach here moving forward. 

Dean Besserer: Yes, it's really a simple story. I have a group of friends that we find properties in good jurisdictions and stake them. Sometimes we vend them and sometimes we put them into a company of our own. 

And this one, in 2021, we had staked three what we called, really, Tier-1 silver assets in Idaho, which is a Tier-1 district and, obviously, a great jurisdiction to work in. And one of them, which is now, of course, what we call our flagship property, is our Cuddy Mountain property. It’s adjacent to Hercules Silver’s copper-porphyry discovery (the Leviathan Zone discovery at the Hercules Silver Project).

That's the 1,000-foot level. People want to know, why is that our flagship property? Well, I think people still don't really understand the magnitude of what's been happening in Idaho. There have been probably 20,000 new claims staked over 25 miles in that trend alone, forefronted, obviously, by the discovery from Hercules Silver. 

But also, Barrick has made their presence — which people will see in the coming weeks — very, very, very significant there. They've basically thrown all of their cards in and said, ‘Look, this is a new copper-porphyry belt that was not previously known or discovered.’ 

And their president comes out and says that they want to have a foothold on copper going forward because they think, for the reasons you just spoke of, that the metal demands are going to be one for the books. And so here we are.

Gerardo Del Real: It's funny, you answered the question I was going to ask. I wanted to touch on the fact that Hercules Silver has really injected a lot of life into this region. And the staking has been at a pretty robust pace. And that's me putting it lightly. Barrick has injected C$23 million in equity into Hercules Silver, and it sounds like there's more to come on that front. 

How are you approaching the portfolio of properties? You touched on the flagship. Tell me about the work that's going into it because it's one thing to be able to stake near a discovery that is speaking for itself slowly but surely… but it's another thing to actually make a discovery yourself, right?

Dean Besserer: Yes, that's right. And I'm a geologist; I've worked in over 50 countries around the world for majors and for juniors. I own a consulting firm… so I've seen a lot of properties… and we're a boots-on-the-ground kind of group. 

We're starting to get in there in the next two weeks. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We're just going to throw the book at it just like Hercules Silver did; soil sampling, ground geophysics, 3DIP surveying — and that's all.

The minute we got this property into Zeus, I went to the 3DIP company and put them under contract because I know there's going to be a long list of people that really want that survey, and there are only a few groups that do it. 

So we were first in line, and, in about 10 days, those guys will be going hard. And good on Hercules Silver to test a geological concept below the rhyolites and the silver zones where there could be a blind porphyry.

And Chris Paul (CEO of Hercules Silver) drilled a deep hole into an IP anomaly and, lo and behold, he hit porphyry-copper. And they didn't even drill out of it. And then, what they learned subsequent to that after Barrick came in — a reinterpretation of everything and expanding their IP survey — is that their trend is getting hotter to the northeast. 

Well, who's to the Northeast boundary of them… Zeus. So that's good. And they say that they didn't even drill even close to their best targets last year. So I think there's a lot to come from there in the near future.

Gerardo Del Real: You mentioned your background, and I want to touch on that a bit more. I want to touch on the team and the technical expertise there because anytime you get a new belt that hasn't previously been recognized and you get the likes of Barrick willing to commit not just financial capital but the intellectual capital that Barrick seems to be committing to the region, there's typically a really fundamental reason for that. Can you speak to that angle?

Dean Besserer: Oh, sure. Obviously, the big companies have access to these world-renowned geo superstars… and they really want to help the company. But this was really the first time that Barrick has ever come in and put a massive amount of money, as an equity financing, into a company. 

And because of that, as part of the deal, they want to have their expertise on site full-time to help that process because they believe they've seen more… they've worked on mines… they have a team that would know more than a typical geologist. 

And that's what's really cool. And I think our experience all over the world is obviously world-class. With that being said, when we get down the road and we need interpretation, we're also going to look to some of those high-level experts to help us out. 

Obviously, you want to drill your holes in the right place… and you don't often get many chances at these things. So we want to make sure we're drilling our number one priority  targets right off the bat.

Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree with you more. What comes next as far as identifying and really refining the targets so that you do drill the best targets right off the bat?

Dean Besserer: The 3DIP is really the key to start off with. That, in conjunction with the mapping and the soil sampling, is really going to vector us in on where we want to drill and also making sure we're permitted to drill our best priority targets right off the bat. So yes, we're just throwing a book at it.

Gerardo Del Real: I love that, and I'm looking forward to having you back on when you get the results for that. I do want to contrast the upside here with Hercules because Hercules, obviously, has had phenomenal success, and its market cap reflects that. 

Where is the Zeus market cap… ballpark it for me if you could, Dean.

Dean Besserer: We're currently right around C$25 million. And we’re really just getting going. We haven't had any news flow as of yet. Like I said, we're a few weeks away from boots on-the-ground. We're going to be sampling… we’re going to have rock samples and soil samples… we’re going to have IP results… we’re going to have ground geophysics. 

We're going to have lots of things coming. And that's not even discussing our other properties, which we also think have great porphyry potential as well. So lots to come, and I'll be happy to update you as we go.

Gerardo Del Real: Looking forward to it. Thank you for your time today. And again, I think your timing is absolutely excellent on both the silver and copper side of the exploration proposition here. Let's see how it goes. Let's see what Mother Nature left behind. And again, really looking forward to the results. Thanks so much, Dean.

Dean Besserer: Thank you for having me.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, chat again soon. Cheers.

Dean Besserer: Cheers.