Royal Nickel Corp. RNKLF

$RNX: Osisko would have 12 drills on this.

[pierreg]

Good RNC MINERALS CRUX Investor interview segment with Mark Selby published May 17th 2019 (from initial interview). My transcript:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23bk90oTP7Y&feature=youtu.be+

Video title: Osisko would have 12 drills on this. Non-dilutive financing. Cash in on the stones - RNC Minerals

Matthew Gordon: So, what are the other separate infrastructure type acquisitions or builds or other types of acquisitions that you've been considering, not necessarily specifics but what have you been looking at?

Mark Selby: Yeah, I know again I think with Beta Hunt it makes sense given the geology and the location to look for things that are nearby, that asset and there areother things that we've looked at in the past that are nearby. I think right now we’ll focus on consolidating those two assets and extracting all the value we want to get from there. But again, if an opportunity to infill a nearby opportunity that can provide feed at low cost into that mill, those the kind of things that we'll continue to look for. In that part of the world and then, on Dumont the focus is really going to be on finding a funding partner to take it into construction as quickly as possible.

Matthew Gordon: Sorry I will get onto Dumont, just want to very quickly finish off on Beta Hunt because there's a lot been going on and you've done everything in such an accelerated timeframe, it's been quite impressive. Only ASIC, what are the other things that you're looking at reducing the ASIC, because the ASIC around $1100 at the moment, you need to get that down, what's happening?

Mark Selby: Yeah, I know I mean the key things going forward, one's obviously the milling cost, two is going to be scaling up the mining operation there again, there's a bunch of fixed costs at a mine if you can increase the reach your mining at, that's going to help bring down those costs going forward. A lot of the drilling results that have been exciting in the Western Flanks area. This structure looks like it's getting quite large and that creates, gives you more flexibility in terms of being able to use lower cost mining methods to pull that ore out and then, as I mentioned earlier, we'll be looking to have discussions with the royalty company at the right time, in terms is there a change to that royalty structure that makes sense for both of us.

Matthew Gordon: You mentioned technology there, I mean is that an outsourced thing or do you have your own in-house team managing a technical component?

Mark Selby: In terms of the mine itself we have our inside technical services group.

Matthew Gordon: Right okay great, so let's get back to Dumont. It's a huge, huge operation. You talked about JV, finding the right partner to JV with. You've begun conversations?

Mark Selby: We've had discussions again, given our relationships in the nickel industry, we have no other leading players in Japan and Korea and elsewhere and so,  nickel prices spiked in 2014-15 briefly. But at that time, we advanced discussions with a number of groups to provide different components to the financing package. Today, it's just a matter of we've kept a number of those discussions warm so it's just a matter of once this updated feasibility study out those will kickstart discussions going forward.

Matthew Gordon: So, outwards like Q3 of this year?

Mark Selby: It'll be up this quarter at some point.

Matthew Gordon: Right, right, fantastic, OK, so everyone sitting back, waiting, waiting to see what's happening. So how much time do you allocate? I mean I look at the board and  they've got a lot of advisers there. It's grown rapidly as well. Some pretty big names on there. I mean how much are you allocating between the different assets? Because you've also got three different exploration assets as well, haven't you?

Mark Selby: Yeah, another key thing there is again, I mean we have people and teams are dedicated to each of those asset groups so again, given the activity  and the focus of the company right now, is gold and Beta Hunt. I'm spending large majority of my time now on Beta Hunt right now, but there is a block of time when Dumont and then, again, we've got some great people with David Christie running Orford, he doesn't need too much help from me in terms of dragging that asset board.

Matthew Gordon: What I'd like to do now, I know we don't have much time today, but I'd like to come back to have a conversation with you another time around the technical components of the assets and perhaps that's something we can do with you. With the time we've got left, can we talk about the finances and financings so even recently, a financing 12 $M why did you do that and what are you going to do with it?

Mark Selby: Again, we had this coming, a 25 $M AUD potential payment if we had to exercise the option again, the risk of announcing an option to do something without the financing fully in place at that point, is the market sells off in advance thinking that you're going to come to the market with the big raise. So, we thought it was important to do that raise at that point in time. If the deal did not go forward, we'd be able to use that cash to do more exploration at Beta Hunt. I've said to investors before, I said you know if there's someone like a Osisko on this asset, there'd be 12 drill rigs going. There's just that many targets to go after and so, we put that in place with that and with the financing that were looking at right now and again we're making good progress on a number of non diluted financing opportunities. We'll have the cash that we need to complete the deal and the cash we’ll need to continue to move those assets going forward.

Matthew Gordon: Obviously, the large nuggets that are at the end of their world tour, perhaps a citation about that?

Mark Selby: We're monetizing those.

Matthew Gordon: Can you give us a sense of what they're worth because I'm not quite sure how you go about selling something like that?

Mark Selby: Yeah, basically I mean we're looking at premium somewhere we've been offered somewhere between fifty and a hundred percent type pre news for most of the most of the stones, so we'll be working with some advisors to get those out the door sooner than later.

Matthew Gordon: Right, right but no sense of what range you'd expect?

Mark Selby: Fifty to hundred percent premium on top of the gold value.

Matthew Gordon: Right but do you know what that build value is?

Mark Selby: Yeah, we do, I mean we have almost 4000 ounces and specimens that are there 2000-4000 ounces of value.

Matthew Gordon: Do the maths, yeah okay. I mentioned you're a rather impressive board and you've also got impressive shareholders not least of which is Mr. Eric Sprott what's his involvement, is he involved back to playing the business or is he just a shareholder?

Mark Selby: I think he's just a shareholder. We do talk from time to time and he also publicly expressed his opinions as well. I think the key thing is he likes high-grade gold exposure as soon. As the announcement came out of the fall, he acquired his position at that point in time. When we first discovered gold, a high-grade gold traditionally where it was found at Bate Hunt alongside the nickel deposits, he had become an investor at that point in time as well. So, he basically came back in and enough disposition and we're great to have a really great gold investor like Eric involved in that.

Matthew Gordon: For sure, but he has been vocal in the market. He said that he’d like more guidance from the company. Do you think it’s  a fair comment?

Mark Selby: It's again not typical of a junior to have two major assets and to just sum it up, you've got gold in Australia and nickel in Quebec and so, I think investors including him kind of want to know where we are, where we're going with both and I think once the feasibility study at Dumont, we're kind of talking about what's going to happen on that front. I think we'll be very clear to investors there. Again, just want to drive home, most of my net worth is tied up in this company and so, I'm not here to build an empire. I'm here to create value for shareholders and if it means both those assets get sold by September great, if it means we have to continue to advance and develop them for another 12 months then we'll continue over that timeframe.

Matthew Gordon: Okay, that's fair enough. I think your answer would be that it's a fair comment you're looking to issue more guidance and you're looking to create more value because you're aligned with shareholders.

Mark Selby: Yeah, right more than already, you matter for sure and again I think we have a gold investing base today and I again think for those gold shareholders are nervous that we're going to sort of cross subsidize things or sort of muck things up a little bit to be very, very clear, there is a pile of cash in the Dumont joint venture that is funding those activities and so today that Dumont is a self-funding entity, asset at this point in time.

Matthew Gordon: Which is great, I mean that's fantastic for shareholders. But when do you think the entire operation becomes self funding, because obviously, people they're looking at their shares to go from value, so self funding is the moment where things get exciting.

Mark Selby: I mean I think again with Dumont to be able to take it to the next stage beyond a feasibility study is really to do a construction decision and at that point in time we'd like to have a big project partner come in and work with us and Waterton in terms of being able to buy the remaining capital that will take it through to production. That hopefully, the amount of dilution that's required to get that project going will be very low or zero going for it. Again, we can spin that out in a separate entity, we can joint venture in a separate entity with somebody else. There's a full range of options that were open to and looking at.