Q&A with Everton Resources (TSX: V.EVR) President, CEO, and Chairman Andre Audet
Can you describe Everton and say what it does?
Everton Resources (TSX: V.EVR, Stock Forum) is a very promising junior exploration company with prospects in the Dominican Republic and Quebec. The company provides investors with an exceptional portfolio of active projects, an attractive low valuation, a strong business model and a good management team.
Where are your key projects?
Our focus is really in two primary areas: Dominican Republic and Quebec. In DR, we have several targets within 10km of three existing mines: Perilya/Cormidom’s Cerro de Maimon Mine, Xstrata’s Falcondo Mine and Barrick/Goldcorp’s Pueblo Viejo Mine, which is the second-largest gold mine in the Western Hemisphere.
Tell me about your flagship project and what’s unique about it?
Our flagship project is what we call APV, or Ampliacion Pueblo Viejo, which is Spanish and translates to mean extension to amplify Pueblo Viejo (Barrick Goldcorp’s mine), which is a massive 30,000 M oz deposit. Our 30,000 hectare land holding is surrounded by three producing mines, so that’s pretty unique.
APV property is divided into three project areas: APV North, APV Central and APV South. We are pretty confident that the Pueblo Viejo trend comes onto our property based on all the structural work we have done to date, which includes: mapping, sampling, satellite imagery and we’ve done some drilling.
During November and December 2012, we carried out a detailed sampling and mapping survey in the southern sector of the APV project, adjacent to the Monte Negro pit of the Pueblo Viejo mine. A total of 140 auger soils and rock samples were collected and are now being assayed and analyzed. We plan to follow up on these results with a close spaced diamond drilling program and a deep penetration ground IP survey aimed at locating and defining any possible structurally controlled mineralization in this sector.
What are your plans for the APV project?
The plan for 2013 is to drill; we need a massive drill program on this property. We are currently in preliminary discussions with different companies as we want a partner to help move this project forward because it needs more than just a few drill holes. We completed about 12 ourselves and the results are promising but it’s still going to need about 50-100 drill holes in order to extract the value. However, because of market conditions and our financial situation, which is ok, we are looking to joint venture the project in order to help fund the work. We are talking with some of the majors and other companies that want to get a foothold into the DR. The DR has become a really hot destination with the results from other companies, which has really put the DR on the map. Not to mention the fact that Pueblo Viejo has now reached commercial production. We believe that will stimulate some interest too.
Do you have any other projects?
We have eight other concessions in the DR that we want to move forward. But those, we think, we can do ourselves because these deposits are on surface, unlike APV where we need to go deeper.
Our second most important concession in DR is Pun-Ponton; we’ve done all the preliminary work such as sampling, rock sampling, mapping and we’re bringing in an IP System to do some geophysics in the next few months and then we plan to drill after that.
We think this is potentially a new discovery; we are very excited about the Pun-Ponton Project. We think it has the potential to host a VMS and also epithermal type of deposit like Pueblo Viejo. So the IP system should come in the next few months, which will help refine our drill targets and then as soon as we get the environmental permit, which should be forthcoming over the next 2 – 3 months, then we plan to drill. This one we’ll drill ourselves because it’s on surface.
Tell me about your project in Quebec
We are exploring in the Opinaca region of James Bay, Quebec, where the company has amassed a large land claim adjacent to Goldcorp’s Eleonore gold deposit. We have an impressive land position with over 699 km².
For this project, we’ve partnered with Aurizon Mines. They are spending $9 million in exploration over a 4-5 year period to earn a 50% interest. Right now, they are into their third year option and they are planning a drill program.
Although, I should mention, recently there was an announcement by Alamos Gold to takeover Aurizon Mines so we’ll have to see what affect this has on our project. Hopefully it will fast track our project!
The work Aurizon has done to date has identified a multi-kilometer gold corridor, which was based on rock sampling, surface sampling and they are quite excited about the project. This project is carried right to feasibility for us.
Why should our audience be interested in Everton?
There is no company out there, I believe, that is adjacent to a massive gold deposit such as Pueblo Viejo, the second largest gold mine in the Western Hemisphere. Our project has similar geology, we’ve done all the preliminary work, we have multiple targets that are drill ready. So we are poised for discovery; we’re in a mining friendly area – the DR has a history of mining.
On a finance side, we have the finances to carry this through. We have an experienced management team and also our in-country team has been around for over 25 years. We have a strong news flow coming out over the next few months because of our planned activities. We believe we will see strong metal prices, which will support our activities. And finally, we think we are extremely undervalued with a market cap now of about $9 million, which is extremely low!
Disclosure: Everton Resources is a Stockhouse client.