European Gold Forum - Kootenay`s Webcast PresentationKootenay`s CEO seems to understand the enormous potential of La Cigarra, just like us former Northair shareholders. It`s good to hear that Kootenay has the same vision. I`ve always left that La Cigarra has 200 - 400 million ounce potential for silver, similar to the 2 giants mines (20 km) to the south, along the same fault structure. Those 2 mines produced around 700 million ounces over 400 years of mining - never mind the huge base metals. Santa Barbara goes down for well over 1 km and is still open at depth. Once Kootenay begin mining La Cigarra, they will find that the mineralized structures go on forever, or so it will seem. Just like the way it was for the 2 giant mines to the south.
La Cigarra is a huge company maker asset, and the market never understood that - and they still don`t today. I think it just a matter of time before the light bulb goes off. We haven`t even found the loaded feeder zones as yet. They are sitting there. It`s just a matter of time. Perhaps that is when the market will clue in.
Drilling at Ram Zone may start in June. Ram Zone is 3.8 km long, and could be one of the feeder zones. Either way, it has excellent potential for high grade veins.
Per the CEO, current plans are for Kootenay to advance La Cigarra itself, and bring in to production.
At the 8 minute mark he talks about what we have discussed on this blog, with regards to Pan American`s Alamo Dorado plant. Pan American is considering moving it up to La Negra and using it for La Negra production. This will have significant capex savings. It`s especially good for Kootenay, as less capex to pay back means we start realizing our 25% profit distribution earlier (instead of being capped at 10%.
Another huge benefit I didn`t realize before is there are significant tax loss savings. They will be able to apply those to production, resulting in increased profits. It means our dollar distribution will be greater during the first few years of the tax off application,
The CEO says that exploration at La Negra/Promontorio is a big priority for Pan American. They plan on drilling it in 2016, but haven`t but together the budget as yet.
He didn`t mention this (but I know this from the Pan American numbers), Pan American has almost $300 milion in cash and almost $400 million in working capital, with very little (almost no) debt, and huge cash flows coming in 2016 and 2017. Pam American will be able to fund La Negra mine through internal cash.
Kootenay is performing dd on a number of other projects to acquire. However, they will only do further acquisitions if the acquisition costs are lower thant he costs to explore for new ounces.
https://www.europeangoldforum.org/egf16/egf16-webcast/webcast-stream/