44 minute interview with CEO Greg Johnson
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1646191/9661452-55-metallica-minerals-mmg-greg-johnson
Geologist in his twenties up in Alaska.
Worked in Africa,Russia,Australia New Guineau-worked in some of Placer Dome's largest mining operations.
As an Exploration Geoogist I was trained to recognise something of significance-a mineral system of significance when you see it-the targets that a big company looks for.The hallmarks that they look for.
That's the key approach of the companies I have been involved with-apply that knowledge and learnings so that we target things big
companies are looking for and that benefits our shareholders.
Canada is a lower risk jurisdiction (+ older US districts) and is valued higher.Political risk is real and it should be part of the value equation.
Opportunity being a North American company,as we are,AND find something of scale of a major's interest then you've really got something that will stand out.
Investors: You want to know that those exploration companies have people that have experience in discovery,advancing a project and raising capital.
Make something that will create value.
An exploration team with a track record of experience.
Discovery with scale of significance-that interests the majors.It has to be big enough to interest a major.
Team can relay their exploration success to investors.
Political jurisdiction that is favourable.
Those are ingredients for a real success.
The team here-a lot of them came from Nova Gold.A number of world-class discoveries in North America and the world ,taking them from
early stage to feasibility and creating capital.
We built Nova Gold from a micro-cap $10 million exploration-stage company to over $2 billion. Finding,growing,de-risking.
18:00 Talks Keno Hill District
World-class.Very,very high grade.
40 mines historically with 100 million oz deposits
Extending knowledge from the west into the east and as we have done before we are applying new exploration models and technology
to basically build on what's known and try to apply it for the potential of another world class discovery at Keno Hill.
The key is grade and structure continuouty-big enough package to be mineable/economical.
This is a 35 kilometre long district with dozens of mines that have produced.
The size is amazing-as big as Toronto-going from one side of the district system to the other.
22:00
2021 drill program:
Biggest DP to date.
Multi-pronged focus.
3 Advanced stage areas/targets that we are building into initial resources.Classic high-grade,silver-rich veins like Alexco (western targets).
Very large-scale geophysical anomolies in the east. Primary silver,bulk tonnage. 70-100m wide zones that are continuous-some of them. Bulk-tonnage.
Still primary silver.This is something we don't see a lot in silver.
There are a few examples...Penasquito mine operated by Newmont in Mexico is a billion oz silver deposit,open pit-bulk tonnage.
This really got the team thinking about -wow- maybe we have a system , that can be related to a porphyry system, an obtrusive that's driven a much larger...maybe even the source for all the deposits at Keno.
We continued to drill next to those hits we made last year.Offsetting those discovery holes -going laterally,deeper,trying to put together the geometry.
What's the orientation of this? How thick is this? What's the grade going to be?
We are still waiting for final assay results but the geophysics,the soils working to target-what we can see in the core and reverse circulation -we're hitting sulphides and we're hitting structure so we are pretty excited we are onto something really significant in the east.
Bulk tonnage: We are targetting right at surface.Potential here -Alexco is drilling a kilometer down from surface and hitting- we are seeing high grade structures but
because we are seeing zones of 100 meters or greater in width we might be able to open pit mine.That means cost is lower: 1/10th the cost of underground mining.
Grade is lower but the same economics. At 1/10th the grade ...but if we put enough of it together you can really create significant value.
We're really excited of the potential at having more of what we see on the West but also these bulk tonnage systems that can really add up to much larger size.
26:00
Talks La Plata
Looking to fast-track a resource.
Big enough for a copper major to be interested with a sweetener of precious metals credits.
30:00
Klondike Alluvial projects
This area is one of the biggest discoveries in the Klondike in the last twenty years-the scale of it.
We are the landowners and we are leasing out ground to experienced operators that build the roads,do the exploration and bulk samples -then its already permitted
for them to go into production.
They then produce and we take 10-15%.
Four operators in place and we expect commercial production in 2022.
Room for 10-15 more operators upstream.Working on permitting but the success on the lower parts it will be easy to attract high-quality operators.
No risk to us-not putting any capital out but we will take direct production in the royalty and see if it scales up.
Initial days.... we are looking at something to offset our costs to run the company -very similar to the early days at Nova Gold where we had a sand and gravel businessat Gnome ,Alaska that helped to keep the lights on during the bear market.Then over time we see this as a nice royalty portfolio that we either keep intact,monetize or even spin it out.We'll wait and see how it develops.Initial production in 2022 from our first four operators.
We lease so that we can maintain standards and we have more control than a passive royalty holder.
Our experience is acquiring ground,permitting and developing so we can help those guys add value.
Big difference from hard rock to alluvial is the permitting process is six months rather than two to three years.
Allows you to fast track into production.
These are big open-pit operations that use gravity and water and no chemicals.
36:00
Catalysts:
Series of NR's from Keno.
La Plata wrapping up and so is the Alluvial district.
Drill results and geophysical at Keno.
Results from confirmatory drilling at La Plata.
Initial drilling and bulk sampling at the Alluvial.
We expect as large or larger drill programs in 2022.
Yukon drilling is May - October . That's the sweet spot.
If you have a camp and are winterized they can be operated year round.
Talks about Eric Sprott and his willingness to take risks:
Erik was an early investor at Nova Gold.
When he believes in something he really goes after it.
That is something I aspire to.
He pounds the table bullish on silver.
There aren't a lot of names to invest in silver.