As the metals & mining exploration landscape evolves, Nevada-based gold-silver explorer
Ridgeline Minerals (Ridgeline) (
TSX-V.RDG,
OTC: RDGMF,
WKN: A2QBQ4Forum) is also focused on evolving. Ridgeline leverages new technologies, extensive experience and an industry-leading strategic drilling contract to operate efficiently and produce new gold discoveries. This company is dedicated to transparency and says its bottom line is to increase shareholder value with every project they undertake. A young and hungry team, Ridgeline is doing gold exploration differently and the results already speak volumes.
Ridgeline has four projects encompassing over 125 square kilometres – Carlin-East, Bell Creek, Swift and Selena, represent district-scale land packages along the Carlin and Battle Mountain-Eureka trends of Nevada, one of the world’s most prolific mining jurisdictions. The company is strategically positioning itself to become a major player in this world-class mining region and in it’s short time as a public company has already been credited with a discovery at its Selena project.
Stockhouse Editorial recently reached out to President, CEO & Director, Chad Peters to update us on the Company’s latest results from its drill programs at its Swift, and Selena Projects, the Company’s general strategy and business model, and all things Ridgeline Minerals.
SH: Thanks for spending some time with us today at Stockhouse, Chad. Ridgeline Minerals currently boasts one of the largest land packages controlled by a junior explorer in Nevada, and as you say in your corporate deck, “Finding Nevada’s Next Gold Discovery.” How is Ridgeline Minerals planning to make this happen?
CP: Thanks for having me, we’re really excited about the exploration portfolio we’ve assembled in Nevada which offers district-scale exposure to both shallow-oxide and high-grade underground gold-silver targets. We may need to consider changing that tagline though as we recently announced a new oxide silver-gold discovery at our Selena project that looks like it has the potential to grow significantly. It’s a testament to our teams systematic and data-driven approach to exploration and makes for a pretty compelling story when you combine it with our strategic drilling contract provided by Ridgeline co-founder, Steve Neilsen.
SH: That brings me to my next question. Your company has the strategic drilling contract which is somewhat unique to the space. Can you highlight the competitive advantages that come along with that?
CP: Well, I co-founded Ridgeline in 2018 alongside a long-time friend and business partner Steve Neilsen, who also happened to be the owner of a drilling company. The premise was to build a low-cost, discovery focused explorer and the strategic drilling contract is a foundational piece to our business model. It allows us to drill more meters with every dollar than our peers, which increases our odds of making a discovery early and it’s already working. We made a grassroots discovery at our Selena project in our first four months as a public company and I think that’s just the beginning for Ridgeline.
SH: Among the Company’s more noteworthy projects are Carlin-East and Bell Creek – gold exploration prospects where a recent magnetics geophysical survey has identified a buried intrusive complex underpinning a highly anomalous Au-As-Sb geochemical anomaly at surface. What exactly makes these deposits so intriguing?
CP: Some of the largest gold deposits in Nevada such as Nevada Gold Mine’s Goldstrike and Leeville mines are located directly adjacent to large buried intrusives. These intrusives provide the necessary heat and fluid source to create a large gold deposit and the buried intrusion we’ve identified at Carlin-East is only 4 kilometers northeast of the Goldstrike and Leeville Mines. The combination of a buried intrusive at depth and strong geochemical anomalies at surface make both Carlin-East and Bell Creek priority exploration targets for us moving forward.
SH: Carlin-East is a Carlin-Type gold exploration project located within the prolific Carlin Trend. What exactly are Carlin-Type deposits and what makes them different from, for example, epithermal veins or greenstone-hosted deposits?
CP: Carlin-Type gold deposits (CTGD) are most commonly found in Nevada and characterized as sediment hosted, disseminated gold deposits. They are not vein-hosted like many epithermal or greenstone hosted systems but due to the style of mineralization they have the potential to be huge. Many of the CTGD’s currently being mined by Nevada Gold Mines exceed 10+ million ounces of total gold reserves.
SH: RDG is primarily gold focused, but your Selena project hit a huge silver discovery (i.e. 36.6 m @ 67.1 g/t silver and 0.26 g/t gold and 3 m @ 792.3 g/t silver and 0.41 g/t gold) which has to feel great. Can you talk a bit about these recent drill results?
CP: The silver discovery at Selena was a bit of a surprise for us to be honest. We originally approached Selena as a gold target but our 2020 trenching and drilling has instead defined a silver discovery with a gold kicker. Oxide mineralization outcrops at surface with drilling to-date showing impressive continuity for over a kilometer along dip and strike, which has our team pretty excited. It’s still early-days but results so far suggest potential to define a bulk tonnage, open-pit scenario if we keep-on hitting.
SH: When we think about the silver grades and the open pit potential of your new discovery, what is most important for investors to understand?
CP: Many investors are accustomed to high-grade, underground silver deposits such as those commonly found in Mexico and the western US. However, these deposits usually require exceptionally high-grade silver grades to be economic. What we’ve discovered at Selena is different, its shallow and its oxide, which means it could potentially be mined using heap-leach processing techniques which is incredibly low-cost compared to a typical underground mine. For a bit of context, the average head grade of one of the only silver dominant open-pit mines in Nevada is the Rochester mine at roughly 15 g/t silver and 0.09 g/t gold. We’re not saying we have the next Rochester mine, but our initial grades at 67.1 g/t silver and 0.26 g/t gold so far are very encouraging.
SH: Your land package is quite diversified with four projects in the shadows of some major past discoveries. What are some of the highlights should shareholders and potential investors should take note of here?
CP: What really changed things for us was when we acquired Carlin-East and Swift in 2019. These are district-scale projects that are directly on-trend of world-class mines and they hadn’t seen a sustained exploration effort in over 30 years. Nevada Gold Mines (a JV between Barrick Gold and Newmont Corp.) is now thinking the same way and are ramping up exploration efforts on their side of the property boundaries. They just finished drilling a high-priority target roughly 250 meters west of our Bell Creek project and also announced their North Leeville discovery in 2020, which drilled 21.3m @ 35.3 g/t gold only 2.5 km south of our Carlin-East project. You want to know the best place to find gold, start next to an existing gold mine!
SH: Your management team has collectively discovered over 20 million ounces of gold in Nevada. Can you elaborate on your team’s experience?
CP: Our technical team is led by our VP. Exploration Mike Harp who was the senior geologist on the discovery of over 5 Moz. of gold on the Carlin Trend with Gold Standard Ventures. As Premier Gold’s US Exploration Manager I led a great team on the discovery of the 1.6 Moz. Au, high-grade CSD Gap deposit in 2016. We’re lucky to have Lewis Teal as our technical committee lead and independent director. Lew and his team at Newmont made multiple discoveries in the 1990’s, many of which are still operating today including the Leeville mine, which exceeded 10+ Moz. Au last time I checked.
SH: You’ve built trust with investors by following through on every promise made to date. That must feel good! You have been quoted as saying you have “an honest, systematic approach to exploration.” What does that message mean to your company and shareholders as a whole?
CP: As Ridgeline’s largest individual shareholder its incredibly important for me to be transparent with our shareholders. Not every drill hole will be a knockout success, that’s the nature of the business. In order to build trust with our shareholder base it’s important to set clear goals and then follow through.
SH: You’re planning a 5,000 meter drill program for 2021 with targeting and expansion possibilities on the horizon. What is most exciting about this new drilling program?
CP: I’d say 5,000 meters is our minimum target for 2021 at this point. We will be drilling our new discovery at Selena in the spring to prove it has significant growth potential while also focusing on follow-up programs at both Swift and Carlin-East, which both have incredible discovery potential. We think the Selena discovery in 2020 is just the start and 2021 will be a big year for the company.
SH: Finally, Chad, it would be remiss of me not to mention your stock has had a very nice bump over the last month. What can you tell our investor audience regarding the current valuation of your stock and why you think it’s still a good buy right now?
CP: We had a strong finish to 2020 but we still believe we’re undervalued (says every mining CEO, right?). We have an incredible exploration portfolio highlighted by a new silver-gold oxide discovery, a solid capital structure and we’re well funded to go-out and keep adding value per share in 2021. I’m certainly biased but if you’re looking for upside in Nevada, I think we’re a great investment.
For more information, visit
ridgelineminerals.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.