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When a gold exploration project’s interim resource estimate already exceeds the target for the preliminary feasibility study, metals & mining investor take note.
And such is the case with Scottsdale, AZ-based gold exploration and development company
TriStar Gold Inc. (TSG) (
TSX-V.TSG,
OTCQB: TSGZF,
Forum) and its flagship property Castelo de Sonhos located in Brazil’s Pará State. TriStar is an exploration and development company focused on precious metals properties in the Americas that have the potential to become significant producing mines.
Stockhouse Media’s Dave Jackson was joined by TriStar’s President and CEO, Nick Appleyard, to get an update on Castelo de Sonhos Project and all things TriStar Gold.
TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
SH: To start off with, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the history of the company?
NA: Okay. I'm a Geo from Western Australia originally. I've been working in the last 25 years now in South America, between Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and a bit of Nevada as well up in the US. That's, that's my background as a development geologist, not exploration, not production development, the middle of it. And then Tristar as a single asset company, we've got a great project in Brazil that we're moving forward. I hope to tell you all about today, but it's pretty exciting.
SH: Can you update our investor audience and your TriStar shareholders on all the new company developments, especially in the wake of COVID-19 in Brazil?
NA: Brazil is getting hit pretty hard. And you know, most of the people who follow us know that we're doing a pre-feasibility study right now advancing the project. De-Risking it moving it forward that has been impacted slightly by COVID the labs have been shut. You can't get people into the country, but what that's meant for us is just a know six months delay on the publication of the PFS, but we're now back moving full steam ahead, and we anticipate having a pre-feasibility study out this summer.
SH: As I briefly mentioned in the intro, you’ve recently released an updated a mineral resource estimate at Castelo de Sonhos. Can you expand on the results for our investor audience?
NA: We publisheda PEA in 2018 that had a conceptual production of 1.1 million ounces of gold and some great economics. And that triggered us to, “This is a great project. We got to move it forward”. So we decided to replicate that in a pre-feasibility study. So to produce about 1.1 million ounces, we figured we needed at least 1.3 million ounces of indicated resources to be allowed to use in the PFS. We raised money, Royal Gold came in saw some value and they invested into a royalty. And we plan on drilling to get to 1.3 million ounces. We realized the other day that we'd sort of overshot it as you said. So we announced our resource estimate and 1.5 million ounces in the indicated category at the grade we wanted.It wasn't like a dropping grade and the left; it was the grade stayed the same and we got more of it. So it was really good and there's more to come. That's the other good bit, you know, just for the labs down, it's going to be a month or two, but for that additional data to come in and it won't move much. It'll just grow up a little bit more from here, but yeah,we were super excited to have how to target and overshot it and, and we've still got a little bit more to come.
SH: The project also demonstrated excellent results from exploration drilling in addition to the work on that aforementioned PFS. Now, the Company looks set for strong growth in this year. How are you placed to expand operations?
NA: Yeah, so right nowwe've got that 1.5 million ounces in the indicated resources, which will roll into the PFS.On top of that, we've got about 700,000 ounces in additional resources in the inferred category. And what we're doing this year, we've got a budget for about 20,000 meters of drilling where we're going to try and expand that inferred category resources out and hit some new targets and grow that as much as we can. So for me, that's sort of like the cream on the cake and the PFS is adding significant value anyway, and it's going to be a great project. And if we can just show that it gets bigger or goes for longer,like I said, it's just more creamon the one line, you know,
SH: What makes this particular gold project so intriguing for shareholders and potential investors?
NA: For me, having developed quite a few projects over the last 15 years, the intriguing issue on this one is its simplicity. It's really simple. It's shallow. We draw a hundred-meter holes by some 120-meter holes was just scratching the surface. The metal is the simplest I've ever seen. The terrain is simple. We have the location; we have the infrastructure. We haven't come across one aspect of it yet, which sort of goes into, okay, here's the hard bit we've got to deal with. It's all very straightforward, very simple. We're at 20 kilometers off a highway, we've got a power line going by us. Let's say it's very shallow. And it's in a good location to permit. So really, it's the simplest. And there's having developed assets in, high in the Andes and under highways in Nevada. Simplicity has a massive value, you know, and allow things to move forward faster, and it'll allow them to, you know, get permanent and get built and profitably.
SH: The junior sector, including TriStar stock, has been on a bit of a roller coaster ride the past 12 months. What can you tell our investors regarding the current valuation of your stock and why you think it’s a good buy right now?
NA: You’re rightfor sure on the rollercoaster. You know, some days I don't understand what's happening out there, but really the work we've done and looking at it internally, understanding our own share price and their own valuation, generally in countries like Brazil, Colombia, Chile, maybe Central America. If you've got a PA, you've got a conceptual study, you're going to trade between 0.1 and two times the NAV of that study. When you get to a PFS, you're going to start to travel, try to like half 0.5 times the NAV. So we're looking at that rewriting coming up in the next couple of months. If we rewrite like that, that's quite a jump in share price, you know, from a where we're in the middle of where we are, should be for a PA level study and that PFS should get us a good rewriting.
And I think on top of that, the permitting activities are going to knock down some risks, things that people worry about. People worry about. I do hear people worrying about Brazil and it was really interesting the other day, when Kitco published the top 10 producing gold mines in Brazil, I mean in South America. Three of them were in Brazil. So it is really a good jurisdiction. We're in the best jurisdiction in Brazil. So you got an asset that's moving forward, being de-risked moving up the value curve in a great jurisdiction. I mean, it's got everything going for it.
SH: Can you discuss the long-term strategy for the company moving into 2021 and beyond, and what retail and institutional investors should be looking out for?
NA: Okay. So our strategy as a company, we have a great team. I mean, every CEO says that, but we have a team that is focused. We know our job; we know what we're good at. We can take a project from a discovery through to like production decision. We can take it through to full feasibility, permanent project. So then someone else has got to run it and build it and run it. We haven't got the skillset internally for that. So what we're going to be doing is we're going to complete the PFS here and then move it forward, straight into permitting, straight into final feasibility to re have it shovel-ready in 12 to 18 months. That's the work we'll be doing. But in parallel with that, we'll be looking for a partner to come in. Who's going to come in and who wants to mine this, or build this in mine this, and how do they want to do it. But also, and I think it's important. I don't want to leave any value on the table for the next group of shareholders. I want that to go to my shareholders. That's why we're doing this 20,000 meters of exploration to unlock that additional value on top of that, you know, the plus 2 million ounces we've got already, you know,
SH: And finally, Nick, if there’s anything I’ve overlooked please feel free to elaborate.
NA: I'm trying to think, I think we've hit it in this one. The beauty is in the simplicity, you know, next to a highway, it's going to be a mine. We've got a good community next to us and we're coming up to a perfect storm. We're getting this PFS out, we'll get the real work done on that.We are doing the permitting. And then we've got this that, you can do the Creamer. You can say, that's the steak, we've got the sizzle from the expiration, which might provide something. It might not. But if it does, it's just adding more value. You know? So I think from an investor point of view, if you know, you got a floor on you, you got a real project moving forward and you've got upside expiration excitement, if you want it, you know, that's our story.
For more information on TriStar Gold Inc., please visit their website at
tristargold.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.