(Click image to play video)
Get to know the precious metals explorer that’s gaining the attention and financial clout of billionaire mining investor Eric Sprott and has been called one of the 'the Best Values in the Space'.
Metallic Minerals Corp. (
TSX-V.MMG,
OTCMKTS: MMNGF,
Forum) is a Canadian, multi-project mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition and development of high-grade silver and gold projects within underexplored districts proven to produce top-tier assets.
Metallic's core Keno Silver Project is located in the Yukon’s historic Keno Hill Silver District – a region that has produced over 200 million ounces of silver and currently hosts one of the world's highest-grade silver resources. The Company’s La Plata silver-gold-copper project is located in the high-grade La Plata district of the prolific Colorado Mineral Belt and its McKay Hill project northeast of Keno Hill is a high-grade historic silver-gold producer.
Stockhouse Media’s Dave Jackson recently caught up with the man behind this successful, highly-diversified exploration company – Chief Executive Officer, Greg Johnson.
TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
SH: To start off with, Greg, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the history of the Metallic Minerals?
GJ:Well, Metallic Minerals is a relatively new company. We started the company in 2016 really anticipating an inflection point in the bear market ahead and seeing it as an excellent opportunity to start making acquisitions during that bear market part of the cycle to create value for the shareholders. My own background, I started out as an exploration geologists originally with Placer Dome, which merged with Barrick Gold. You may recall some years ago, went on to co-found NovaGold Resources with myself, and a number of other exploration geologists. We proceeded to grow that company from a $10 million market cap to over a $2 billion company when I left in 2010. And with the start of the Metallic Group, this is my seventh group of companies that we've been building. So we've got a long track record. Many of the people working here with me are former NovaGold alumni as well. You have people from Ivanhoe Group and others. So it's a group, that's got a tremendous track record of exploration, discoveries, and advancement to create shareholder value.
SH: Can you update our investor audience and your M-M-G shareholders on all of the new company developments, especially in the wake of COVID-19?
GJ:Last year was a challenging year for all companies and many of us didn't know whether we were going to have expiration programs. We completed the $8 million financing led by Canaccord Genuity in August of 2020 that allowed us to launch an expanded expiration program on our Keno Silver project. So turned out despite COVID, making all the precautions that we were able to put together one of the biggest exploration programs in the company's relatively short history at Keno Hill. We've recently been announcing some of the results from that program, both on our more advanced stage targets, as well as the earlier stage product targets and new discoveries that we made recently on the project.
SH: You recently announced results from the first drilling program ever completed on the eastern part of the Keno Hill silver district. Can you expand on these results and any new discoveries for our investor audience?
GJ:Yeah, so this is really quite exciting. When we look holistically at the Keno was silver district, you know, we see a district here that's already, as you said, produced 200 million ounces at a hundred million ounces of new resources. So it's not only an historic district, but it's a district that's showing new discoveries of significance are being made and it's growing. And that's dominantly on the Western half of a district that production has come and from the recent discoveries by our neighbor Alexco Resources, but on the Eastern half of the district where we've focused much of our recent work, we've got the same geologic setting. As you see on the West. It was under explored in the past for a number of reasons. One of them was that it was very path work land ownership before we consolidated it. And secondly, it wasn't road accessible.
So it made it a challenging area to work in, but geologically, it shares many of the same characteristics that we see on the more well explored Western part of the district. So following up work from 2018 and 2019 in the Eastern part, we identified 12 new multi kilometer scale targets on the East, and it never been drilled. And late last fall, we managed to drill the first reconnaissance holes and one of those large targets one of the 12 and the outcome of that was 26 out of 30 drill holes hitting 30 separate intervals of significant silver mineralization and a new factor being that six intercepts were up to 40 meters wide, continuous bulk tonnage mineralization. So quite an exciting development for that, that first out of the shoot exploration program on the eastern side of the district effectively they've expanded the district by 10 kilometers east. And it's demonstrated that not only does the eastern side of the district have the same characteristics as the West, but that we might have not only a high-grade classic discreet style veins, but tonnage potential.
SH: These drill samples also follow up on some ultra high-grade silver results – one of them coming in at more than 5,000 grams-per-ton from Keno in June 2020. These are very impressive numbers. Greg, can you unpack them?
GJ:We just announced results this week that you were referring to from our Formo target area, which is one of our advanced stage targets on the Western side of the district who were following up work from underground sampling that had some, you know, as you say, multi thousand gram per time values historically. So the objective of this program that we just announced was to go in and do confirmatory drilling ourselves, drove 12 drill holes. We hit in, in basically 11 of the 12 holes hit their objectives and delivered some really spectacular numbers, a six-meter-wide interval that was running several thousand grams per ton of four-meter-wide interval, 2,500 grams per ton. So really demonstrating the caliber of that system. And that system is right on trend with a couple of the largest producers in the belt. So out of headframe exploration doing what you kind of hope it would do, which is to demonstrate once you get on a good productive structure and the heat like following that out, you've got a good chance for making a new discovery.
SH: There’s also been recent major high-grade discoveries at Alexco’s nearby Bermingham and Flame & Moth deposits. What does this mean for Keno and the future exploration programs in the region?
GJ:Yeah, so we, we actually see a step back when we first came into the district in 2016, we saw the Keno Hill silver district as really underexplored in terms of its ultimate potential. I think the team at Alexco would agree with that when we compare it geologically, it's very similar to the Coeur d'Alene district in the U S which has produced over 2 billion ounces of silver over the last 140 years. They are now mining at three kilometers depth at quarter lane by contrast Keno, you know we've seen some on and off mining and exploration on the Western half of the district that's produced, you know, 200 million ounces and the deepest mine was just 300 meters from surface. So we see this as a district that has the potential to be a billion plus ounce silver district which is some of the biggest districts in the world or in that billion plus ounce range. It just needs further exploration. And in particular going deeper, which is what Alexco is having the great success that you mentioned that Bermingham and Flame & Moth continuing to find more and going out along those major productive trends and exploring at surface or new discoveries along those productive trends.
SH: Greg, can you give us an overview and update on your two other projects -- La Plata and McKay Hill?
GJ:
Yeah, so particularly at La Plata, this was an exciting one that just came into the portfolio late in 2019. So we've got our first full year of exploration on the ground in 2020. The combination of elements here is really quite interesting, like Keno Hill La Plata was a high-grade silver and gold district and had 90 different minds and prospects historically developed and improved the 1940s. Then in the 1950s Rio Tinto and a Freeport McMoran came into the district in the periods of the fifties, sixties, and seventies, and started exploring, recognizing that there was a bolt tonnage target, as well as these hybrid targets and developed a historic resource on a precious metal rich corporate system, very similar to the system that we worked on at NovaGold at Galore Creek. And so this asset is quite a good fit for our team.
It's got high-grade vein, similar to Hill, it's got whole tonnage in a porphyry related system, similar to the asset we worked on for NovaGold and Galore Creek. We're just getting started in terms of exploration, but this is the first modern exploration on this property in the last 50 years. So bringing in the kinds of modern tools that we have into this district with this long history is really quite an exciting opportunity. It's not the main focus of the company, but very quickly, we may see this in parallel as, as an asset, along with, Keno Hill, and investors should expect to hear some further updates as we start to finalize the analysis from the geophysical programs, surface sampling programs that we completed here late over the last six months or so. And we are anticipating in parallel to Keno Hill, initiating a confirmatory drill program later this spring on La Plata as well.
SH: As you mentioned earlier, the Company looks set for strong growth in 2021. How are you placed to expand operations to meet this demand?
GJ:Well, fortunately we were in a really great shape financially. The company through two financings led by Canaccord Genuity raised about $11 million in 2020. We're sitting with about $7 million in cash today. And we've got about 12 million in the money warrants that are starting to come in. So we're fully funded to meet our expanded objectives on both Keno Hill and La Plata in 2021, which is a great place to be. We're in the final preparation stages to launch exploration at Keno Hill later this spring and La Plata as a smaller program will kick off around the same time. We’ll have two programs starting earlier running throughout the field season, so it should a period of frequent news updates as we start to get in and drill test some of the highest priority targets on both those systems.
SH: I have to mention your stock has had a very nice bump over the last 12 months…more than tripling in value. 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?
GJ:
I think there's a few things in particular. I mean, as a sector, we've just gone through an eight plus year bear market. So that means values were ground down to really extreme levels relative to the underlying assets. These are district scale land positions next to high grade producers. There is a deep strategic value in these assets particularly relative to the operations next door. We've demonstrated that these districts have potential for world-class discoveries based on what we're seeing next door and on our own ground. So from a value point of view, I think it's very early days in the next multi-year commodity cycle. I think Metallic Minerals in particular is trading well with things like the SILJ junior silver producer’s ETF. And so it shows there's interest from investors in the silver space. We're just getting started in terms of this, this story. So you're right at the ground floor and a name like Metallic Minerals, and you're getting it at an exceptional discount to the value of our adjacent operating company in terms of the market value for their half of the district compared to our half of the district.
So I think yes, we've seen a significant move in the silver space in general. I think we've seen the sector enthusiasm, if you will get over done in August, September of last year, we've now gone through a consolidation. That means many names are 25, 50% lower than they were six months ago from the same assets. So this is a great opportunity for investors looking at high quality teams and silver. And I think this is one of those market cycles, similar to that 2001 to 2011 period, where you want to buy the dips and take advantage of these pullbacks that we're in currently the take longer term strategic positions in these kinds of exploration development names, like metallic minerals that give you that, that leverage to silver price and leverage to exploration development success.
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?
GJ:Yeah, I mean, in terms of our investor shareholder base you know early days were about high net worth individuals, many who invested in some of our past companies, Eric Sprott took a major position in the company a year ago, and then was the largest participant in our most recent financing. We've also brought in institutional investors like US Global, Crescat and others that are well-known names that focus on the mining space. I think investors looking for good names and silver, there's a real scarcity particularly of low political risk assets that have development and, you know, are permitted and basically in a low-risk jurisdiction like Canada. So there aren't a lot of names to look at in silver, in the exploration development end of the nature of the space. And I think that scarcity is going to mean that as investors focus on silver and they're looking for that leverage these kinds of names like Metallic Minerals are going to be in demand.
SH: And finally, Greg, if there’s anything I’ve overlooked please feel free to elaborate.
GJ:No, I think this has been a great introduction. Thank you so much. I mean, I think the one thing I would, I would offer to shareholders if they have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. They can get us at our website, which is www.mmgsilver.com. We've also got a YouTube page, that has some of the various videos that we've done in presentations. In fact, we held a webinar today that might be of interest to people if they want to go in a bit more detail than you've been the cover here. And I think it's an exciting year ahead for Metallic Minerals’ shareholders. And we're looking forward to delivering a series of new catalysts in the coming months ahead.
For more information, visit
www.metallic-minerals.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.