Within the Cortez Gold Belt, NVX has 100% ownership of a number of projects, including the SW Pipe Gold Project recently optioned to Hochschild Mining for a US$10M+ earn in for 75%. Other projects under maiden drill programs include the Slumber Gold Project in NW Nevada, and in SW Nevada in the Walker Lane, the 100% Company owned Sandy Gold Project, which recently saw an approximate
150% increase from the originally planned 1,500 metre reverse circulation drill program.
NVX sampled high-grade gold from surface rock chip sampling at Sandy and assays supported the Company’s expansion decision, based on an indication that the newly discovered epithermal system has at least a 2.4 kilometer strike-length. They were maiden drill programs and the Company is focused on uncovering what lies at depth at both the Slumber and Sandy Projects for 2021 follow up core deep drill programs.
(For an example of extensive quartz veining and pyrite within Sandy Drill Hole SD-11, picture at left.)
NV Gold’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Peter A. Ball sat down with Stockhouse Editorial to shed some light on this …
Thank you for your time today. To begin, for our readers and investors that may be discovering your Company for the first time, can you please give us a little background and a brief overview of NV Gold Corp.?
NV Gold is a tightly held junior exploration company formed by respected exploration technical experts that have one focus – to make a world-class discovery and reward their shareholders. NV Gold has 100% ownership of 14 gold projects in Nevada, less than 65M shares issued, and the largest shareholders are management, along with other key top supportive holders including Eric Sprott, Crescat Capital, Goldspot Discoveries, Equity Management Associates, and Bob Moriarty.
In addition, legendary technical Nevada explorers are members of the Board, including Dr. Quinton Hennigh, Dr. Odin Christensen, and John Watson (largest shareholder and Chairman of NVX). Rounded off on the capital markets side is well-respected Alf Stewart, who has spent many years as an investment banker, broker and yes, even a geologist. I consider myself to be a fifth-generation mining kid, in my 50s, having previously worked in engineering, but now try to be the most accessible CEO to help tell the story, raise capital, and ensure we put as much funds into the ground to make that discovery we all dream about. Sometimes it takes 2-3 years, but it’s worth the journey. Jump on board and follow along.
NV Gold has seen a roughly 60% increase in stock performance since this time last year, to what can you attribute this growth?
Each year we attempt to advance our projects to the discovery stage and two of our projects in Nevada, namely Slumber and Sandy, have brought a lot of attention to the investment community. When you factor our tight share structure, we become fairly elastic to exploration work on our projects. Our dedicated board of Directors, who take a great ownership in their roles, continue to help the management team and actively share their thoughts in the market. We are one of those companies that a lot of investors want to have in their portfolio. Great projects in the best place to explore in world…Nevada, being advanced systematically to a point where we are confident saying that we will make a discovery. Our team focuses hard on that one vision.
Can you explain to our readers the importance of NV Gold Corp’s business model?
As stated above, we have a number of projects in the right locations within Nevada that aren’t a bunch of grassroots projects. We could probably make 3-4 companies if we spun various projects out into new shells. We are focused on drilling 2-3 projects within our portfolio that we believe could yield that multi-million ounce discovery. We even have a “copper-gold porphyry” project that is a project a mid-tier will likely swallow up at some time in the future. Or maybe we will drill it next year. Copper is hot right now, as we know. Discoveries aren’t made on the first program and seldom overnight. Keep the structure tight, put our shareholders money in the ground, and provide that opportunity each year. Our supporters understand our model and are on this journey with us for the long term. But, if you see a project like SW Pipe that requires more capital than we feel is too much to allocate right now, we will look for the right partners, and recently Hochschild Mining (US) signed a US$10M option deal to go likely deep right next door to a 20 million plus ounce deposit in operation called Pipeline/Cortez with Nevada Gold Mines. Sometimes a little crazy with a little bit of money with the right hole and brilliant technical team works. That will be one program to watch.
(NV Gold Exploration Program at Slumber Gold Project January 2021. Image via NV Gold Exploration.)
Can you speak to the geology in the areas of Nevada that the Company is exploring?
This question doesn’t lend to someone like myself, not being a geologist and having more of the boring engineering methodical type brain. But I am lucky enough to be surrounded by the legends of Nevada Exploration, as I mentioned earlier with Quinton, Odie, John, and now Thomas Klein, whom I will discuss later. Our projects are located in the Carlin, Cortez and Walker Lane Trends and most are drill-ready or close. We are chasing both epithermal vein type deposits with the robust high grade potential, and of course exploring for the lower grade sediment hosted lower grade carlin style gold, which had made Nevada famous recently over the years. We all chase high grade, and the market responds very well to this style of epithermal smaller width vein type mineralization but, most of the operations in Nevada do very well at 0.5 g/t gold or less. Investors need to keep an eye out for new discoveries in that gold grade range near surface as a good heap leach development project can quickly develop.
NV Gold recently expanded the drill program at the Sandy Gold Project and is now planning to complete a property-wide induced polarization-resistivity survey to fully evaluate this system, can you expand on your initial findings?
Sandy has become an interesting project this spring noting the initial review of the RC chips from drilling, and the abundance of quartz and pyrite/sulphides. Somewhere beneath Sandy, there appears to be a large gold system brewing, based on the amount of fluid flow seen in the chips. The one thing RC chips does not provide is structure. Structure allows you to vector in or provide directional flow per se to the source. The IP survey will be completed based on the initial maiden drill holes and assays pending and combined will help us create a deeper and more focused core hole drilling program. The future core holes should be able to help us see which direction these fluids originated from and then we will vector that direction. Sandy is an exciting project and of course the location surrounded by the producer Northern Vertex Mining (previously Eclipse Gold Mining) and in the Comstock mining area, which we all know was the beginning of what built western Nevada, and helped build Reno, etc. Google the Comstock Lode and the story will help your readers understand the area where Sandy is located and of course it’s located in the famous Walker Lane Trend.
What can you tell us about the initial samples you found?
The samples at Sandy, found immediately on top of where we drilled, indicated that we are likely in the right spot to collar our holes we recently completed. The samples, of course, allow us to understand the rock units we are looking for and that the system or fluid flow was strong enough to bring the gold to surface from where it originated. It is always good to find samples, but we need to find the source, so 2021 will be focused exactly on that. It will take some time during 2021 to receive and model the assays from recent drilling, and to complete the IP survey and vector, but potentially well worth the wait.
When do you expect this leg of the project to be complete?
I suspect we should be drilling a Phase 2 program in the late 3
rd quarter of 2021 and maybe we will have a discovery by the end of the year. As I said, systematic exploration to vector to the discovery zone. Baby steps can sometimes yield a winner. Patience is hard to have in this industry, but as our shareholders understand, it’s a good place to have their investment put to best use.
The Company recently signed an Option Deal with Hochschild Mining for up to US$10 Million, can you elaborate how this will be used to advance gold exploration in Nevada?
As mentioned earlier, sometimes you need deeper pockets to advance such projects as the SW Pipe Project. The terms of the US$10 million option deal allow Hochschild to earn up to 75%, and pay NV Gold out with an additional $US25M or 12,500 ounces of gold, NV Gold’s election. On top of this NV Gold retains the full 2% NSR, with no buyout clause. If you do the math on the opportunity, if a discovery is made with the great technical minds of Hochschild (and ours), that 2% NSR could be worth a significant amount of money, well above the US$25M already received on a buyout of the remaining 25% interest.
There appears to be a lot of growth opportunity with the SW Pipe Gold Project, what are some of its key aspects that investors should know about?
SW Pipe, hence its name sits immediately to the SW of the Pipeline Gold Mining operation which has close to 20 million plus ounces of gold. Historically, over 25 years ago, a resource in the range of 45,000 ounces was roughly outlined near surface at SW Pipe but the source was never found. So no better place to use modern exploration techniques and new thinking and bigger dollars to test the project in and around the existing resource but likely go deep…maybe 1,500 to 2,000 meters to see what’s lying below. Exciting project and one our team all have wanted to “go deep” on. So here we go in 2021. Stay tuned and add the story to your radar.
Can you provide a timeline for further exploration activity and the extent of any drill program planned?
This project is a work in progress and no defined timeline or plan yet, but the goal would be to get enough intelligence for a drill program in 2021.
Following 2020’s record-breaking year, gold prices are trending higher right now, where do you see prices heading through the rest of the year?
This is one part of the market I never get into discussing. The street, the herd, the investment community believes higher and we came off a double dip low recently. So onwards and upwards we all believe. Having been in this industry as long as I have, I love nothing more than the $1750 gold price but heck, if we go higher, the majors and mid cap producers make more money, and help feed us small juniors to find all the gold for them and allow them to buy us out at a premium hopefully. So I believe gold will trend higher and will stick with my gut instinct.
Looking at the near-term for both the project and the market, what catalysts do you predict will propel NVX’s share market value?
NV Gold is in the right sector, right location, has a solid share structure, amazing dedicated team and is poised to a good amount of exploration activity on all fronts. News flow initially to help us understand Sandy and Slumber will be assays and basically with both being maiden drill programs, modelling and some follow up will lead to some even more exciting drill programs later this year. SW Pipe exploration program and its rollout should yield some interesting news and project advancements. NV Gold continues to review other projects within its portfolio for other option deals with both majors, mid-caps and some juniors, but those take time to find the right partners. We don’t want just anyone advancing our projects, as we want to participate in the win along with our shareholders if we vend them out. In addition, our new Exploration Manager, Thomas Klein, who we stole from Newmont has some other exciting drill ready project ideas and maybe we will add some interesting opportunities. And finally, which I haven’t mentioned yet, we have Goldspot Discoveries filtering through in our data library warehouse in Reno during the last couple months focused on scanning and reviewing hundreds of boxes of data we acquired and originally came from AngloGold (1990s/2000s) and USMX (1970s/1980s) that could yield a discovery or two. Goldspot will keep 0.5% NSR on anything they find and we keep 100% of the project upon staking. A busy year ahead, but one needs to create as many opportunities as possible to make that discovery. I’m also one of the top shareholders of the Company and want to ensure we have a chance. Maybe 2021!
Longer-term projects can be he harder to forecast, but as it stands now, what do you see for the SW Pipe Gold Project as an investment proposition for years to come?
SW Pipe is simple proposition. We are looking to drill deep on the project. If we hit, it will be one of the best value investment high risk speculations any investor could make. Its exploration and high risk yields high reward and maybe very high in this one.
Let us highlight members of the Company’s leadership & technical team. Let us start with you. Can you give us some detail on your background and how you came to the Company?
I have mentioned the many members of our team above. I touched on myself above and being in the industry for close to 30 years and born into the sector per se. My uncle actually ran Homestake Mining before being sold to Barrick 20 years ago. I went to mining school (as many of our family members did over the generations) and spent some time with the majors likes Eldorado, Hudbay, Echo Bay Mines, some time with RBC Dominion Securities as a Broker, but last decade or so basically focused on raising capital and finding the right team to work with to work on business/corporate development initiatives and really just telling the story and ensuring that I am the most accessible CEO in the industry. If you own 1,000 or 1 million shares, each share is important. I call everyone back within a day if a can. I came to NV Gold in 2016 first as a Director, after I sold the current asset portfolio into the Company from another mining company where I was CEO.
The key members of our team of course is the technical team. Dr. Quinton Hennigh, Dr. Odin Christensen and John Watson. Together, as friends for 25 to 30 years, they know Nevada better or as good as anyone and know geology as good as anyone. Quinton has become a very well-known geologist over the last few years by helping multiple companies make or enhance discoveries, Google his name. Odie was the ex-Chief Geologist Globally of Newmont and is very well known in the technical field. John, our Chairman and largest shareholder, is a very passionate geologist who has built mines, found mines, bought and sold NSR’s and is the industry to the love of gold and rocks. Amazing and dedicated member of NV Gold. Alf Stewart, well known from Vancouver, spent a few years as a geologist but spent most of his career as an investment banker and broker and deal maker/capital funder. He helps to really round out the Board. And finally, Thomas Klein, I mentioned earlier, brings a solid resume of global experience and extensive Nevada knowledge and a few discoveries credited to his name from South America to Europe to Nevada.
Thank you again for your time today, anything further to add?
If anyone has questions, reach out and ask the hard questions. I will get back to you before you may want to invest, and call the 1-888-363-9883 as it connects directly to my cell phone. Do your own due diligence and if you want to participate in a focused Nevada gold explorer with the above information I shared, that is highly speculative but may offer the risk/reward “investment opportunity”, let us know. Thanks for your time.
For more on this Company, visit
nvgoldcorp.com.