Back in July, Stockhouse Editorial introduced our audience to Nevada’s newest and fastest-growing gold miner –
i-80 Gold Corp. (
TSX.IAU,
OTC: IAUCF,
Forum). In a recent exclusive video Q&A podcast, Stockhouse Media’s Dave Jackson was joined by company CEO, Ewan Downie, to get our investor audience up-to-date on the latest news and investment opportunities from this well-financed gold producer and developer.
(Click image to play video)
TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
SH: To start off with, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the history of the company?
ED: i-80 Gold I believe is the newest gold producing company in the market. It was recently spun out of a transaction whereby Equinox acquired Premier Gold. In that takeover of Premier Gold, there was a spin Co. and the spin Co. was i-80 Gold. I was formerly the present CEO of Premier and I am now the chief executive officer here of i-80. I was the founder of the company.
SH: Let’s talk a bit about your recently announced transactions to acquire the Lone Tree and Ruby Hill properties.
ED: Yes. We recently announced that we assigned definitive agreements to acquire both the Lone Tree and Buffalo mountain projects from Nevada gold mines and also the Ruby Hill project from Waterton. The two projects combined with our current portfolio, make i-80 Gold one of the largest holders of gold and silver resources now in the state or will make us one of the largest holders of gold and silver resources in the state of Nevada. Importantly, the Lone Tree complex is host to a full processing facility. So it will allow the company to process all types of ore in Nevada and that really will separate us from the other companies given that a bit of a barrier to entry in Nevada is one's ability to process refractory ore. With this facility that we're acquiring, it's an autoclave facility. We need to have sufficient ore fill that autoclave now and the Ruby Hill acquisition was key to compliment our Granite Creek and Mccoy-Cove properties to, to reach that ability in the future. Ruby hill in my view will be one of the largest gold deposit. It's a huge gold system that is really under explored and we think is going to be one of the major gold operations in Nevada.
SH: The company just announced that test mining has commenced at Granite Creek and approximately 22,000 metres of surface and underground drilling is underway Can you update us on the program and any assay results to report?
ED: The Granite Creek project is one of the only fully permanent high grade gold projects you'll find in North America. We acquired it from Waterton as well. It was under care and maintenance. We have now rehabilitated the underground workings and have embarked on a test mining program on the back of that test mining program, we hope to ramp up into full production early in 2022. The drill program is meant to compliment the underground work that we're doing, the 20,000 meters of surface and underground drilling is meant to delineate near term mining mineralization but also to continue expanding the deposit at depth. Granite Creek is hosted one of the few plus 10 gram, fully permitted projects in north America and we are intent to make it into North America's next high-grade mine. The drill program has been underway for a matter of months now but there has been a delay in getting assay results of late. I guess the after the COVID break, getting people, a lot of companies are active right now. There's quite a backlog and samples and to date out of our more than 30 holes that have been drilled so far, we have only released results on one end. It was in the open pit zone, intersected a pretty spectacular interval of 6.8 grams over 51.1 meters. We expect there will be a significant amount of news flow coming from this program going forward.
SH: Not a lot of companies the metals & mining space – especially gold – are involved in exploration, mine development, and operations…all three. This may be news to many investors. Can you expand on this type of business model for our investor audience?
ED: Yeah, I think strategy of most juniors is just hoping that somebody takes them out. We add Premier, we're successful at moving from being a pure explorer to a developer and producer. When Premier was taken over, we had one mine ready to go into development but we had two producing operations. With i-80 Gold, we have the one producing mine. We start where we've embarked on a program to ramp up. The newest operation Ruby Hill that we're acquiring is in production. We expect to be a multi asset producer but the future of the company of any company is going to be one on having expiration success. Some of our members come from expiration backgrounds. So we've done a great job I think assembling a terrific team of explorers with a very successful history of success right through to developers. In fact, in our operations group in Nevada three of our members each ran one of Nevada gold mines, three large operations. So great experience operating in the Nevada tight rock units.
SH: For company shareholders and potential investors, what kind of future development and progress can we expect at your now five Nevada projects?
ED: It's our intent that the Lone Tree project will be sort of the hub of our operations. We're calling it the Lone Tree complex and over the next several years, it's our goal to have the other four operations feed that facility. So, the refractory or the underground ore from Ruby Hill, Mccoy-Cove and Granite Creek that will all be sent to Lone Tree for processing and the nearby Buffalo Mountain project will be trucked to Long Tree as well, but it will be processed on the existing heap leach pad. So we're looking at it as being sort of a hub and spoke type operation, really centralized around Lone Tree.
SH: What inherently separates i-80 Gold from the competition and makes your business model unique?
ED: I think that we have a very strong shareholder base. We've got a very strong treasury so that we can advance our projects on an expedited basis. We've formulated I think one of the top operations group that you'll find in all groups that you'll find in all of Nevada and we have projects that rank amongst the highest grade in both open pit and underground that you'll find in North America.
SH: I have to mention your stock has been on a bit of a roller coaster ride this year, but with a very robust market of over $475 million dollars. 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?
ED: Yeah, I think we're a new company. So you expect a bit of a rollercoaster ride. It's a company that was spun out of Premier. So you might get some of the people who see it as getting a free share in the Equinox takeover. They let it go but we definitely saw very strong performance on the back of our recently announced news and when you look at our peer group of companies, the smaller developers and producers across North America and I think if you do your research and look at the number of ounces each company owns. The growth profile of the ability to come become a mid tier producer organically. We're one of the few companies who truly have that opportunity and yet, if you look at those similar companies, I think you'll find that we continue to trade at a discount. So I would think that there is still a significant rebate opportunity and companies. There are several companies in the market that are seen as the premier group of developers in around the same scope of what we are, they who are trading at two, three times our current market cap. So I do believe there is a great rebate opportunity on the back of the growth plans we're currently looking to carry out.
SH: Finally, what’s the long-term strategy for the company over the next year and beyond, and what should retail and institutional investors be looking out for?
ED: I think what to be looking out for is a very substantial news flow with the now five projects that will be in our portfolio advancing we expect by year end, we'll be in underground development, we will have major drill campaigns going at two operations. We should be looking out for very strong news flow. We should also be looking out for what the results of our first test mining of the Granite Creek project, a very high grade gold deposit and I think the real strategy of the company is to become a mid-tier producer. In the closing of these transactions with Waterton and Nevada gold mines. We expect to in the Battle Mountain and Carlin trends, the most productive gold regions anywhere in the world, we're expecting to become the second biggest holder of gold resources and on the back of that, our balance sheet will provide us the opportunity to advance our projects to what we hope will be significant production and it's our company's long-term goal to become the second largest producer in the state of Nevada next to Nevada Gold Mine.
i-80 Gold Corp. (
TSX.IAU,
OTC: IAUCF,
Forum)
For regular updates, visit
i80gold.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.