Categories
Base Metals Breaking Emx Royalty Energy Junior Mining Precious Metals Project Generators

EMX Royalty Announces Second Quarter 2021 Results

August 16, 2021

Related Document

Vancouver, British Columbia, August 16, 2021 (NYSE American: EMX; TSX Venture: EMX; Frankfurt: 6E9) – EMX Royalty Corporation (the “Company” or “EMX”) is pleased to report results for the quarter ended June 30, 2021 (“Q2-2021”). The Company’s filings for Q2-2021 are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s website at www.sec.gov, and on EMX’s website at www.EMXroyalty.com. Financial results were prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR Q2-2021

Financial Update

Dollar amount are in CDN unless otherwise noted.

  • EMX ended the three month period at June 30, 2021 with a balance sheet including cash and cash equivalents of $41,979,000, investments, strategic investments, investment in associated entities, and receivables valued at $34,777,000, and no debt.
  • EMX had revenue of $4,255,000 which includes royalty income, other property income including income from the sale or option of property interests and management fees, and interest and dividends earned on cash and investment balances. Included in revenues was royalty income of $284,000 and $3,801,000 for the fair value of equity positions and cash received on the sale and option of property interests. Revenues for Q2-2021 increased compared to Q2-2020 with an increase in option and other property income and interest income. Royalty income for Q2-2021 was comparable to Q2-2020.
  • Royalty generation costs totaled $5,378,000 of which the Company recovered $1,689,000 from partners.
  • General and administrative expenses totaled $979,000 which includes $177,000 in salaries and consultants, $250,000 in administrative costs, $298,000 in professional fees, $71,000 in transfer agent and filing fees, $46,000 in travel, and $137,000 in investor relations costs. General and administrative costs can fluctuate from period to period depending on activity and timing of comparable costs.
  • For the three months ended June 30, 2021, the Company had a net loss from operations of $2,039,000 including $260,000 in depletion, depreciation, and direct royalty taxes, and $2,845,000 in share-based compensation of which $1,479,000 was included in royalty generation costs. Other items affecting net loss and financial results in Q2-2021 include a gain from the Company’s investment in an associated entity of $158,000, a fair value loss on investments of $425,000, and a foreign exchange adjustment of $1,240,000. The foreign exchange adjustment was a direct result of holding cash and net assets denominated in US dollars.

Operational Update

EMX’s royalty and mineral property portfolio totals over 200 projects on five continents. The following summarizes the work conducted in Q2-2021, as well as subsequent events, by the Company and its partners.

  • As a subsequent event, EMX entered into an agreement dated July 29, 2021 with SSR Mining Inc., and certain of its subsidiaries (“SSR Mining”), to purchase a portfolio of royalty interests and deferred payments (see EMX news release dated July 29, 2021). The portfolio consists of 18 geographically diverse royalties, with four royalty assets at advanced stages of project development, and also includes US$18 million in future cash payments. The transaction is expected to provide significant near-term cash flow to the Company and establishes a pipeline of quality royalty assets in numerous well-recognized mineral belts around the world. Completion of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange.
  • In North America, EMX received provisional payments of approximately US$198,000 from the sale of 110 gold ounces produced at the Leeville royalty property in Nevada’s Northern Carlin Trend. On the royalty generation front, EMX optioned one copper project in Utah while adding new gold and copper projects to the portfolio by staking open ground. Partner companies continued to add value to the portfolio with encouraging drill results for precious metals projects in Nevada (3) and Idaho (1), including Ridgeline Minerals at the Selena royalty property, U.S. Gold at the Maggie Greek royalty property, and Gold Lion Resources at the Robber Gulch project.

    EMX’s royalty and mineral asset portfolio in key mining districts of Ontario and Quebec, including the Red Lake camp, generated $392,000 in cash and fair value equity payments.
  • In Fennoscandia, the Company acquired 37,500 hectares of mineral exploration permits in central Norway that cover the zinc-lead-copper-silver-gold occurrences and historical mines of the Mo-i-Rana district. The transaction with Gold Line Resources and Agnico Eagle closed, by which Gold Line can acquire a 100% interest in Agnico’s Oijärvi gold project in Finland and the Solvik gold project in Sweden for staged cash payments as well as shares of Gold Line and shares of EMX. Agnico will retain a 2% NSR royalty on the projects, 1% (half) of which may be purchased by EMX for US$1,000,000. EMX will receive additional share and cash payments from Gold Line as reimbursement for the EMX shares issued to Agnico. Subsequent to the end of Q2, EMX executed an agreement for the sale of its Svärdsjö polymetallic project in Sweden to District Metals Corp. (TSX-V: DMX) for share equity, annual advance royalty payments, and retained royalty interests to EMX’s benefit. As new acquisitions and deals were completed, partner companies continued to advance EMX’s royalty properties, which included encouraging results from District’s drill program at the Tomtebo polymetallic project in Sweden’s Bergslagen mining district.
  • In Australia, the Company expanded the land positions at the Yarrol and Mt Steadman gold projects through the acquisition of additional permits covering multiple historical drill defined zones of mineralization. Both projects are located in the goldfields of central-Queensland and are available for partnership.
  • In Serbia, Timok operator Zijin Mining Group Co. Ltd. continued on an accelerated development pace of the Upper Zone copper-gold project which is covered by an EMX 0.5% NSR royalty. As a subsequent event, EMX filed an amended and restated Technical Report titled “NI 43-101 Technical Report – Timok Copper-Gold Project Royalty, Serbia” on SEDAR authored by Mineral Resource Management LLC with an effective date of December 31, 2020 and report date of July 21, 2021.

CORPORATE UPDATE

EMX is diligently monitoring developments regarding the ongoing coronavirus pandemic (“COVID-19”), with a focus on the jurisdictions in which the Company operates. EMX has implemented COVID-19 prevention, monitoring and response plans following the guidelines of international agencies and the governments and regulatory agencies of each country in which it operates.

EMX’s priority is to safeguard the health and safety of its personnel and host communities, support government actions to slow the spread of COVID-19 and assess and mitigate the risks to business continuity. Although various levels of restrictions remain in place for many jurisdictions where the Company operates (e.g., travel restrictions, etc.), EMX’s field programs are up-and-running principally with in-country based staff.

OUTLOOK

EMX ended Q2-2021 with $42 million in cash, $16 million in tradable securities, $7.7 million in private company equity and warrants, and $4.7 million in strategic investments. The Company continued to complete deals while adding new properties to the royalty generation portfolio, as well as new partners. In addition to the Company’s Q2-2021 successes, as a subsequent event the announcement of the SSR agreement represents an important milestone for the Company, as it seeks to boost its royalty cash flow streams and secure additional long-term optionality in its royalty portfolio.

EMX has been diligently pursuing royalty acquisitions over the last few years in what has been a highly competitive market. EMX has evaluated a large number of royalty purchase opportunities, but has been very selective in its acquisitions, with the Timok, Kaukua, and Gold Bar South royalties being prime examples. EMX sees a similar value proposition with the SSR royalty portfolio acquisition in that it will deliver near-term benefits (i.e. cash flow) as well as long term value to EMX’s shareholders.

The SSR portfolio includes four advanced stage development projects, namely, Gediktepe oxide and sulfide (Turkey), Yenipazar (Turkey), and Diablillos (Argentina), which are complemented by 14 additional royalty interests covering both precious metal and base metal assets in South America, Mexico, the United States (Nevada) and Canada. The SSR royalty portfolio acquisition is well aligned with EMX’s corporate growth strategy, whereby the Company leverages its in-region expertise to identify opportunities in jurisdictions where EMX already has a strategic presence, and hence a competitive advantage. This approach leads to value creation for the Company, as well as synergies with existing EMX initiatives around the world.

Meanwhile the Company’s royalty generation initiatives continued moving forward. EMX’s quick actions led to the acquisition of a 37,500 hectare position covering the historical mines, deposits, and prospects of the Mo-i-Rana polymetallic district in central Norway. This consolidated district-scale package presents enough opportunities to potentially support multiple royalty generation deals. In Australia, EMX expanded its property positions in the goldfields of Queensland at the Yarrol and Mt Steadman projects to yield significantly enhanced property packages available for partnership. In the western U.S., new gold projects were staked in Idaho and Nevada. Fennoscandia, Australia, and the U.S. are stable exploration and mining jurisdictions, and EMX’s royalty generation assets provide prime opportunities for potential partners.

EMX’s established partner companies continued to add value to the portfolio with encouraging drill results. In the western U.S. this included precious metals projects in Nevada (Ridgeline Minerals at Selena and U.S. Gold at Maggie Greek) and in Idaho (Gold Lion at Robber Gulch). In Fennoscandia, most notable were District’s drill success at Tomtebo (Norway) and Norden’s at Gumsberg (Sweden). These drill programs were either conducted with EMX’s technical support, provided on a 100% reimbursed basis, or independently by the partner companies in other cases.

EMX’s value-focused and long-term approach has allowed the Company to maintain its treasury while not overbidding for assets. This strategy allows the company to patiently wait for opportunities like the SSR royalty transaction (and similar future opportunities), which nicely complement its ongoing organic royalty generation. The Company’s progress so far in 2021 signals a number of Company achievements and milestones, and we enter the second half of the year with well-founded optimism for even greater success.

QUALIFIED PERSONS

Michael P. Sheehan, CPG, a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 and employee of the Company, has reviewed, verified and approved the above technical disclosure on the United States, Canada, South America, and Strategic Investments. Eric P. Jensen, CPG, a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 and employee of the Company, has reviewed, verified, and approved the above technical disclosure on EMX Capital (SSR transaction), Serbia, Fennoscandia, Turkey, and Australia.

About EMX. EMX is a precious, base, and battery metals royalty company. EMX’s investors are provided with discovery, development, and commodity price optionality, while limiting exposure to risks inherent to operating companies. The Company’s common shares are listed on the NYSE American Exchange and the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol EMX. See www.EMXroyalty.com for more information.

For further information contact:

David M. Cole
President and Chief Executive Officer
Phone: (303) 979-6666
Dave@EMXroyalty.com

Scott Close
Director of Investor Relations
Phone: (303) 973-8585
SClose@EMXroyalty.com

Isabel Belger
Investor Relations (Europe)
Phone: +49 178 4909039
IBelger@EMXroyalty.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements
This news release may contain “forward looking statements” that reflect the Company’s current expectations and projections about its future results. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding perceived merit of properties, exploration results and budgets, mineral reserves and resource estimates, work programs, capital expenditures, timelines, strategic plans, market prices for precious and base metal, or other statements that are not statements of fact. When used in this news release, words such as “estimate,” “intend,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “will”, “believe”, “potential” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, which, by their very nature, are not guarantees of the Company’s future operational or financial performance, and are subject to risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause the Company’s actual results, performance, prospects or opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and factors may include, but are not limited to: unavailability of financing, failure to identify commercially viable mineral reserves, fluctuations in the market valuation for commodities, difficulties in obtaining required approvals for the development of a mineral project, increased regulatory compliance costs, expectations of project funding by joint venture partners and other factors.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release or as of the date otherwise specifically indicated herein. Due to risks and uncertainties, including the risks and uncertainties identified in this news release, and other risk factors and forward-looking statements listed in the Company’s MD&A for the quarter ended June 30, 2021 (the ”MD&A”), and the most recently filed Annual Information Form (“AIF”) for the year ended December 31, 2020, actual events may differ materially from current expectations. More information about the Company, including the MD&A, the AIF and financial statements of the Company, is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the SEC’s EDGAR website at www.sec.gov.

Categories
Breaking Exclusive Interviews Precious Metals

StrikePoint Gold – Exploring High-Grade Gold and Silver Projects in the Golden Triangle of B.C.

Maurice Jackson:

Joining us for conversation is Shawn Khunkhun the CEO of Strikepoint Gold (TSX.V: SKP | OTC: STKXF). Glad to have you on the program to share the opportunity before us at Strikepoint Gold. Before we delve into company specifics, Mr. Khunkhun, please introduce us to Strikepoint Gold and the opportunity the company presents to shareholders.

Shawn Khunkhun:

Strikepoint is an exploration company, advancing high-grade properties in safe jurisdictions. I repurposed the company back in 2016, the gold price had been cutting out and majors were not exploring, nor developing. And the thinking was we could buy it projects for pennies on the dollar. We could advance them. And in the future, we could move those projects along to the Major that are looking to secure development pipelines.

Maurice Jackson:

You have a reputation for having astute business acumen and great use of optionality on how you establish the company. Looking at the map before Strikepoint Gold has the property bank situated in the prolific Golden Triangle, get us acquainted with the region and some of your neighbors.

Shawn Khunkhun:

Okay. So, near the Triangle, it’s an area that exploration has been going on for over a hundred years. It’s produced some of the richest gold mines in the world. If you look at the Premier Mine that Ascot is currently holding, that was one of the richest modern mines in the modern era, in terms of several ounces, in terms of grade. Eskay Creek, a strong gold and silver mine. The Golden Triangle is known for large deposits, high-grade deposits, and is one of the hottest mineral exploration hubs on the planet..  There’s just, it’s a flurry of activity with the discovery of Pretivm’s Brucejack, we’re seeing large companies like Newmont and Newcrest come into the area.  Noteworthy of mention, there is also tremendous infrastructure throughout the Triangle.

Maurice Jackson:

Let’s go on-site and find out more. Sir, take us to the flagship Willoughby Project and introduce us to the value proposition before us.

Shawn Khunkhun:

The Willoughby Project is a spectacular world-class discovery that was originally explored in 1989 to 1996 time period. There were about 120 drill holes, and there were some robust grades of 20-gram gold over 20 meters thickness that were discovered. During that time the Bre-X scandal happened and you also had the gold price heading down to just under $200 an ounce in 1999. So it was a very, very difficult time for the mineral resource industry.  e acquired the property in 2018.. There’s a lot of grade on the project and we are excited about the opportunity before us. We are trying to connect the dots in-between zones. So, that’s the value proposition, linking these zones to show that this is a mineable project.

Maurice Jackson:

I referenced business acumen, when and under what terms was Strikepoint Gold able to acquire the Willoughby Gold Project?

Shawn Khunkhun:

That’s an interesting story. So back in October of 2018, the gold price got sold down to about $1,100 an ounce. And at that moment, we were able to acquire Willoughby for $85,000 in cash. And by issuing three million shares of Strikepoint, which at that time was valued at about half a million dollars. Considering the amount of drilling that was done on the property, its proximity to Red Mountain, which was subsequently acquired by Ascot. It was a once-in-a-generation acquisition for the company.

Maurice Jackson:

Germane to the value proposition and exploration thesis is an important stratigraphic marker known as the Red Line. What is the Red Line and where is it in relation to the Willoughby Gold Project?

Shawn Khunkhun:

There are two BCGS geologists, Jeff Kyba and JoAnne Nelson, and as they were looking at this tremendous area that’s produced very high-grade deposits. They were trying to look at a model, a geological model to identify where to look for the next giant gold, silver, and copper deposits in the region. So Kyba and Nelson came up with this theory and it’s a theory that has been widely accepted by the scientific community and identifies a contact. The big deposits in the Golden Triangle are found within two kilometers of where two different rock types meet. So this is the Triassic to the rocks and the Jurassic Hazelton formation. These are two different rock types that meet within two kilometers of that contact, which have produced some of the biggest deposits in the region are found.

Maurice Jackson:

Thus far, we’ve been able to determine that Strikepoint Gold is in a friendly mind jurisdiction, located in the prolific Golden Triangle, neighboring some very prominent names, and the project is along the Red Line. Two prong question, can you delve a little further into historic resource and share some of the grades with us?

Shawn Khunkhun:

The Willoughby does not have a formal 43-101 compliant resource on the property, however, the historic resource has about eight different areas throughout the Willoughby property where there’s tremendous grade and there’s been a lot of drilling. So, on the back of a napkin, I don’t want to speculate in terms of ounces, but what we’re looking for here is the neighboring Red Mountain deposit, which is just under a million ounces at about 7.5 grams per ton. We think this is analogous to Red Mountain. And if you look at the footprints of the mineralization from surface, it leads us to believe that we’re onto a very, very large gold system here. So, this season is going to be crucial. We’ve done some significant work on the property to date.

Shawn Khunkhun:

We’ve got assays pending and we’re trying to accomplish two things. Number one, link different zones of mineralization. Number two, we’re looking for where we could fit a deposit into the system. And we are drilling somewhat I would describe as Wildcat holes into areas that should host a very, very large system. There are two opportunities on the property. One is for a KSM style disseminated large system. These are two systems, one’s 40 million ounces of gold and the other is 10 million ounces of gold. And then the other opportunity is for a higher-grade epithermal vein-rich system. We have seen both types of mineralization on the property. And if you look at what Ascot is doing in terms of their hub and spoke model, along Ascot you also have Yamana and Newmont. So there’s a huge appetite from a larger gold entities for consolidation and acquisition.

Maurice Jackson:

Speaking of Wildcat drilling, last month Strikepoint Gold announced the commencement of a 3000-meter drill program. How’s the program coming along and when can shareholders expect results?

Shawn Khunkhun:

The program’s going well. I was just up in Stewart, along with our technical advisor Rob McLeod.  Strikepoint Gold is blessed with one of the best teams in the exploration business. These are professionals that have worked on a lot of the big projects in the Golden Triangle. Originally came out with a 3000-meter program at Willoughby where we’re halfway through that program. It’s going exceptionally well. It’s on time, it’s on budget. It’s very difficult to speculate on assays because you are dealing with third-party labs. And if 2020 taught me anything, we were exceptionally delayed in assay times, but I would suspect that we’re going to have a very results-rich autumn season, a very result-rich fall after Labor Day and that we should be reporting ongoing into Q1.

Maurice Jackson:

Sounds very intriguing. If you enjoyed the value proposition of the Willoughby, wait till you hear about the Porter. Mr. Khunkhun, please introduce us to the Porter Silver Project.

Shawn Khunkhun:

But before we get specifically into Porter, I want to share with readers this goes beyond Porter. This goes more to why silver, and my last experience in a bull market for gold, when gold prices went from hundreds of dollars up to thousands of dollars into 2011, it was the silver stocks, the silver equities that delivered the best returns for resource investors. I was very deliberate during this cycle. In 2018, the company acquired Porter, we acquired it from Skeena resources. I was very deliberate in positioning the company with a high-grade silver property. If you look at the number of pure high-grade silver properties in the world, you could count them on a couple of hands. There are very few opportunities for resource investors in the silver space and even fewer outside of Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Peru.

Shawn Khunkhun:

The Porter is in a safe jurisdiction. It’s a past-producing silver mine and one of the highest-grade silver mines I’ve ever come across in my career. The average production grades at Porter were 2,500 grams per ton, but it’s the exploration thesis. It’s the opportunity before that really has us excited. The high-grade mineralization is on both sides of Mount Rainey overlooking the town of Stewart. The Porter two kilometers from the town. but you’ve got this high-grade mineralization that’s at either side of Mount Rainey. We can see the Petro Canada Gas Station. the Deepwater Seaport going into the Portland Canal. Highway 37A.  So all the infrastructures there. So, you’ve got the Silverado Mine on one side, you’ve got Prosperity Porter Idaho on the other side. They’re separated by about two kilometers and there was a large glacier, the Silverado glacier that prohibited exploration in the past. That glacier is pulled back.

Shawn Khunkhun:

It’s opened up a new exploration corridor and we believe those two systems are going to meet. And when you have two systems meeting, you usually have exceptional grades. The opportunity there is to link up these two past-producing mines by drilling into the center of the mountain. And it’s an opportunity that previously was not accessible. And this is the season that Strikepoint test that theory. In addition to stepping out from each of the mines on either side, we’ve got step-outs where we’re trying to extend the known high-grade resources and known areas that were once in your production. But the real opportunity is a target that we call Big Flex. The Big Flex opportunity is a series of drill holes right into the center of the system where these two systems should meet. And, if we’re successful and if the assays come back anywhere in the neighborhood of where historic production grades were, this is going to be a transformational year for Strikepoint.

Maurice Jackson:

You referenced 2,500 grams per ton on the historical work. Let’s put that into perspective for readers.  What kind of grade would you a need to go into production?  

Shawn Khunkhun:

Not all deposits are the same. You’ve got underground mines and open-pit mines. Typically what you’d see at an open-pit silver mine is one-ounce material or 30 gram material. At an underground mine, you’re probably closer to 200 grams per tonne, which is about eight ounces roughly. So, we’re talking about a system here that is 10 times richer than most underground mines. That’s the opportunity here. And, just so you know that this isn’t the exception in the area. If you look at some of the giant silver mines in the area like Eskay Creek, they produced almost 200 million ounces of silver at better than 2000 grams per tonne. There’s a lot of precedent in this area for mines like this, Eskay is one example, at the Premier Mine there was a lot of high-grade silver recovered, at Pretivm’s Brucejack there’s a lot of high-grade silver that’s coming out. And just to the south of us is Dolly Varden Silver.

Maurice Jackson:

I see that Porter has a historic resource, is the goal to twin the holes?

Shawn Khunkhun:

No, the goal is not to twin the holes. The goal is to extend the known band. While we were drilling the Willoughby property last season in 2020, we sent a team out to do some surface work at Porter. They were looking to extend the veins at surface. This was the deep vein, the blind vein. This is on the Prosperity Porter Idaho side. We were successful. At surface, we had come up with new extensions, we’ve discovered new veins. And so the goal here is to extend and expand the known veins at both Silverado and Prosperity Porter Idaho. It’s to uncover new veins around that. But the big prize here is if we were able to come up with some structure, some mineralization in between those two zones that had never been explored.

Maurice Jackson:

You’ve also been busy doing some field mapping and grab samples, what were the results?

Shawn Khunkhun:

Recently, we’ve had up to 3,800 grams per tonne, but when we first acquired the property. At the Silverado side we’ve had up to 44,000 grams per tonne. This is one of the most exceptional specimens I’ve ever come across in my career and so up to 44,000 grams per tonne, that’s 20 times the average production grades.

Maurice Jackson:

All right. So let’s discuss some important topics that you’re main to your projects, and that is, are the projects 100% owned?

Shawn Khunkhun:

They are 100% owned.

Maurice Jackson:

And what is your relationship with the first nations?

Shawn Khunkhun:

There are two first nations groups in the area. South of Treaty Creek, we’re in Nisga’a territory. And so we’ve got a very, very strong relationship with the Nisga’a Nation. About a third of our workforce comes from Nisga’a and everyone from our team had a long history of just a very, strong relationship there. I’ve said this before, they’re our brothers, they’re sisters, they’re our friends. They’re truly our partners and it goes beyond Nisga’a, it’s everybody close to the Stewart community. These are non-first nations. These are non-indigenous peoples as well. We are truly from the north for the north and that’s our policy.

Maurice Jackson:

We’ve discussed the good, let’s address the bad, what can go wrong? And what are your action plans to mitigate that wrong?

Shawn Khunkhun:

In 2020, we had one of the worst weather years up in the Golden Triangle that we’ve seen in about a decade. And so that’s hasn’t been the case this year. But last year, if you scanned about two dozen junior resource companies and went through their financial statements, what you’d see is some companies we’re operating at a 30% production because of weather. I’m happy to report that Strikepoint last season, we combated the weather, and we were operating at about 90%, 95% productivity. So, we overcame weather, but weather can be a challenge in this part of the world. Apart from the weather, we went through the COVID pandemic in terms of more regulations and just a stronger adherence to health and safety.

Shawn Khunkhun:

We are always on high alert in terms of COVID outbreaks. And lastly, just with the scarcity of certain supplies. We started the season, we saw some trends in lumber in late 2020. We made all of our wood purchases in Q4 of 2020 and in late Q3, and thankfully so, because how do we try to secure lumbering in Q1 and Q2? We would have paid twice the price. Now, thankfully things like lumber and other costs have come down, but there is a shortage of certain goods and items. Sometimes there are some delays, but, those are the types of things that can go wrong.

Maurice Jackson:

All right. Let’s discuss the people responsible for increasing shareholder value. Mr. Khunkhun, please introduce us to your board of directors and management team, and what skill sets do they bring to Strikepoint Gold.

Shawn Khunkhun:

Strikepoint Gold has a diverse group, but, if you look at the skills and experience matrix, we’ve got a lot of boxes checked here. We’ve got a mining engineer, Ian Harris. Ian, was instrumental in the sale of Corriente Resources for about $690 million. We’ve got an exploration geologist, Adrian Fleming. I don’t think we have enough time to go through all of Adrian’s successes, but he’s just a tremendous mentor to the beyond geologists that work for the company. We’ve got a tremendous mining engineer. We’ve got a great exploration geologist. Carol Li, who is the chief financial officer for Ascot Resources and is on the board. And then beyond the board of directors, we’ve got advisors like Rob McLeod, Ryan Weymark, myself. To round things out, I come from a marketing and capital reserve background. So we’ve got all the right elements you need to move a company like Strikepoint forward.

Maurice Jackson:

Let’s get into some numbers. Please provide us with the capital structure for Strikepoint Gold.

Shawn Khunkhun:

Strikepoint has about 200 million shares issued and outstanding. Eric Sprott as the largest shareholder at close to 20%. We have a couple of corporate shareholders in Ascot, and Skeena. In terms of institutional ownership, I believe it’s around 40% and you’ve got tremendous names in the institutional leadership. You’ve got firms like Delbrook, Crescat, US Global, Gold 2000, Sprott. So, it’s all the who’s who in the resource fund space.

Maurice Jackson:

How much cash and cash equivalents do you have?

Shawn Khunkhun:

So, we’ve got about $10 million in the bank. And, we’ve got about a $4 million budget here. We should start the year with roughly $6 million. We should start January 1st, 2022 with about $6 million after all of our exploration expenditures and spending.

Maurice Jackson:

How much debt do you have?

Shawn Khunkhun:

Zero.

Maurice Jackson:

And if you can just remind us one more time, what is the float?

Shawn Khunkhun:

The float is roughly 40 million shares.

Maurice Jackson:

In closing, sir, what keeps you up at night that we don’t know about?

Shawn Khunkhun:

When our crew is in the field, they’re on my mind. I sleep like a baby come December when the crews are off the property. When you go to work with people, you start to care about them. And until everybody’s gone home to their families at Christmas, that’s the one thing in the back of my mind. And it’s part of the reason that we make our best efforts to go up and to spend time with our crews. Team morale is important.

Maurice Jackson:

Last question, what did I forget to ask?

Shawn Khunkhun:

One of the things that you should know is that I’ve personally invested about $500,000 dollars in Strikepoint, for me, that’s a material amount of money. And so my interests are aligned with shareholders’ interests, my family, and my friends. There’s a lot more in terms of reputation and then in personal a skin in the game. So, that’s one thing I’d like your viewers to know.

Maurice Jackson:

Mr. Khunkhun, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you today, wishing you and Strikepoint Gold the absolute best, sir.

And as a reminder, I am a licensed representative to buy and sell precious metals through Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments, where we have several options to expand your precious metals portfolio, from physical delivery of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium, to offshore depositories, and precious metals IRA’s. Give me a call at 855.505.1900 or you may email: Maurice@MilesFranklin.com.  Finally, please subscribe to www.provenandprobable.com, where we provide: Mining Insights and Bullion Sales, subscription is free.

Categories
Breaking Exclusive Interviews Junior Mining Labrador Gold Uncategorized

Labrador Gold – Kingsway Gold Project, String of Golden Pearls

Maurice Jackson:

Joining us for a conversation is Roger Moss, the CEO of Labrador Gold (TSX.V: LAB | OTCQX: INOKF). It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you sir, as you have some very encouraging news coming from the Kingsway Gold Project, this time in the form of pristine gold grains. Before we begin, Dr. Moss, who is Labrador Gold, and what is the opportunity the company presents to shareholders?

Dr. Roger Moss:

Labrador Gold is a junior mining company based in Canada, and we’re currently exploring in Newfoundland on our flagship Kingsway Gold Project. We’ve done quite a bit of work on there over the last year, and this Spring we embarked on a 50,000-meter drill program.  We made a discovery late last year of visible gold in quartz grain boulders. And we’ve been drilling for a few months with some nice high-grade hits. We are quite excited about the potential before us, and our recent press releases seem to indicate that we may be onto something.  And today’s news adds even more to the story.

Maurice Jackson:

Dr. Moss take us to the Kingsway Gold Project, which is along a structure highway known for gold-bearing fluids, please acquaint us with the primary structures.

Dr. Roger Moss:

One of the things that interested me about Kingsway when I first heard about it and we moved to acquire it, was the fact that we had these major crustal structures running through it. And we know that the kinds of gold deposits that we’re looking at here, orogenic and epigenetic gold deposits, they are associated with these major crustal structures. If you have them, it’s great, you can find gold along them. And we are fortunate enough to have two, the Appleton Fault Zone and Dog Bay Line. Most of our work to date has been along the Appleton Fault Zone, and it’s almost a no brainer because down to the south of us where New Found Gold are exploring, they’ve been having incredible success exploring along the Appleton Fault Zone with their great intersections at Keats and Lotto, and most recently at the Golden Joint, so they have three occurrences down there along the Appleton Fault Zone, and ours is just starting, and our Big Vein target is also located along the Appleton Fault Zone. It seems to be a pretty prospective structure that’s running through the property.

Maurice Jackson:

Speaking of the Big Vein in the Appleton Fault Zone, at the conclusion of our last interview, you stated that, “the Big Vein may be the first of many occurrences and that the ideal situation is finding a string of pearls along the Appleton Fault Zone.” Let’s see if the ideal has the potential to come to fruition. Let’s visit the Appleton Fault Zone as earlier today, Labrador Gold announced till results of pristine gold grains. Dr. Moss, what can you share with us?

Dr. Roger Moss:

Labrador recently conducted a pretty big till sampling survey over the lowermost, southernmost two licenses of the Kingsway Project. And I think there was 57 till samples in total, and we got some nice results and the key here, and I think you said it twice, I’m going to say it again, is pristine. Pristine gold grains and that means that these grains haven’t traveled very far from their source, and that’s what we see here in these results.

Dr. Roger Moss:

If I may just digress a little bit so that I can explain why these pristine grains are so important. We’re looking at rocks and grains that have been dumped out of glaciers as they melt and recede, so when the glaciers move across the rock, they scrape and scour the bedrock and they entrain all the material that they’re scouring and they carry it with them, and when they recede and melt, they start dropping that material all the way back to the source, so the more pristine the gold grains are, the closer to the source they would have been because you can’t transport these very flaky gold grains very far without completely modifying their shape.

Dr. Roger Moss:

And so, in terms of gold grain morphology for till sampling, we talk about pristine, closest to the source. Modified, further away, maybe around half a kilometer or more, and then reshaped where the gold grains are totally bent onto themselves and more rounded, and that’s furthest away from the source and probably up to over a kilometer away from the source. So, the pristine grains that we have, they indicate that those grains are very close to the source of mineralization that they came from.

Maurice Jackson:

Identifying the source, mode of transportation, along with pristine gold is a huge success. Does today’s release bode well on the ideal of having a string of pearls along the Appleton Fault Zone?

Dr. Roger Moss:

Oh, absolutely! To give you an example, and this is where it gets really exciting because we had a till sample that was taken right next to Big Vein, and it had something like 165 grains of gold in total and something like 80% of them were pristine. That’s great. So, it hadn’t come very far from the source, but we know that Big Vein has visible gold in there. We found a big boulder last year of quartz vein with visible gold in it, so it’s not a big jump to say that, “Well yeah, sure. That till sample came from Big Vein.” It seems to be a reasonable idea, but the results that we announced today, there are two samples, another one with 165 grains of gold, somewhere just over 90% of them pristine, very close to the source and the other one, 311 grains of gold, just over 80% pristine.

Dr. Roger Moss:

311 grains of gold is almost double the number of grains of gold that we found in the sample next to Big Vein and that occurs 700 to 800 meters northeast of Big Vein, so that means that the gold grains in those samples did not come from Big Vein. They came from somewhere much closer to the sample locations, so this goes back to my pearls on a string story, and we’re just adding pearls to the string with these till samples. It’s very exciting. It means that Big Vein is likely not the only occurrence that we’re going to be drilling, and there’s definitely more to be found along this Appleton Fault Zone.

Maurice Jackson:

Speaking of extending the string, Labrador Gold has embarked on a 50,000-meter drill program this spring. What work is currently being conducted on-site, and do you have any updates on when we may expect more assays?

Dr. Roger Moss:

Oh, that’s what everybody asks, of course. You got to ask it at some point and the answer is always the same. The labs are backed up, we’re getting results, but they’re much slower, and it seems like as every week goes by the turnaround time gets longer. One of our guys was at the lab yesterday and he came back, and he said, “Roger, you won’t believe the number of samples that are in that lab waiting to be assayed.” He said, “There are bags and bags and bags, just waiting to be assayed.”

Dr. Roger Moss:

I said, “Man, you should have taken a photograph, and that could be my answer when I get asked that question. ‘Look, folks this is what it’s like, the labs are jampacked”. We are getting results in, we will be putting out more results from the drilling. It’s going well, and yeah, I know patience is not the biggest trait of some investors, but you know what? I think that we’re going to be there. When these results come in, it’s going to be good, and I think we’ve got a long way to go yet, so yeah, I think patience is definitely required here.

Maurice Jackson:

Leaving the Kingsway Gold Project, let’s get into some numbers. Sir, please provide the capital structure for Labrador Gold.

Dr. Roger Moss:

Right now, we have around 150 million shares outstanding, and probably another 50 million warrants and options, so just over 200 million are fully diluted. We have 35 million in the bank. We don’t have any debt. So yeah, I think we’re in a pretty good position to keep on with this exploration that we’re doing and to keep going.

Maurice Jackson:

In closing, Dr. Moss, what would you like to convey to shareholders?

Dr. Roger Moss:

Well, earlier in the season when we were drilling, and it can be frustrating sometimes when we’re not hitting as often as we would like or we don’t see the results that we would like, but of course not every hole is going to hit, but I just tell myself, “Don’t stop believing,” and that’s the name of the game here. You have to believe as a geologist in this industry, you got to believe that you’re going to find the deposit that you’re looking for. And I think all indications right now are that we’re on the right track, and it’s a matter of time before we see something significant.

Maurice Jackson:

Dr. Moss for readers that wants to get more information about Labrador Gold, please share the contact details.

Dr. Roger Moss:

Yeah, you can email info@labradorgold.com, www.labradorgold.com is our web address. And I would recommend people look at our Twitter feed @LabGoldCorp. We post a lot of information on Twitter. YouTube is another channel, our YouTube channel, lots of videos there, so there’s a lot of information out there besides what’s on the website, but yeah, Twitter and YouTube both are channels that we use fairly extensively.

Maurice Jackson:

Dr. Moss, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you. Wishing you and Labrador Gold the absolute best, sir.

And as a reminder, I am a licensed representative to buy and sell precious metals through Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments, where we have several options to expand your precious metals portfolio, from physical delivery of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium, to offshore depositories, and precious metals IRA’s. Give me a call at 855.505.1900 or you may email: Maurice@MilesFranklin.com.  Finally, please subscribe to www.provenandprobable.com, where we provide: Mining Insights and Bullion Sales, subscription is free.

Categories
Breaking Energy Junior Mining Uncategorized

Hot Chili Limited | $40M Funding Arranged to Acquire Cortadera & Deliver Rapid Resource Growth

Hot Chili Limited (ASX: HCH) (OTCQB: HHLKF) (“Hot Chili” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has successfully arranged a $40 million funding through the issue of new shares at 3.2 cent per share (the “Placement”).

Highlights:

  • Fully underwritten A$5M share purchase plan, and A$35M private placement corner-stoned by mining major Glencore and underpinned by several domestic and overseas institutional investors, as well as some of Hot Chili’s largest shareholders
  • Glencore will emerge as Hot Chili’s largest shareholder with a 9.99% interest
  • New funds secure the final acquisition payment of US$15M for a 100% interest in the Company’s world-class Cortadera copper-gold discovery in Chile – payment to be made immediately
  • Fully funded to deliver a major resource upgrade and Pre-feasibility study for Costa Fuego, current resource standing at 2.9Mt copper, 2.7Moz gold and 9.9Moz silver and 64kt molybdenum (as announced to ASX on 12th October 2020)
  • Further updates expected as the Company advances its drilling, development studies and expected TSXV dual-listing later this year

Ownership of Cortadera, strong cash position, rapid resource growth and backing by Glencore provide a compelling foundation ahead for the Company’s plans to dual list on the TSXV in Canada later this year.

Hot Chili’s Managing Director Christian Easterday said “the $40 million funding secures ownership of Cortadera, and Glencore’s investment and involvement is a strong endorsement of our future”

To access the announcement please click on the link below.Download full announcement here

Cortadera Copper Project

Cortadera’s maiden Mineral Resource positions Hot Chili with the largest copper Mineral Resource and one of the largest gold Mineral Resources for an ASX-listed emerging company. 

The Cortadera maiden Mineral Resource of 451Mt at 0.46% copper equivalent (CuEq) takes the total Mineral Resource estimate for Costa Fuego (Cortadera, Productora & El Fuego) to 724Mt at 0.48% CuEq for 2.9Mt copper, 2.7Moz gold, 9.9Moz Silver and 64kt molybdenum. Cortadera also contains a higher grade component of 104Mt at 0.74% CuEq, and this has strong potential to continue growing rapidly with further drilling.View the Cortadera Project

Hot Chili Limited
Head Office (Perth)
First Floor, 768 Canning Highway,
Applecross, Western Australia 6153

Categories
Base Metals Breaking Energy MillRock Resources Precious Metals

Millrock Provides Exploration Update For Alaska Gold Projects

August 5, 20212021

Highlights

Resolution Minerals Partnership – 64North Gold Project.

  • Resolution Minerals reported that it had received assay results from a recently completed, shallow, reverse circulation drilling program conducted at prospects within the East Pogo block of the 64North Gold Project near Pogo Mine.
  • No significant gold intersections were realized, but Resolution Minerals reports strong gold pathfinder element signatures in a target area measuring 1,600 meters by 2000 meters.
  • Resolution states that pathfinder results from drill hole 21EP008 indicate potential for gold at depth and that a follow-up deeper drilling program is warranted.

Felix Gold Partnership

  • Major soil sampling program continues: 2,000 samples collected to date.
  • Drill plans are being formulated.


VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, August 5, 2021 – Millrock Resources Inc. (TSX-V: MRO, OTCQB: MLRKF) (“Millrock” or the “Company”) is pleased to provide an update on its exploration activities at its Goodpaster and Fairbanks gold district projects (Figure 1). 

Figure 1.    Millrock gold project locations within the Tintina Gold Province, Alaska.
Figure 1. Millrock gold project locations within the Tintina Gold Province, Alaska.

Goodpaster District Projects

Millrock owns a 70% interest in a very large claim block surrounding the Pogo Mine in Alaska. Pogo is a high-grade gold mine operated by Northern Star Resources Ltd. The 64North claims, which are subdivided into eight different blocks, are the subject of an option agreement with Resolution Minerals Ltd (ASX: RML, “Resolution”). Recently, a 30% interest was earned by Resolution by virtue of exploration expenditures plus cash and share payments made to Millrock in the first year of the project.

 

64North Gold Project – East Pogo block: Millrock partner Resolution has recently completed a drilling program at gold prospects located on the East Pogo block (Figure 2). A reverse circulation drill was used to test shallow, gently-dipping conductive zones detected in 2020 by ZTEM and CSAMT geophysical surveys. A total of 1,663 meters was drilled over 12 holes. Gently-dipping altered, graphitic zones with quartz and sulfides were reported in several holes. Assay results indicate only anomalous gold values. However, gold pathfinder elements detected indicate possible proximity to a gold-bearing vein system. At the nearby Pogo Mine, rocks close to the gold-bearing veins are enriched in the pathfinder elements bismuth, tellurium, sulfur, and arsenic. From the recent drilling at East Pogo, Resolution has identified a target area measuring 1,600 meters by 2,000 meters for follow-up, with a CSAMT conductive zone beneath. Drill hole 21EP008 intersected sericite and biotite alteration including minor quartz veining with strongly elevated geochemical pathfinder elements. The hole had a trend of increasing gold and alteration intensity over the last 50 meters drilled with sericite alteration present in the last few meters. This signifies potential for gold mineralization at greater depth, perhaps at the level of the CSAMT conductor. The hole unfortunately had to be terminated prior to reaching target depth. Resolution indicates it is considering drilling deeper with a core rig to test the CSAMT target below the geochemical anomaly detected through the shallow reverse circulation drilling program (Figure 3).

Figure 2.  Reverse circulation drill rig in operation on the East Pogo block, 64North Gold Project,
Figure 2. Reverse circulation drill rig in operation on the East Pogo block, 64North Gold Project,
Figure 3.  CSAMT Line 2 Cross Section on the East Pogo block, 64North Gold Project, Goodpaster District, Alaska.
Figure 3. CSAMT Line 2 Cross Section on the East Pogo block, 64North Gold Project, Goodpaster District, Alaska.

Fairbanks Gold District Projects

Millrock is in a strategic alliance agreement with Felix Gold Ltd. (“Felix Gold”), a private Australian company that intends to become a public company listed on the Australia Stock Exchange (“ASX”). Millrock is assigning its existing mineral rights in return for Felix Gold shares and royalty interests. Felix Gold is funding exploration work and paying the costs of acquiring claims by staking and by agreements with claim holders. All new properties within the strategic alliance Area of Interest become subject to royalties in favor of Millrock (Figure 4).

Figure 4.    Blue shading indicates Millrock / Felix Gold mineral land holdings in the Fairbanks Gold District, Alaska.
Figure 4. Blue shading indicates Millrock / Felix Gold mineral land holdings in the Fairbanks Gold District, Alaska.

A major soil sampling program is well underway. To date, 2,000 soil samples have been collected across the claim holdings. The planned work will be completed at the end of August. Samples are being collected using a small auger Figure 5). The goal is to get uniform, modern soil sample coverage across the claims. Once the soil data is merged with all historic data which has been compiled in a database, drill targeting will be done.

Figure 5.    Soil sampling team in action, Fairbanks Gold District, Alaska.
Figure 5. Soil sampling team in action, Fairbanks Gold District, Alaska.

Qualified Person
The scientific and technical information disclosed within this document has been prepared, reviewed, and approved by Gregory A. Beischer, President, CEO, and a director of Millrock Resources. Mr. Beischer is a qualified person as defined in NI 43-101.

About Millrock Resources Inc.
Millrock Resources Inc. is a premier project generator to the mining industry. Millrock identifies, packages, and operates large-scale projects for joint venture, thereby exposing its shareholders to the benefits of mineral discovery without the usual financial risk taken on by most exploration companies. The company is recognized as the premier generative explorer in Alaska, holds royalty interests in British Columbia, Canada, and Sonora State, Mexico, is a significant shareholder of junior explorer ArcWest Exploration Inc. and owns a large shareholding in Resolution Minerals Limited. Funding for drilling at Millrock’s exploration projects is primarily provided by its joint venture partners. Business partners of Millrock have included some of the leading names in the mining industry: EMX Royalty, Centerra Gold, First Quantum, Teck, Kinross, Vale, Inmet and, Altius as well as junior explorers Resolution, Riverside, PolarX, and Felix Gold.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
“Gregory Beischer”
Gregory Beischer, President & CEO

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Melanee Henderson, Investor Relations
Toll-Free: 877-217-8978 | Local: 604-638-3164
Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Some statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information (within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation) including without limitation the intention to mount further exploration including drilling in 2021. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements.

Categories
Base Metals Breaking Emx Royalty Project Generators

EMX Royalty Files Amended and Restated Timok Project Technical Report on SEDAR

Vancouver, British Columbia–(Newsfile Corp. – August 3, 2021) – EMX Royalty Corporation (NYSE American: EMX) (TSXV: EMX) (FSE: 6E9) (the “Company” or “EMX”) is pleased to announce the filing on SEDAR of an amended and restated Timok Project Technical Report entitled: “NI 43-101 Technical Report – Timok Copper-Gold Project Royalty, Serbia” dated July 21, 2021 and with an effective date of December 31, 2020 prepared by Mineral Resource Management LLC (“MRM”). The amended and restated Technical Report can be found under the Company’s profile at www.sedar.com. EMX holds an uncapped 0.5% net smelter return (“NSR”) royalty on Timok’s Brestovać license, which covers the Čukaru Peki copper-gold development project. The Timok Project is controlled and being developed by Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd (“Zijin”).

The amended and restated Timok Technical Report: a) restates the Timok Project resources and reserves for the Upper Zone and the resources for the Lower Zone as adopted from public disclosures by Zijin, which is the current owner and operator of the Timok Project. Zijin’s Timok Project resources and reserves, disclosed in its 2020 Annual Report, have been conformed to the requirements of NI 43-101 and are materially identical to those of the previous operator Nevsun, which were referenced in the original Report; and b) removes the discussion of EMX’s Brestovać West and Durlan Potok royalty properties from the section of the original Report entitled “Adjacent Properties” to comply with the requirements of NI 43-101. The discussion of these two royalty properties has been moved to the “Property Description and Location” section of this amended and restated Technical Report to accompany the discussion of the Brestovać royalty property.

Zijin is on a fast-track schedule for Timok’s Čukaru Peki high sulfidation epithermal copper-gold development project. Recently, Zijin stated in a news release dated June 16, 2021, that it “recently obtained the trial production permit for the processing facilities issued by the Serbian Ministry of Mining and Energy, and have entered the trial production stage. At present, the construction of the processing facilities of the project has been completed, and trial production and operation, construction conclusion and greening, etc. are being conducted at full speed. It is planned that all work of the trial production stage shall be completed for submission to the Ministry of Mining for acceptance check before September of this year. This will achieve a smooth transition from mine infrastructure construction to production and operation“. In addition to the Upper Zone, Čukaru Peki also hosts the underlying Lower Zone porphyry copper-gold resource project, which provides substantial exploration upside to EMX’s Brestovać royalty asset.

The start of trial production and the imminent commencement of commercial production this year at the Upper Zone represents an important milestone for EMX which purchased its key 0.5% NSR royalty on the Timok Project in 2013, shortly after the discovery of the Čukaru Peki copper-gold deposit (see EMX News Release dated February 4, 2014). This acquisition serves as an example of how EMX leveraged its in-country expertise through early recognition of the potential value of the Čukaru Peki discovery, but also through the understanding of where key royalty interests were held by third parties that were available for acquisition.

EMX congratulates Zijin on its ongoing progress in developing the Timok Project, and looks forward to new advancements as the work programs progress.

Dr. Eric P. Jensen, CPG, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and employee of the Company, has reviewed, verified and approved the disclosure of the technical information contained in this news release.

About EMX. EMX is a precious, base, and battery metals royalty company. EMX’s investors are provided with discovery, development, and commodity price optionality, while limiting exposure to risks inherent to operating companies. The Company’s common shares are listed on the NYSE American Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol EMX. Please see www.EMXroyalty.com for more information.

For further information contact:

David M. Cole
President and Chief Executive Officer
Phone: (303) 979-6666
Dave@EMXroyalty.com

Scott Close
Director of Investor Relations
Phone: (303) 973-8585
SClose@EMXroyalty.com

Isabel Belger
Investor Relations (Europe)
Phone: +49 178 4909039
IBelger@EMXroyalty.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain “forward looking statements” that reflect the Company’s current expectations and projections about its future results. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding perceived merit of properties, exploration results and budgets, mineral reserves and resource estimates, work programs, capital expenditures, timelines, strategic plans, market prices for precious and base metal, or other statements that are not statements of fact. When used in this news release, words such as “estimate,” “intend,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “will”, “believe”, “potential”, “upside” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, which, by their very nature, are not guarantees of the Company’s future operational or financial performance, and are subject to risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause the Company’s actual results, performance, prospects or opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and factors may include, but are not limited to: unavailability of financing, failure to identify commercially viable mineral reserves, fluctuations in the market valuation for commodities, difficulties in obtaining required approvals for the development of a mineral project, increased regulatory compliance costs, expectations of project funding by joint venture partners and other factors.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release or as of the date otherwise specifically indicated herein. Due to risks and uncertainties, including the risks and uncertainties identified in this news release, and other risk factors and forward-looking statements listed in the Company’s MD&A for the quarter ended March 31, 2021 (the “MD&A”), and the most recently filed Annual Information Form (the “AIF”) for the year ended December 31, 2020, actual events may differ materially from current expectations. More information about the Company, including the MD&A, the AIF and financial statements of the Company, is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the SEC’s EDGAR website at www.sec.gov.

Categories
Base Metals Breaking Emx Royalty Energy Exclusive Interviews Junior Mining Precious Metals

EMX Royalty – Adds 18 New Royalty Properties from SSR Mining

Maurice Jackson:

Joining us for a conversation is David Cole, the CEO of EMX Royalty (NYSE: EMX | TSX.V: EMX), the Royalty Generator.

Maurice Jackson:

Honored to have you with us today sir, as you have some breaking news for shareholders, as EMX Royalty has just consummated a watershed moment with the announcement of the Royalty Portfolio purchase agreement with SSR Mining (Press Release). Mr. Cole, thank you for allowing me to be the first to say congratulations’ sir on a significant milestone on what may be the biggest company event in the history of EMX Royalty.

David Cole:

We are very pleased with this transaction, pleased to have SSR Mining as a shareholder in the company, and it’s been a pleasure to work with them.

Maurice Jackson:

Let’s get right into the press release, the EMX Royalty acquisition consists of 18 geographically diverse royalties with 4 royalty assets at advanced stages of project development. Please provide us with the details of the Royalty Purchase Agreement with SSR Mining.

David Cole:

Well, we’re paying $66 million upfront for this portfolio, $33 million in share capital, and $33 million in cash, which are deferred payments depending upon the performance of the Yenipazar net profit interest royalty in Turkey. Those deferred payments accumulate up to $34 million, but that’s not until that asset cashflows $20 million. We’re pleased with respect to how this is designed. This gives SSR Mining a nice chunk of equity in the EMX which is one of the key things that they were looking for when they chose us to sell the Royalty Portfolio.

Maurice Jackson:

What type of value creation will EMX derive from this transaction and how will it impact the synergies with the existing EMX initiatives around the world?

David Cole:

One of the key things here is immediate large cash flow. The Gediktepe mine which is at the final stages of construction and should be in production within a month or two has a high-grade oxide cap that’s gold enriched with a 10% NSR and we’ll see immediate gold royalty income over double-digit millions of dollars per annum from that royalty right out of the gate. We’re very, very pleased with that so this really propels at the top of our pyramid forward, which is something that we’ve been working on for some time as we’ve discussed previously, with respect to Synergies with our existing portfolio, and one of the reasons why we were able to grab this is because of our relationships in Turkey and our comfort with Lydia as an operator there. And that gave us an edge with respect to working with SSR to accomplish this deal.

Maurice Jackson:

One of the key aspects of this transaction along with all of EMX Royalties is something you’ve covered with us and that is the value proposition of embedded optionality, which is just icing on the cake for each of your royalty properties. Can you please elaborate on the virtues of embedded optionality within royalties?

 David Cole:

It’s one of my favorite topics and it’s the reason why royalties traded such premium valuations is because of all the embedded optionality, commodity price optionality, discovery optionality, engineering advancement optionality, et cetera, et cetera. And mining districts have a history of giving and giving and it’s always to the benefit of the royalty holder and no cost to the royalty holder. So that’s why royalties are so dear and I will point out that royalty companies that have large numbers of royalties trade at a much higher valuation per royalty than royalty companies, so the lower number of royalties, this is a phenomenon that’s existed in the royalty sector now for some time. Where the portfolio effect impacts the overall valuation of that portfolio and that’s because of this multiplicative optionality of the entire portfolio. You never know where the big success is going to come from years out.

David Cole:

As you know our goal here is to continue to grow this portfolio through organic methods which we’re good at and have had a track record for 18 years of doing, but also through acquisition. And we’ve been challenged quite honestly, to accomplish big creative acquisitions because it’s a competitive space. That we’ve been very patient. We stood at the plate and they kept throwing more pitches at us and we found one to hit and hit it out of the park.

Maurice Jackson:

Great way to put it, sir. I referenced a watershed moment. Where does today’s press release rank with the relation to the Malmyzh and/or the Timok?

David Cole:

Well, that’s interesting certainly the value proposition of the Timok acquisition is unbeatable because we paid $200,000 Canadian dollars for a royalty that’s going to pay hundreds of millions. So that one’s astonishing, but that had to do with the fact that we were in that district and understood what was going on there very early in the history of the discovery and were able to acquire that royalty early on thanks to our geologic understanding of the region. That’s a tough one to compare. With respect to the Malmyzh transaction that was a fantastic deal that cashed-up EMX and put us in a position where we could do this deal.

David Cole:

And step-by-step we’re building this company. Very pleased with these transactions. Malmyzh was super accretive for us. As you know, we booked $67 million US dollars out of that deal and have put those monies to excellent work. This being the top example. You and other folks have asked me many, many, many times, “What are you going to do with the money, Dave, what are you going to do with the money”? We just kept looking and turning down opportunities and losing sales processes because our bids weren’t as high as our competitors until the right one came along. And one of the key aspects that made this deal happen, as I mentioned, is the fact that SSR specifically wants to be a shareholder in EMX. And I’ve said before that the right transaction that’ll really advance this company is going to be one where the major companies selling their royalties understand the value proposition that EMX offers and want to be a contributor, want to be a member of the team.

Maurice Jackson:

Speaking of the Timok, which is a company making event in and of itself, what are the latest developments there?

David Cole:

It’s going into production. I do believe that they had a couple of delays. So they were originally talking about an opening ceremony in June. I believe that’s been pushed back to August at this point, maybe September, but that’s still ahead of the original schedule. The Chinese have been very aggressive. It’s advancing into production.

Maurice Jackson:

Leaving the property bank Mr. Cole, please provide us with the capital structure for EMX royalty.

 David Cole:

Well, we’re sitting here today with $84 million shares issued and outstanding and few over $90 million shares fully diluted. That’s not including the shares that we will issue to SSR, which on a pro forma basis will be approximately 12% of the company. So that’ll push us up towards the 95 issued outstanding and over a hundred million fully diluted at the completion of this transaction, which should hopefully occur within four to five weeks in my opinion. Sitting here today with about $30 million US dollars in cash, of course, those monies get paid to SSR as part of this transaction as well.

David Cole:

We have about $20 million in tradable securities and long-term investments in our portfolio as well and no debt at this time. However, we will be taking on a small $10 million debt from Sprott. We appreciate their support as a capital partner for EMX. They’ve helped us out in the past as well. That puts us in a situation where even though we’re putting out USD $33 million to SSR for this transaction, thanks to Sprott we’ll still have a nice cushion here with respect to money in the treasury to continually advance our organic growth, which is our job one, as you know.

Maurice Jackson:

Just for the record, ladies, and gentlemen, I plan to match my bullion purchases with shares and EMX royalty.  I believe the company has the potential to melt-up. And I’m talking about the stock price of course. The stock price, in my opinion, is at a fire sale. And that is Maurice Jackson’s opinion, but not really just my opinion, Mr. Cole, you and I both know some of the most prominent names in the natural resource space. They share the same sentiment about EMX royalty.

David Cole:

Happy to have those guys on as contributors.

Maurice Jackson:

Yes, sir. In closing, what would you like to say to shareholders?

David Cole:

EMX Royalty is in a situation here today where the Bayla royalty of 4% royalty on the lead, zinc, silver mine in Turkey is coming into production. Zijin is advancing the Timok project towards production, of course, Leeville in the background that pays every month. And we have an immense amount of optionality within our pyramid is bubbling up towards the top. And these names I’m throwing out are just examples of that. We’ve talked about the potential for this to become a cash cow over time. We’ve just poured fuel on the fire. We put gasoline on the fire here with this one and the Gediktepe 10% NSR and the oxide gold cap will just propel our gold income in the company here substantially over the next three years. We’re very excited.

Maurice Jackson:

Mr. Cole, for readers that want to get more information about EMX royalty please share the website address.

David Cole:

www.emxroyalty.com -The contact details for myself, Scott Close, and Isabel Belger managing European investor relations, and Scott here in North America are embedded in the website and on the press release feel free to reach out to us.

Maurice Jackson:

Mr. Cole, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you, wishing you and EMX royalty the absolute best, sir.

 David Cole:

Thank you, Maurice. Always appreciate your support.

Maurice Jackson:

And as a reminder, I am a licensed representative to buy and sell precious metals through Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments, where we have several options to expand your precious metals portfolio, from physical delivery of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium, to offshore depositories, and precious metals IRA’s. Give me a call at 855.505.1900 or you may email: Maurice@MilesFranklin.com.  Finally, please subscribe to www.provenandprobable.com, where we provide: Mining Insights and Bullion Sales, subscription is free.

Categories
Base Metals Breaking Energy Junior Mining

Hot Chili Welcomes Glencore Investment

Hot Chili Limited (ASX: HCH) (OTCQB: HHLKF) (“Hot Chili” or “Company”) is pleased to announce a strategic investment by Glencore to acquire a 9.99% interest in Hot Chili.

The Glencore investment is a positive endorsement of the Company’s Costa Fuego copper-gold project as it progresses to become a globally significant, low-altitude development.

The Company has entered into a binding agreement with Glencore for a A$14.4 million strategic investment to acquire a 9.99% interest in Hot Chili. Glencore is one of the largest natural resource companies in the world, providing strong support for the completion of a feasibility study and development of Cost Fuego.

Glencore will have the right to appoint a Director to the Board of Hot Chili, and the right to appoint members to a Technical Steering Committee to advise on operational matters. Furthermore, the Company undertakes to grant Glencore offtake agreements over 60% of concentrate produced for a period of 8 years from commercial production on arms-length commercially competitive benchmark terms. These rights are subject to Glencore holding at least 7.5% of the share capital of Hot Chili, except where Glencore did not have the opportunity to participate in a dilution event.

The addition of Glencore as a strategic investor will allow the Company to draw on Glencore’s expertise in project development and production.

Commenting on the strategic investment, the Managing Director of Hot Chili Mr Christian Easterday said:
“Hot Chili welcomes the strategic alignment with Glencore, especially as the Company moves toward a dual listing on the TSX Venture exchange by the end of 2021.”

“We view this as a significant milestone event and a strong endorsement by Glencore.”
“We believe Glencore will make an excellent partner in the development of Costa Fuego and are a testament to Hot Chili’s staff and consultants who are working tirelessly to transition Hot Chili into a Tier-1 copper developer.”

To access the announcement please click on the link below.Download full announcement here

Cortadera Copper Project

Cortadera’s maiden Mineral Resource positions Hot Chili with the largest copper Mineral Resource and one of the largest gold Mineral Resources for an ASX-listed emerging company. 

The Cortadera maiden Mineral Resource of 451Mt at 0.46% copper equivalent (CuEq) takes the total Mineral Resource estimate for Costa Fuego (Cortadera, Productora & El Fuego) to 724Mt at 0.48% CuEq for 2.9Mt copper, 2.7Moz gold, 9.9Moz Silver and 64kt molybdenum. Cortadera also contains a higher grade component of 104Mt at 0.74% CuEq, and this has strong potential to continue growing rapidly with further drilling.View the Cortadera Project

Categories
Base Metals Breaking Emx Royalty Energy Junior Mining Precious Metals Project Generators

EMX Executes Agreement to Acquire Royalty Portfolio from SSR Mining

Figure 1: Locations of assets in the Royalty Portfolio

EMX Executes Agreement to Acquire Royalty Portfolio from SSR Mining

Vancouver, British Columbia, July 29, 2021 (NYSE American: EMX; TSX Venture: EMX; Frankfurt: 6E9) – EMX Royalty Corporation (the “Company”, or “EMX”) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement (the “Royalty Purchase Agreement”) dated July 29, 2021 with SSR Mining Inc. and certain of its subsidiaries (“SSR Mining”) to purchase a portfolio of royalty interests and deferred payments (the “Royalty Portfolio”). The Royalty Portfolio consists of 18 geographically diverse royalties, with four royalty assets at advanced stages of project development, and also includes U.S. $18 million in future cash payments to be made to the owner of the Royalty Portfolio (see Figure 1 and Table 1). Upon closing of the transaction EMX will pay to SSR Mining U.S. $33 million in cash and U.S. $33 million in common shares of EMX. EMX will also make deferred and contingent payments to SSR Mining of up to U.S. $34 million if certain project advancement milestones are achieved. Further details of the commercial terms are provided below. Completion of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange (the “TSX-V”).

The portfolio is highlighted by the Gediktepe royalties, which cover assets currently being developed by Lidya Madencilik (“Lidya”), a private Turkish company that expects initial production from Gediktepe in late 2021. These include a 10% NSR royalty on production from an oxide gold-silver deposit and a 2% NSR royalty on underlying polymetallic volcanogenic massive sulfide (“VMS”) mineralization. Yenipazar (Turkey) and Diablillos (Argentina) are additional royalties on advanced stage projects (see summaries below) and the other 14 royalty interests cover both precious metal and base metal assets in South America, Mexico, the United States (Nevada) and Canada.

This transaction will leverage EMX’s experience base in Turkey, is expected to provide significant near-term cash flow to the Company, and establishes a pipeline of quality royalty assets in numerous well-recognized mineral belts around the world. EMX has been working in Turkey for nearly 20 years and looks forward to building its relationship with both SSR Mining and Lidya. In Lidya, EMX sees a well funded and highly capable operator that is developing both the Gediktepe and Hod Maden mines in Turkey. The Gediktepe and Yenipazar royalty interests will bolster EMX’s existing royalty portfolio in Turkey, which includes an uncapped 4% NSR royalty on the Balya North polymetallic deposit and other royalty interests in Turkey. Balya North is being developed by Esan Eczacibaşi Endüstriyel Hammaddeler San. ve Tic. A.Ş. (“Esan”) and remains on schedule to commence commercial production in 2021.

This Royalty Portfolio acquisition is well aligned with EMX’s corporate growth strategy, whereby the Company leverages its in-region expertise in identifying opportunities in jurisdictions where EMX already has a strategic presence. Through the years this approach has led to continuous value creation for the Company and synergies with existing EMX initiatives around the world. Further, securing near term positive cash flow will represent an important step in the Company’s evolution.

Rodney Antal, President and Chief Executive Officer of SSR Mining, commented “We are very excited to become a shareholder of EMX where our investors will have the opportunity to participate in the value creation associated with an established, growth-oriented company with an attractive portfolio of precious, base and battery metals royalties”.

Commercial Terms Overview. As stated above, upon closing of the transaction EMX will pay to SSR Mining U.S. $33 million in cash and U.S. $33 million in common shares of EMX. The number of common shares to be issued by EMX to SSR Mining will be based on the volume-weighted average price (“VWAP”) of the shares on the NYSE American stock exchange for the 20 days prior to the date of completion of the transaction (the “Closing Date”). All such shares will be subject to a hold period of 4 months and a day from the Closing Date. Upon closing, SSR Mining will own an approximate 12% undiluted equity interest in EMX, subject to final calculation at closing.

Additional deferred payments of up to U.S. $34 million will be made by EMX to SSR Mining in consideration for the Net Profits Interest (“NPI”) royalty on the Yenipazar property in Turkey. These will be payable as follows: (i) U.S. $2,000,000 in EMX common shares based on the 20-day VWAP prior to the date of commencement of construction of a mill on the Yenipazar property; (ii) U.S. $2,000,000 in EMX common shares based on the 20-day VWAP prior to the date of commencement of commercial production; (iii) U.S. $15,000,000 in cash, payable when EMX has received U.S. $10,000,000 in net profits interest payments under the Yenipazar NPI; and (iv) U.S. $15,000,000 in cash, payable when EMX has received a second U.S. $10,000,000 in net profits interest payments. All such shares will be subject to a hold period of 4 months and a day from the date of issue.

EMX intends to pay up to U.S. $10,000,000 of the cash payable at closing with the proceeds of a U.S. $10,000,000 senior secured credit facility (the “Credit Facility”) provided for in a non-binding term sheet EMX has entered into with Sprott Private Resource Lending II (Collector), LP (“Sprott”). The Credit Facility is to mature one year from the Closing Date, bear interest at a rate of 7% per annum, and be secured by general security agreements over the assets of EMX and certain of its subsidiaries, and pledges of the shares of certain of EMX’s subsidiaries, who will, at Sprott’s election, also be guarantors of the loan. In addition to interest payable, the U.S. $10,000,000 to be advanced under the Credit Facility will also be subject to an original issue discount equal to 5% of the amount of the advance. Under the term sheet, Sprott will subscribe for U.S. $300,000 of EMX common shares at closing, at a deemed price equal to U.S. $2.74 per share. All such shares will be subject to a hold period of 4 months and a day from the Closing Date.

If the Credit Facility is not ultimately entered into, the Royalty Purchase Agreement provides for vendor takeback financing by SSR Mining of up to U.S. $5,000,000 (the “VTB Note”), and EMX will pay the balance of the cash payable at closing from available working capital. The VTB Note will bear interest at 14% per annum and will mature 60 days from the Closing Date. If unpaid within such 60 day period, the VTB Note ‎will bear additional interest at a rate of 2% per annum for each 60 day period past due‎.

Royalty Portfolio Overview. As summarized in Figure 1 and Table 1, the Royalty Portfolio spans over 69,000 hectares across seven countries on three continents. Summaries for Gediktepe, Yenipazar and Diablillos are provided here, and further information on the Royalty Portfolio and other EMX assets can be found at www.emxroyalty.com. Upon completion of the transaction, of the royalties purchased, only the royalty over the Gediktepe property in Turkey will be material to EMX at the present time. EMX is currently preparing a technical report on the Gediktepe property to be filed on SEDAR.

Gediktepe VMS Deposit, Western Turkey: The Gediktepe VMS deposit was discovered by a Joint Venture (“JV”) initiative between Alacer Gold Corp. (“Alacer”) and Lidya in 2012-2013 and was quickly advanced to PEA (2014) and Prefeasibility stages (2016). The deposit is comprised of a polymetallic VMS system with precious metal, copper, and zinc rich domains. The upper portion of the deposit is oxidized, forming a precious metal-enriched gossanous cap that will be mined first, followed by production from the underlying polymetallic sulfide deposit. Operator Lidya has commenced development and construction of the project and is anticipating initial production in late 2021.

Alacer, the previous owner of the Gediktepe royalties, completed a merger with SSR Mining in September of 2020. The Gediktepe Royalties consist of: (i) a perpetual 10% NSR royalty over metals produced from the oxide zone (predominantly gold and silver) after cumulative production of 10,000 gold-equivalent oxide ounces; and (ii) a perpetual 2% NSR royalty over metals produced from the sulfide zone (predominantly copper, zinc, lead, silver and gold), payable after cumulative production of 25,000 gold-equivalent sulfide ounces.

The Gediktepe property is the subject of an NI 43-101 Prefeasibility study entitled “Gediktepe 2019 Prefeasibility Study” prepared by OreWin Pty Ltd. on behalf of Alacer with an effective date of Mar. 26, 2019 (the “Gediktepe Report”). The 2019 Gediktepe Report is filed on SEDAR and contains historical mining reserve and resource estimates (summarized in Tables 2.1 and 2.2).

Yenipazar VMS Deposit, Central Turkey: The Yenipazar polymetallic VMS deposit was discovered in the late 1990’s by YAMAS, a predecessor of Alacer and SSR Mining. Aldridge Minerals Inc. (“Aldridge”), a public Canadian corporation formerly listed on the TSX-V, formed a JV with Alacer in 2004 with the right to earn a majority interest in the project. Later modifications to the JV agreement in 2006 led to Aldridge acquiring a 100% project equity interest, with Alacer retaining an NPI royalty that is set at 6% until U.S. $165 million in revenues are received by the royalty holder, after which the NPI converts to a 10% interest.

Aldridge delivered a feasibility study in 2013 that was updated in 2014 before Aldridge encountered financial difficulties. Ultimately, Aldridge (and Yenipazar) were sold to a new private company (Virtus Madencilik) headed by Aldridge’s major shareholder, Ahmet Taçyildiz. Trafigura Ventures V B.V. also owns a 30% interest in Virtus. Virtus recently updated the feasibility study for Yenipazar and is currently seeking project financing for development of the project.

Diablillos Gold-Silver Epithermal deposit, ArgentinaDiablillos is an extensive 7,900 hectare property located in the mining friendly Province of Salta in the Argentine Puna region. There are currently seven known mineralized zones on the Diablillos property, with the Oculto zone being the most important and the most explored. Oculto is a deeply oxidized, high-sulfidation epithermal silver-gold deposit.

Operator AbraSilver Resource Corp. (TSX-V: ABRA, “AbraSilver”) has an option to acquire 100% of the Diablillos property, with one outstanding payment due on the earlier of the date on which commercial production occurs at Diablillos or July 31, 2025. A 2018 PEA reported historical Indicated Resources at Oculto of 26.85 million tonnes grading 93g/t silver and 0.85g/t gold, for 80.3 million ounces of contained silver and 732 thousand ounces of contained gold[1]. Preliminary metallurgical tests indicate high recoveries from a crushing, grinding and agitated leach plant with a Merrill-Crowe circuit. High-grade copper intercepts have been discovered at depth and may suggest deeper porphyry-style potential.

AbraSilver continues to drill Oculto as well as advancing other targets on the property. An updated PEA is expected in Q3 2021, with a feasibility study slated for 2022.


Note: A qualified person has not performed sufficient work to classify the historical resource estimate for Diablillos as current, and EMX is not treating the historical estimate as current mineral resources. Significant data compilation, confirmation drilling, re-sampling and data verification by a qualified person may be required before the historical estimates can be classified as current mineral resources. The historical estimate is considered by EMX to be reliable and relevant, and is presented for the purpose of describing the extent and nature of mineralization as presently understood. The historical estimate should not be relied upon until verified.

Summary: By agreeing to acquire the Royalty Portfolio, EMX seeks to secure near term and sustained cash flow from a diverse collection of royalty interests and deferred consideration payments. Further, EMX welcomes SSR Mining as a strategic shareholder in EMX. EMX views this transaction as wholly accretive to its overall business, where royalties over multiple advanced and resource stage assets add significant value and diversity to EMX’s global portfolio.

Eric P. Jensen, CPG, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and an employee of the Company, has reviewed, verified, and approved the disclosure of the technical information contained in this news release.


[1] As reported in Technical Report on the Diablillos Project, Salta Province, Argentina, prepared by Roscoe Postle Associates (RPA) and filed on SEDAR by AbraPlata Resource Corporation with an effective date of April 16, 2018. Mineral Resources were reported to CIM guidelines and definitions. The resources were estimated using Ordinary Kriging within grade shell domains and reported within an optimized pit based upon metal prices of $1500/oz gold and $23/oz silver and variably calculated recoveries (refer to the technical report for details).

About EMX. EMX is a precious, base and battery metals royalty company. EMX’s investors are provided with discovery, development, and commodity price optionality, while limiting exposure to risks inherent to operating companies. The Company’s common shares are listed on the NYSE American Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol EMX. Please see www.EMXroyalty.com for more information.

About SSR Mining. SSR Mining Inc. is a leading, free cash flow focused intermediate gold company with four producing assets located in the USA, Turkey, Canada, and Argentina, combined with a global pipeline of high-quality development and exploration assets in the USA, Turkey, Mexico, Peru, and Canada. SSR Mining is listed under the ticker symbol SSRM on the NASDAQ and the TSX, and SSR on the ASX.
For further information contact:
David M. ColePresident and Chief Executive OfficerPhone: (303) 979-6666Dave@EMXroyalty.com
Scott CloseDirector of Investor RelationsPhone: (303) 973-8585SClose@EMXroyalty.com
Isabel BelgerInvestor Relations (Europe)Phone: +49 178 4909039Ibelger@EMXroyalty.com
Neither the TSX-V nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain “forward looking statements” that reflect the Company’s current expectations and projections about its future results. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding completion of the transaction, perceived merits of properties, exploration results and budgets, mineral reserves and resource estimates, work programs, capital expenditures, timelines, strategic plans, market prices for precious and base metal, or other statements that are not statements of fact. When used in this news release, words such as “estimate,” “intend,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “will”, “believe”, “potential”, “upside” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, which, by their very nature, are not guarantees of the Company’s future operational or financial performance, and are subject to risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause the Company’s actualresults, performance, prospects or opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and factors may include, but are not limited to: unavailability of financing, failure to identify commercially viable mineral reserves, fluctuations in the market valuation for commodities, difficulties in obtaining required approvals for the development of a mineral project, increased regulatory compliance costs, expectations of project funding by joint venture partners and other factors. It is possible EMX may not complete the transaction, as a result of failure to fulfill conditions of closing, unavailability of financing or for other reasons EMX cannot anticipate at this time.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release or as of the date otherwise specifically indicated herein. Due to risks and uncertainties, including the risks and uncertainties identified in this news release, and other risk factors and forward-looking statements listed in the Company’s MD&A for the quarter ended March 31, 2021 and the year ended December 31, 2020 (the “MD&A”), and the most recently filed Revised Annual Information Form (the “AIF”) for the year ended December 31, 2020, actual events may differ materially from current expectations. More information about the Company, including the MD&A, the AIF and financial statements of the Company, is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the SEC’s EDGAR website at www.sec.gov.

Categories
Base Metals Breaking Energy Exclusive Interviews Metallic Group Metallic Minerals

Metallic Minerals – 2 Drill Programs, La Plata and Keno Silver projects, Plus Royalties

Joining us for a conversation is Greg Johnson, the CEO of Metallic Minerals (TSX.V: MMG | OTCQB: MMNGF). Sir, we are thrilled to have you back as Metallic Minerals has several exciting developments to provide shareholders. Before we begin, Mr. Johnson, please introduce us to Metallic Minerals and the opportunity the company presents to shareholders.

Greg Johnson:

Metallic Minerals is a silver-focused exploration and development stage company. We are a member of the Metallic Group of Companies. Many of us were part of the original founding of NovaGold. The group is backed by renowned resource investors, such as Eric Sprott. We started putting together the Metallic Group at the bottom of the metal price cycle. Our focus was on brownfields, past-producing, high-potential districts with MMG being focused on silver. Over the past five years, we’ve acquired and explored three exceptional assets, including our flagship Keno Silver Project, the La Plata Project, and our Klondike Royalty Portfolio.

Maurice Jackson:

Speaking of Colorado, sir, take us onsite to the La Plata Silver-Gold-Copper Project located just outside of Durango, as Metallic Minerals has just announced the commencement of its initial drill campaign on the La Plata, which is the first significant exploration in over 50 years in the historic high-grade La Plata Mining District. Before we get into the press release, Mr. Johnson, please acquaint us more with the La Plata Project and the value proposition before us.

Greg Johnson:

So we’re pretty excited about this. We see this as an amazing opportunity. The La Plata Project is a high-grade silver and gold district originally discovered in the 1700s with over 90 different mines and prospects that were developed from the 1800s to about the 1940s, all of these producing bonanza-grade silver and gold. Major miners such as, Rio Tinto and Freeport, have come into the district in the 1950s, recognizing the bulk-tonnage potential in the central part of this precious metals-rich porphyry system. This system is a lot like the Galore Creek Project that was operated by NovaGold and our team was part of driving the success, that was recently sold to Teck and Newmont. Our team is particularly excited about applying our new modern toolkit to this opportunity in this historic high-grade district.

Maurice Jackson:

Metallic Minerals is embarking on Phase One of your 2021 drill program on the La Plata, which will be 2,000 meters of diamond drilling on the central porphyry, which hosts the historic resource. What is the goal for this campaign? And can you talk about the historical resource and what it looks like?

Greg Johnson:

This is the first drill campaign on this project in, as you said, in nearly 50 years. It’s designed to confirm the historic drill work on the project, which is only in the central porphyry system and particularly the precious metal values, which were historically under-sample. With 54 historic drill holes comprising nearly 15,000 meters of drilling, we see the potential here at La Plata to rapidly advance the system to a modern 43-101 resource. That historic resource indicates that we have the potential for a multi-billion-pound copper system with tens of millions of ounces of silver. And that historic resource doesn’t include any of the work surrounding the area in the high-grade epithermal silver-gold structures that were the focus of historic mining.

Maurice Jackson:

How will Metallic Minerals measure success for this drill program and when can the market expect results?

Greg Johnson:

What we’re looking for here is to confirm the past work, which was done by really high-quality players like Rio Tinto and Freeport, with the potential to be able to not only show what they did, but to build on that and show significant expansion. We should start to see results coming out over the next couple of months with continued 3D modeling going into the fall with an objective, ultimately, of delivering an inaugural 43-101 resource on this project.

Maurice Jackson:

Leaving Colorado, let’s visit Metallic Minerals’ flagship Keno Silver Project, which is adjacent to Alexco Resources, located in the historic silver-rich Keno Silver District of the Yukon in Canada. Back in April, Metallic Minerals announced a high-grade silver intersect with 4.1 meters resulting in 2,536 grams per tonnes silver equivalent. That has now been followed up with a 10,000-meter drill program. How are things coming along and are there any updates that you can pass along to us?

Greg Johnson:

This is an exciting program. Our exploration program kicked off this year in June with the first drill. We’re looking to add a second here. This is going to be one of our largest programs to date on the Keno Silver Project with 10,000 meters planned on multiple targets and following up on the success from last year. In addition, we’re running a deep IP geophysical survey across the large targets on the eastern part of the district, which could start to give us a sense of scale and potential on those discoveries from last year’s program.

That historic resource indicates that we have the potential for a multi-billion pound copper system with tens of millions of ounces of silver. And that historic resource doesn’t include any of the work surrounding the area in the high-grade epithermal silver-gold structures that were the focus of historic mining.

Maurice Jackson:

When can we expect results from the drill program and what will determine success?

Greg Johnson:

Results should start coming out any time and continue over the next several months and well into the fall. What we’re hoping to do here is to build and expand on the areas we’ve already identified mineralization, both in terms of the high-grade systems and the bulk tonnage, and to continue to build towards that inaugural resource estimate for the project.

Maurice Jackson:

Finally, let’s discuss the highly innovative Klondike alluvial gold properties in the Yukon. Do you have any updates there?

Greg Johnson:

We were pleased actually to see significant progress on the Alluvial Gold Portfolio. This is in the historic Klondike Gold Fields, which produced over 20 million ounces historically. And today that production is from these large-scale, modern open-pit operations. We’ve had major drill campaigns completed by a couple of our operators this spring and going into the summer. The next steps here are the initiation of bulk-sample processing, which is like test mining of the ground. And from that work, we could potentially see two or three of the blocks advance quickly to commercial gold production, including the potential for the first significant production royalties to Metallic Minerals this year from gold produced on those projects.

Maurice Jackson:

Oh, that sounds exciting. All right. Leaving the project sites, what is the next significant milestone for Metallic Minerals?

Greg Johnson:

With three active programs, we’ve got a lot of activity that I would expect to see strong news flow coming from each of the projects. Each one of them has kind of its milestones, but drilling, geophysical results, and then, ultimately, culminating in initial resource estimates and potentially gold production from the Alluvial Portfolio.

Maurice Jackson:

Let’s look at some numbers. Sir, please provide us the capital structure for Metallic Minerals.

Greg Johnson:

The company is well structured. 126 million shares outstanding. No debt. Got about 6 million in cash and significant in-the-money warrants that could bring in as much as another $12 million for the next year. We’re well-positioned to carry out this year’s program and we’re well-positioned into 2022 for follow-up programs.

Maurice Jackson:

In closing, Mr. Johnson, what would you like to say to shareholders?

Greg Johnson:

I think it’s worth talking about the current markets for precious metals and particularly how it fits in with the historic seasonality for the sector. We believe that a major bottom in the commodity and precious metal sector was put in, in that 2016 to 2020 period and that we’re now in the very early stages of a multi-year commodity cycle. I believe it has the potential to eclipse the last cycle that ran from 2001 to 2011. Typically, during these decade-long cycles, we’re going to get extended, healthy consolidations that can take significant periods to resolve. Gold and silver equities have been consolidating since August of last year. On top of that, we’re currently in what’s typically the weakest seasonal period for silver and gold with the strongest period generally starting in the fall.

The next steps here are the initiation of bulk-sample processing, which is like test mining of the ground. And from that work, we could potentially see two or three of the blocks advance quickly to commercial gold production, including the potential for the first significant production royalties to Metallic Minerals this year from gold produced on those projects.

Greg Johnson:

I think this presents an opportunity for astute investors to be picking up shares of high-quality, precious-metal companies at terrific values. With such long recent consolidations, but such very bullish fundamentals, I think we’re winding the spring here for a very bullish period ahead with likely another five to ten years of bull markets still to come. I should mention that with over 30,000 meters of drilling underway in the three Metallic Group of Companies, this gives investors exceptional exposure to silver, battery metals, and copper in what is looking to be an exceptional time in the marketplace for people to be picking up value in our group.

Maurice Jackson:

Mr. Johnson, last question and that is, what did I forget to ask?

Greg Johnson:

I think this has been an amazingly comprehensive coverage and interview. I would recommend that if investors have questions that they go to our website, which is mmgsilver.com, or give us a call and the numbers listed on that website. We’re happy always to talk with investors and to answer questions.

Maurice Jackson:

Mr. Johnson, it has been a pleasure speaking with you. Wishing you and Metallic Minerals the absolute best, sir.

Greg Johnson:

Thanks a lot. Been a pleasure to be back with you.

Maurice Jackson:

And as a reminder, I am a licensed representative to buy and sell precious metals through Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments, where we have several options to expand your precious metals portfolio, from physical delivery of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium, to offshore depositories, and precious metals IRA’s. Give me a call at 855.505.1900 or you may email: Maurice@MilesFranklin.com.  Finally, please subscribe to www.provenandprobable.com, where we provide: Mining Insights and Bullion Sales, subscription is free.