Maurice Jackson: We are discussing a company that has established itself as a premier project generator, Millrock Resources Inc. (MRO:TSX.V). Joining us today is Gregory Beischer, the president, CEO and director of Millrock. Mr. Beischer, welcome.
In our last interview, we discussed Millrock Resources' La Navidad Gold Project. You were addressing the initial drill results there. Today, Millrock has informed the market that a second round of drilling has commenced at the La Navidad Gold Project. Gregory, before we get into the press release, where is the La Navidad Gold Project located?
Gregory Beischer: It's in Sonora State. That's northwestern portion of Mexico, just south of the state of Arizona and north of the city of Hermosillo. It's just a really great mining state, mining community. People there are very welcoming. They understand and make a lot of money from mining. We feel very welcome there.
Maurice Jackson: What are some of the strategic advantages of being there?
Gregory Beischer: Well, there's a lot of support industry surrounding the active mines and the numerous exploration companies. The people there know what they're doing. There's good technical talent. Just overall, a vibrant mining community.
Maurice Jackson: Taking us now onto the La Navidad Gold Project, describe the metallurgy for us.
Gregory Beischer: What we're looking for in this area is what geologists call an orogenic gold deposit. These are large volume, typically low-grade deposits where a large volume of rock with a little bit of gold can be processed at very low cost methods by run-of-mine, heap-leach processing. It costs very little to process the ore. That allows mining companies to produce gold from low grade but large volumes. That's what we seek. We've got some pretty darn good signs of such a deposit on the La Navidad Project. As we last discussed, Millrock had announced results from a drilling program that we conducted last November and December. We talked about those in March. Since February, our team has been running flat out. We have done a great deal of soil sampling, digging, trenches with excavators and bulldozers so that we can expose the bedrock, its surface and collect rock samples.
We've done a variety of geophysical surveys to help us image what's beneath the surface. We were focusing, primarily, on the Cobre and Crossover prospect acres, which are to the northwest of the original drilling that we have done last December at the Anchor prospect. The Cobre and Crossover are quite large, with strong gold and soil anomaly. There's size potential indicated. We found altered rocks over widely distributed area. The trench results were pretty good. We've got the grades that we're seeking for an orogenic heap-leach-type gold project.
We're starting by reentering one of the holes—in fact, hole number 10—from the original program to deepen it. We had cut the hole off because it was becoming late in the season, almost Christmas and the budget was tight. We'd cut the hole off at 250 meters, but in fact, we knew the rock were still quite altered and sure enough, there was gold in it right at the bottom of the hole. That's how we'll start this program, deepen hole 10 at the Anchor prospect and then it's on to Cobre and Crossover to test some of the great targets that are being developed there since the start of February.
Maurice Jackson: Switching gears, the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium is fast approaching, Millrock Resources, once again, has been hand selected by Rick Rule to be an attendee. What an accomplishment.
Gregory Beischer: Thanks. It's great to be going back to that conference in Vancouver. It feels a little surprising that almost a whole year has gone by since you and I met there. It really is an honor. The 50 or 60 companies that are invited to present are hand selected by Sprott Global Resources and the team of brokers and analysts that work there. We're very pleased to be counted amongst that upper tier of early stage explorers and developers.
Maurice Jackson: As a reminder, you may get tickets for the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium, which will be conducted in Vancouver July 17-20. Gregory, we've discussed the La Navidad Gold Project. Talk to us about other projects in the Millrock Resources portfolio.
Gregory Beischer: We sure have a lot going on, Maurice. As you know, we were quite aggressive over the last few years buying up projects, taking claims and developing new projects. That's all coming forward now. Things are clearly on the uptick. The major midtier companies must have bigger budgets because there's lots of them looking at our projects and talking to us about making exploration agreements. I'm pretty sure we're going to have more of those soon, so we'll become even more active. We have also been very active on the El Picacho project, a very similar style gold project in Sonora xtate, also being funded by Centerra Gold Inc. (CG:TSX; CADGF:OTCPK) as they earn their way into an interest in that project. Our geologic teams have been coming up with some high-quality targets at that project as well. I would think that we'd be drilling that by this fall.
In the meantime, our partner in Alaska, PolarX Resources Ltd. (PXX:ASX), a junior Australian company, has raised cash to advance exploration. We're mounting quite a good program there in June, at least a couple of million dollars of drilling to further expand at the Alaska Range project on the Zackly high-grade copper-gold deposit that we delineated on behalf of PolarX last year. We hope to expand that deposit significantly this year. We started drilling as of yesterday. Again, Navidad and there would be two programs running concurrently. I suspect in June and we'll then probably start drilling at El Picacho in September. A drill turning on one project or the other probably for the remainder of the year for Millrock. As you know, every one of those holes is a chance for us to reward our shareholders with a discovery.
Maurice Jackson: That's really exciting news. A lot of moving pieces there. Last question, what did I forget to ask?
Gregory Beischer: Well, Maurice, as a shareholder, you might ask why is Millrock's share price $0.22-0.23? It's a tough one to answer. We've seen our share price be depressed. It's across the board in junior explorers. I know a lot of them were having difficulty raising cash at this time. It's still a pretty tough market out there. It just doesn't seem like investors are totally engaged and interested. I think, maybe, part of it is gold price. We've seen over the last couple days, again, a pullback. It just seems in our sector, gold price really controls and dictates the amount of investor interest in junior stocks, junior explorers like ours. We're hopeful for the gold price to go back up. I personally think that all the fundamentals are very strong for that.
Zinc and copper are strong. We have projects with those commodities, but it just seems that the gold price dictates the amount of investor interest. I think when that comes, then you'll certainly see the share prices, generally, across the board, increase, and hopefully, Millrock's will too. But in the meantime, with all the drill projects we've got lined up for the remainder of the year, if we make a discovery, I know our share price will increase.
Maurice Jackson: Gregory, if someone listening wants to get more information regarding Millrock Resources, please share the contact details.
Gregory Beischer: They could call Melanie Henderson, at our investor relations office in Vancouver. The number is on the website, which of course you can find by checking for millrockresources.com.
Maurice Jackson: Last but not the least, please visit our website, www.provenandprobable.com where we interview the most respected names in the natural resource space. You may reach us at [email protected]. Gregory Beischer of Millrock Resources, thank you for joining us today on Proven and Probable.
Maurice Jackson is the founder of Proven and Probable, a site that aims to enrich its subscribers through education in precious metals and junior mining companies that will enrich the world.
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1) Gregory Beischer: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: Millrock Resources. I personally am, or members of my immediate household or family are, paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: Millrock Resources.
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