Backstage Interview with Gwen Preston from the Resource Maven
Cherie Leeden, CEO of Gold Bull Resources (TSX-V:GBRC | OTC:GBRCF) sat down with Gwen Preston at the recent MIF in Toronto to discuss the growing potential of the Sandman Gold project in Nevada.
Gwen Preston
Hi, I’m Gwen Preston of Resource Maven. We are backstage at the Metals Investor Forum in Toronto, and I’m joined by Cherie Leeden of Gold Bull Resources. Thanks for coming.
Cherie Leeden
Thank you, Gwen.
Gwen Preston
So you went in your presentation, through Gold Bull’s Sandman project, which is an interesting asset in Nevada covered in sand, as the name somewhat implies where Newmont did lots of work to demonstrate that there’s definitely oxide gold there. Do you want to run through what your exploration is trying to do right now? You’re growing those oxide ounces, but then there’s also theories about where those oxide ounces came from, that you’re chasing up.
Cherie Leeden
So we acquired the project from Newmont with the million ounce target. At the time we acquired it had just under 300,000 ounces. We’ve since grown that to 494,000 ounces. We’re doing a dual program right now, and we’ve announced significant intersections that are outside the resource. So we’re pretty confident that it’s growing along the pathway to a million ounces.
And the project’s perspective are two styles of mineralization. You’ve got the low grade, which is between half a gram and 1.5 grams a tonne oxide, essentially sitting at the surface. And then you’ve also got the high grade feeder targets and that’s the sizzle, the sexy numbers, the 15 grams per tonne, which we recently intersected. So we’re very much looking at both styles of mineralization because we think it’s going to all build into the broader story.
Gwen Preston
So let’s talk about the sexy version first, for lack of a better word. And certainly that was one of the things that really attracted me to Gold Bull. There’s this other deposit nearby. Well it’s not there anymore, called Sleeper and that’s your… The model that you’re working off of.
Cherie Leeden
Absolutely. So Sleeper was a 3 million ounce discovery. Very high grade, relatively narrow. And the bulk of Sleeper was actually found during mining rather than during exploration, because these things often expand once you start seeing the visible gold. So we got John Wood involved, who discovered Sleeper and John is still acting as our advisor and John basically shone a light on where there could be another sleeper hiding in Sandman. And you know, John’s gone on the record publicly to say, he thinks there is another Sleeper cell, multimillion ounce deposit there based on all of this gold anomalism over a 20 kilometer zone. So our challenge is finding that needle in a the haystack essentially, and we’re using the best science available; geophysics, geo chem, and the drill data to really vector in these high grade fault zones.
Gwen Preston
And then one of the strengths of Gold Bull for sure, is your technical team, which is a topnotch team. You’re all from majors. You have people who were top geo scientists at major mining companies to help you in this needle in the haystack hunt.
Cherie Leeden
Absolutely. We’re all ex major, so we’re not looking for half a million ounces. We’re looking for multimillion ounces. I’m ex Rio Tinto. That’s where I met Craig Parry, our chairman. David Johnson, our VP Explorations, ex Rio Tinto, and Regina Malloy is ex BHP. So we’re all in this to find world class discoveries and we believe Sandman ticks those boxes to host that kind of geology.
Gwen Preston
Now, the other thing that I wanted to just tap into before we wrap up here is you’re in this to find a big deposit and the potential for high grade zones that fed all of this gold that’s apparent on surface. But in the meantime, there’s a bunch of gold that’s apparent on surface and in the mining markets, gold equities, it’s hard to raise money. So you’ve actually come up with… You’re about to kick off a scoping study to see if you might be able to make money on some of those ounces at surface in the near term. So do you want to just talk about that a bit?
Cherie Leeden
Yeah, sure. So that this is all in its infancy. However, at the end of this drill program, once we get all the assay results in. We already have half a million ounces so we’re pretty confident that’s growing a bit and it is difficult to raise money. Our share price is under pressure along with every other gold junior at the moment. So I’ve just raised a question to our board, why don’t we consider a cash cow kind of operation where we investigate the scenarios of producing some at surface gold. There’s literally visible gold at three of the four of our projects.
Gwen Preston
Right.
Cherie Leeden
So at North Hill Silica Ridge in Southeast Pediment, you go to our project, we could find you a speck of gold. And for me, I’ve been involved with projects in the past where we essentially dig that dirt out with a backhoe, process it, whether we have a centralized processing facility or a mobile processing facility or toll treat it, all that will be investigated in our scoping study. And I’m hoping that we can complete that by quarter three and get some numbers out to the market so our shareholders are updated with what we’re thinking.
And for us, the end game is not a small scale operation, but if we can self fund additional exploration to find that Sleeper style discovery, then why would we not consider that versus diluting our shareholders at the current share price?
Gwen Preston
Absolutely. And all of the… I think it’s important to add into that, Newmont did an incredible amount of background work, which actually brings the potential to do that cash cow operation. It expedites it dramatically instead of three years of collecting data about critters and water.
Cherie Leeden
Yeah.
Gwen Preston
You actually could potentially do it-
Cherie Leeden
Exactly.
Gwen Preston
In a pretty short timeframe.
Cherie Leeden
They spent millions and, Newmont, they do ESG very well so we’ve got the cultural surveys, the biological surveys, the hydro water monitoring surveys and we’ve inherited 30 million worth of data. Our market cap is $10 million. So we’re very excited to pursue an option where we are looking at a small scale operation above the water table, EA kind of permitting. So we’ll be investigating that in the scoping study and we’ve got the best permitting advisor on the planet in Debbie Struhsacker. So what we’re looking forward to investigating these options.
Gwen Preston
Cool. Well, I look forward to seeing what else you drill into in the current program for sure. The recent results were exciting. You did seemingly tap into one of these higher grade structures. So let’s hope there’s more of that.
Cherie Leeden
Awesome.
Gwen Preston
And thanks so much for joining us.
Cherie Leeden
Thank you, Gwen.
About: Gwen Preston is the Resource Maven
Years as a mining journalist gave her a deep base of knowledge and a broad network of contacts in the resource sector. She understands which projects and pieces of news matter. She understands what it takes for a project to advance along the exploration-development-production path and what opportunities each stage offers.
She knows how the metals markets work, alone and within the global economy, and how to profit from commodity cycles.
Resources are Gwen’s world and she seeks to pass that knowledge on to others.