2024 Rule Symposium Preview – West Red Lake Gold Mines

2024 Rule Symposium Preview – West Red Lake Gold Mines

this is Rick rule from rural investment
media uh doing the pre-conference
interviews associated with the natural
resources investment Symposium July 7th
through 11th in boka Ron Florida
longtime viewers know that we interview
each of the exhibitors and most of the
speakers before the conference so that
you the attendees have the opportunity
to utilize your time at the conference
wisely knowing who you might be
interested in
before you hit the conference flooor I’m
delighted today to welcome Shane
Williams CEO of West Lake gold mines you
will remember ladies and gentlemen that
no public company exhibitor can exhibit
at the natural resources investment
Symposium if they aren’t owned in our
portfolios well there’s no guarantees
sadly the stocks I buy always go up
there is a guarantee that every
exhibitor at this conference is vetted
and West Gold West West Red Lake is no
exception uh I own it in accounts
managed by me indirectly uh also through
my Holdings in sprot Inc which is the
largest shareholder of West redlake gold
mines uh I en enjoy that’s the right
phrase numerous conflicts of interest
Shane first of all thank you for your
sponsorship of the conference and thank
you for your efforts on behalf of the
shareholders and welcome to the
interview thank you very much Rick it’s
great to be
on so long time uh gold investors know
all about Red Lake I would suggest Red
Lake Kirkland Lake uh perhaps the
abitibi in Quebec but at any rate the
Canadian archan and protozoic are fabled
uh gold deposits tell us something about
the Red Lake from the from the historic
context and tell us how you’re going
about at least partially reassembling uh
or consolidating the Red Lake District
it’s an important story I think yeah I
think it’s a very important story you
know Red Lake and the Red Lake Region is
fabled in in Canadian gold mining
history and however over the last number
of years we’ve seen that it’s been
slightly ignored a little bit and
there’s a lot of other regions like the
Golden Triangle and other areas that
your viewers will be where there’s been
a lot of activity and a lot of focus and
you know we saw a bit of an opportunity
within the red L there’s you know your
some of your viewers will remember Great
Bear resources who had a great run in
that region and obviously been taken
over by kin Ros gold the original gold
Corp mines was taken over by Evolution
so really there was no developer or
upand cominging developer within that
region we saw the opportunity to get in
there and if you want to play in the Red
Lake Region which is a very high grade
goal area we would become the name of
choice in that region and we saw the
opportunity to consolidate there’s a lot
of smaller deposits highgrade deposits
with a consolidation strategy to to be
done within red l so that’s that’s the
opportunity we saw
and just in context uh I I don’t know
the number but there have been tens of
millions of ounces pulled out
of 40 million ounces um of high had an
average grade of 16 grams as well H Rick
so it’s a very high grade area of if you
if you want to be in the gold
business and as as I recall uh you were
involved in consolidating key pieces of
ground before the Madson opportunity
came to you tell us something about your
land play and tell tell us something
about how you came to acquire uh the
Madson mine uh and what that opportunity
represents to
you well I’ll just step back a little
bit on the Strategic view obviously
we’re back by uh Frank dustra who is a
legend in the industry as you will well
know Rick and and so his play is he sees
the gold setup for the next number of
years and the idea was to get into the
Red Lake Region so as a means of
accessing that region we we picked up a
property called the Rowan property which
was a a joint venture with evolution by
a small company the original West R lake
so we ended up getting that property as
a means of getting into that region and
that’s high grade it has over 800,000 at
nine grams so that was the first
property consolidate at that stage um
the Madson mine was going through the
CCAA process at the time the previous
operators ran into some trouble so we
saw the opportunity
with with the with the amount of
infrastructure that’s in place there to
consolidate that within the region and
use that as a base to create a hub and
spoke model around the Red Lake
Region Hub and spoke meaning that you
can use the Madson mine and Mill uh as a
processing facility for other deposits
that exist or deposits that you might uh
in fact acquire or discover is that
correct yeah cor correct we have the
only really independent Mill in that
region obviously gold Cor had a lot of
mills in their region taken over by
Evolution which is a major now and so
there’s no other Mill in the region lots
of Junior companies with lots of
high-grade deposits so with the mill the
infrastructure facilities we have there
is a bit of a consolidation strategy
that we can Implement in Red Lake around
that
region tell us something about the
nature of the assets and the amount of
money that prior operators had spent on
the medson uh and what you paid for it I
think that’s a that’s a very interesting
bottom fishing
story it is it is there’s there’s a
saying as waren Buffett says you need to
buy things when there’s blood in the
streets and that was a little bit of the
strategy that we looked at the mson mine
previous has had over 350 million
Canadian dollars put into it um and so
when we looked at that asset obviously
um and Sprout resource lending actually
were the main senior secure lender and
we ended up doing a deal with Sprout we
bought it for $6.5 million dollar in
cash some shares which was converted and
an NSR and a contingent payment so all
in together about a 30 million
consideration 30 million Canadian
dollars
consideration and also we picked up
considerable tax losses associated with
the asset so there’s over $270 Million
worth of tax losses so as you can see
really Pennies on the dollar associated
with picking up this asset in a time
when nobody cared about gold rck as you
as you well know to two years ago we
started and now we look like very good
opportunistic as we took up that
property Shane it looks to me uh talking
to people and looking at your website
that uh in the near term what you really
have a very Advanced exploration project
am I correct in assuming that what you
really need to do now is delineate some
continuity in terms of the high-grade
reserve and resource or am I off Pace
with that
assumption yeah one of the previous
challenges of the existing operator was
red leg systems are very geologically
complex as you will well know they need
a lot of drilling they need a lot of
definition Drilling and you know if I
look at the when we did the due
diligence this is one area we saw what
was lacking in the in the previous
operator so our most of our focus is on
that delineation Rick and that detailed
definition drilling that’s needed but
once that’s done then pretty much we’re
ready to go everything else is ready to
go so the next 12 to 15 months will
concentrate on that delineation drilling
very tightly spaced drilling
underground and will that drilling uh
lead us to a new resource statement or a
new bankable feasibility study how will
we know what the success achieved with
the program will be yeah yeah we have a
number of drisking uh phases over the
next few months we’ve just kicked off a
pre-feasibility study Rick the previous
operators had moved very quickly from
resources straight to mining obviously
you know as you jump a number of stages
you increase that risk developing
projects as you will well know and your
listeners will know so we we’re stepping
back a little bit and redoing a pref
feasibility study you know we’re going
to start back we’re gonna we’re drilling
for the next we’re going to do over
50,000 meters of drilling underground to
delineate your body convert to reserves
which again we’re never on the project
and then do a pre feasibility study and
also do some test mining as you’re aware
number of operators have been successful
at test mining where we can do a
Reconciliation to the or body so I think
with number of those stages of the
risking uh the people can really
understand the the approach we’re taking
and then we’ll use that as a base for
relaunch of the project what into
2025 Shane tell me something about your
human inventory uh who are the people
involved in the company uh and how were
they chosen with specific relevance to
the task at can which is restarting Red
Lake tell me about some of the key
people and why they’re there yeah I
would call it the who’s who of Canadian
mining U Rick we you know obviously my
background I’m an operator my my my
previous op operations are with a
company called skina resources and I
spent a long time with elderado gold
putting mines back into production the
number of stages number of year
listeners will be familiar with the
lamac project in Valor I actually ran
and and set that up that was a very
quick turnaround very similar to Matson
we got that into uction very very
quickly we’ve we’ve we’ve recruited a a
fantastic board and some really good
technical competent company Builders as
part of that board people will remember
Tony makuch is on our board and Tony had
a very very successful run with a
company called Kirkland lake and also
Duncan middlemass again um who had a
very good successful run with a company
called westone Mining and and these are
serious serious people who can build a
big company and part of the you know
obviously given the history of the last
operator you know they were a bit of
apprehension coming on board so once we
started to lay out the plan we plan to
do and they they they did a bit their
own due diligence understood the plan
they were confident or more confident in
our ability to go forward and and and hu
and Duncan and both and Tony actually
were have been in the ativity and red
legs so they understand these systems
very well and they understand what’s
required to put them back into
production
and tell me a little bit about Frank
guster’s role and for those listeners
who don’t know who he is tell them who
he
is yeah so Frank is a I would call him a
legend in the industry in the resource
mining industry over the last 30 years
he has created huge value for a number
of lots of shareholders actually over
many years he has built companies to go
back to he was involved in the early
stage of a company called gold Corp
Endeavor mining um now he’s um ays
mining so very very build um ability to
build large companies very quickly so
Frank sees the setup for goal he did a
number of years ago and so this is his
next incarnation of a building a large
scale gold mining company and so Frank
obviously has big visions and he
believes in he’s a bit of a contrarian
and a bit like yourself Rake who who
likes to get in on on projects when
nobody likes gold so about two years ago
the plan was to build a gold mining
company and look for assets that were
undervalued that we could pick up and
use them as a base to build a large gold
mining company over the next number of
years and obviously Frank has been very
involved in the project he is a big
shareholder of the project and every
every every Equity raise we’ve done he
has proad at his shareholding so he is
part of the story and wants to be part
of the growth of the company over the
next five
years Shane you’ll be uh I think excited
when you come to the conference to run
into literally thousands of people who
share
your and
Frank’s
um aspirations towards gold uh it’s
important for us I in order to put on
the best natural resources investment
conference on the planet to Foster very
deep ties uh between the exhibitors all
of whom we vetted and the attendees uh
it’s important in that sense that my
attendees understand where if they want
to find out more about the company they
can do it if somebody has specific
specific questions about the company
even before the conference certainly
during the conference and then after the
conference who is the person that they
should contact and how can they reach
that
person yeah so look I believe in working
um as part of the shareholders working
with shareholders so I am available I am
the person who they contact I I
understand the story the picture so I’m
available all the time and my email is
on our website on our main pres
presentation as the person to contact
It’s s Williams
wo.com um is the I’m the person to
contact I’m happy to talk to
shareholders and explain the new vision
for West r l Now ladies and gentlemen
that’s a very important answer uh the
buck stops at the very top when the CEO
says contact me directly don’t go
through my minions what that means is
that that CEO is concerned about his
shareholders and he’s concerned about
his cost of capital that question was
answered perfectly uh Shane thank you
for submitting to this interview thank
you too for Your sponsorship of the
natural resour investment Symposium and
thank you for your efforts both on
behalf of ultimately the Canadian
taxpayers but much more importantly to
me your shareholders it’s been a
pleasure talking to you and I look
forward to seeing you in boa ratan yeah
I’m very much looking forward to the
conference rck it will be my first time
there so I’m excited thank you very much
thank you
but

Rick speaks with Shane Williams, CEO of West Red Lake Gold Mines.

Join Shane and West Red Lake Gold Mines at the 2024 Rule Symposium in Boca Raton, July 7-11, 2024.

Details at: https://opptravel.zohobackstage.com/TheRuleSymposiumonNaturalResourceInvesting2024#/?affl=Ruleclassroom

For a free portfolio review by Rick Rule, visit http://ruleinvestmentmedia.com

#gold #silver #investing #valueinvesting #naturalresources #stockmarket #stockmarketforbeginners #rickrule

*** Join Rick’s online community, Rule Classroom, at: http://ruleclassroom.com ***

Follow Rick on:
Twitter – http://twitter.com/RealRickRule
LinkedIn – http://linkedin.com/in/rick-rule-1058921a/