Gregory Beischer, CEO of Millrock Resources, speaks to Maurice Jackson of Proven and Probable about his company's projects.
Maurice Jackson: Joining us for conversation is Gregory Beischer, the CEO of Millrock Resources Inc. (MRO:TSX.V; MLRKF:OTCQB).
Always a pleasure to speak with you as Millrock has some important updates for shareholders. Before we begin, please introduce us to Millrock Resources and the opportunity the company presents to shareholders.
Gregory Beischer: Millrock is a prolific project generator exploration company. We have numerous projects and we always bring in partners to fund the exploration of our projects and in return we give up a part of our interest along the way in return for that exploration funding. The Alaska field season's upon us; as you know, Alaska is one of our main focus areas and we're anxious to get going at this point.
Maurice Jackson: When we last spoke, Millrock Resources announced a 30% earn-in option with Resolution Minerals on the 64North Project, which is just a massive 66,000-hectare project, surrounding the Pogo Mine. And also in that interview, Millrock announced a new strategic alliance with Felix Gold. Let's find out the latest developments on the projects beginning with the former.
Gregory Beischer: The aforementioned are great developments that we believe have the potential to position our shareholders for a nice upside. As you know, Resolution contributed over $5 million towards exploration last year at 64North near Pogo. We drilled quite a series of holes. The results weren't as good as we'd hoped, but Resolution is back. They're doing the work now. They've already drilled the first set of holes in March on a target they call Sunrise, just to the west of the Pogo Mine; it's different style mineralization. We exposed the surface in a drill road cut low-grade, but widely disseminated pervasive gold mineralization, intrusion-hosted style mineralization may be more reminiscent of what one would see at the Fort Knox Gold Mine further north near Fairbanks.
Resolution drilled a series of rotary air blast holes to confirm what had been observed at the surface. And we anticipate that they'll publish those results sometime very soon. At the same time, they're mounting the next drilling program, this time to the east of the Pogo Mine where we developed some excellent gold prospects last year. And they'll use a heli-portable reverse circulation drill to test at this location. We expect that to begin in early June. Shareholders can anticipate continuous news flow coming out of that project over the next couple of months.
Maurice Jackson: Now, what has the relationship been thus far with the assays as far as results turnaround time?
Gregory Beischer: As far as I know, at this stage, they're coming through in a reasonable timeframe of a few weeks, though it's a perennial problem in Alaska and elsewhere as the summer field season ramps up, the labs get bogged down and it just takes longer. So we're hopeful that at least the first round of drilling that Resolution Minerals has completed on the 64North will come quite quickly.
Maurice Jackson: Leaving the 64North, Millrock completed a financing in March and has deployed some of that capital into property acquisitions. Multilayered question. What has Millrock's interest in Fairbanks? Tell us about the acquisitions and where is it in relation to Freegold Ventures?
Gregory Beischer: We raised several million Canadian dollars and we are deploying that cash to acquire and develop new projects all over the state of Alaska, in fact, but we've focused over the last year on the Fairbanks gold district. And I think you're going to find, Maurice, that the Fairbanks district emerges as a prolific gold district on the scale perhaps of Red Lake, Ontario, or Val-d'Or, Quebec. There are probably 13 million ounces of gold that have been mined so far in the district. Kinross's flagship mine, the Fort Knox Gold Mine, is there.
But there have also been some new discoveries recently, one in particular made by Freegold Ventures. Millrock's been very busy though staking up and making agreements with prospectors and other exploration companies to consolidate a land position in the Fairbanks district. I'm pleased to convey that we have been quite successful in our staking operations. And we've done it through an alliance with Felix Gold, an Australian private company that's meant to go public sometime in the fairly near future. Millrock will be a significant shareholder of that company and that's how we intend to reward our shareholders in turn by monetizing those shares after discoveries have been made. Additionally, we retained royalty interests on all the properties that we presently hold in Fairbanks and more that we're securing as we speak now.
Maurice Jackson: Good business acumen there. What type of work is being done and what do you intend to have completed by the end of the year?
Gregory Beischer: Right now, we're just completing a massive dive into all the existing data that we possessed and that others possessed for the district, analyzing the district in a holistic sense using all the data sets that we can pull together, and selecting our best spots. Fortunately, some of those best spots are on claims that we already own and then on others that we're pursuing.
But in terms of fieldwork, there's a lot of data gaps. We're going to be doing a lot of soil sampling early in the season. And as soon as we secure drill permits, then we're going to get going on drilling. One thing I haven't mentioned yet, there have been two recent acquisitions within the Fairbanks district. One was the Grant Mine. And this is a former producing high-grade underground mine.
There's an existing historical estimate or resource known to exist there. We've looked at data and we can see that it's going to be expanded through further drilling. And so that's where we're going to start. The Grant Mine is a property within the overall Ester Dome Project, which in itself is in the even larger Fairbanks district project, a joint Millrock-Felix operation, so assuming that our permit application is approved, we'll be drilling likely in June at Grant Mine Ester Dome. And then we'll move on to our Treasure Creek Project, a little to the east end, closer to Freegold Ventures.
And I think you're going to be hearing more and more about Freegold over the coming months. We think they're onto something pretty significant. Millrock's claims are well positioned nearby and we see very similar geology and very similar signs of mineralization. And we think that we have the opportunity to recreate that success. We must give a Freegold full credit. Their shares were less than 10 cents just over a year ago. They've made some great drill holes and rewarded their shareholders peaking at around $1.70 a share, now back to around 70 cents. But I think that the Millrock and Felix combined team will be able to make some great discoveries at Fairbanks.
Maurice Jackson: Speaking of expansion, Millrock has an expansive property bank with projects in Alaska, British Columbia and Mexico. Are there any developments in Mexico that you can share with us?
Gregory Beischer: I can't share them yet, but we're closing in on deals with funding partners on one of our longstanding projects, the Batamote Porphyry Copper Project, very nicely situated in what I call Elephant Country directly in between the fantastic world-class deposits of Cananea-La Caridad porphyry. And we think we're onto something similar there and reviving one of our gold projects. Things have been pretty quiet for us in Sonora, Mexico, but these two projects are two that we've kept and now all of a sudden with a change in the market, we have funding partners coming for them. So we're quite anxious to get going there too.
Maurice Jackson: Switching gears, let's look at some numbers, Mr. Beischer. What is the current capital structure for Millrock Resources?
Gregory Beischer: We have close to 150 million shares out at this point and it's trading at around 10 cents, so a $15 million market cap right now. We have warrants that will expire at the end of the year. And so there's quite a few of those and so we're going to be doing everything in our power to make sure our share price goes well above 20 cents, and we get those warrants exercised and more money in our treasury to develop yet further projects. And I don't think that's at all an unreasonable task. If we just have a little bit of exploration success in this market, our share price should move up nicely.
Maurice Jackson: Speaking of their share price, we have been active buyers recently on Millrock Resources I should say. We liked the value proposition, I think is a great buying opportunity right now. We leave that to the reader's discretion. Mr. Beischer, before we leave, what would you like to say to shareholders?
Gregory Beischer: Well, I think everything's being consolidated. I keep reading about a metal super cycle, but the gold price, which seems to drive so much, is consolidating. It feels to me it's ready to move up again and a surging gold price in a hot market and in Alaska summer field season. That's a recipe for success.
Maurice Jackson: It certainly is. Mr. Beischer, investors want to get more information on Millrock Resources, please share the contact details.
Gregory Beischer: www.millrockeresources.com.
Maurice Jackson: Mr. Beischer, always a pleasure to speak with you, wishing you and Millrock Resources, the absolute pisser.
Gregory Beischer: Thank you very much, Maurice, and thank you for your investment in our company.
Maurice Jackson: And as a reminder, I am a licensed representative to buy and sell precious metals through Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments, where 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 IRAs. Give me a call at 855.505.1900 or you may email: [email protected]. Finally, please subscribe to www.provenandprobable.com, where we provide Mining Insights and Bullion Sales; subscription is free.
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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