Read the transcript of David Morgan and Tom MacNeill from the 2020-03 MIF event. I was pleased to see David speaking at MIF for the first time and bringing Omineca for their first ever official appearance at a mining conference. Exciting times.
David Morgan: David Morgan with you from the Metals Investment Forum in Toronto, Canada. Tom MacNeil and Omineca -- let's hear about it! For people that don't know, where are you located and what are you doing?
Tom MacNeill: Sure. Nobody knows about it because we haven't really talked about it until now, even though we actually completed a bulk sample on a placer deposit in 2012. In reality, this was geared-up for development in the last gold cycle and we've more or less had it on the shelf for the last number of years, doing geological and geotechnical work in anticipation of the gold market that seems to be coming now. We're pretty excited about this.
Tom MacNeill: The project itself is in the Carbioo Mining District in Central British Columbia. We are right next to, contiguous to Osisko Gold Royalties and their very large project in that province -- they've got over 2,000 square kilometres next to us. They got big quick because they like what they're seeing. At least, that's our interpretation of it. We've got 400 square kilometres that includes 15 kilometres of the historic paleochannel under LIGHTNING CREEK. We know some of that paleochannel is there as some of it has been drilled-off already, but we've got 15 prospective kilometres of paleo-channel. And we've got 400 square kilometres prospective for lode gold in the mineral claim package. Central BC, next to Osisko Gold, right in the heart of the Cariboo Gold Rush from the 1850s, and now we're starting to find out with modern geophysical techniques where all that gold came from.
David Morgan: Excellent. Basically, you have a placer deposit underground that you're going to go ahead with to start -- grab that gold. You've got a contract with a very well known mining concern that is going to take it out at a fixed rate and give you some pretty healthy cash flow.
Tom MacNeill: Yes. We're looking forward to that. As I said, we bulk sampled it to confirm a historic resource that was calculated in 1986. In fact, we almost doubled what we expected coming out of that bulk sample. It was a twenty four and a half metre cross-cut, 2.4 metres wide by 2.4 metres high, and we recovered a 173 ounces of gold. To put that in context, every metre of advance in that cross-cut we got on average 7 ounces of gold. It is very high-grade. We more than doubled our expectation from that crosscut. We have a deal with HCC Mining and Demolition out of Saskatoon, a 125 year old concern out of Saskatchewan. Their mining division has partnered with us to come and develop that asset, starting with a 300 metre development. We're calling it a bulk sample because that's what it is without a whole resource down the paleo-channel. They're gonna start developing that and they'll do the first 300 metres starting soon -- as soon as we've done some rehabilitation on the project. The relationship with them is that they get to keep half the gold and they get to bill us for our half for what we've agreed on at CAD$850 an ounce. We are pretty excited about that.
David Morgan: For a placer deposit like this, is it similar to a vein in way that once you're onto it it's easier to detect where things are going?
Tom MacNeill: Yes. We did extensive 3D seismic over the paleo-channel because the gold is literally in the creek bed -- where the creek bed used to be. Now, it's 50 metres beneath the existing Lightning Creek. When lightning Creek was down here, it was depositing gold into that creek bed. We know the gold is in the creek, not outside the creek bed, so it's pretty easy to define where it can be. We don't have to drill all over the countryside to determine where the paleo-channel is located. But the thing that's got us so excited about this is the question, "Where did that gold come from?"
David Morgan: That's it. If you're next to Osisko with something on that order of magnitude, then you're looking at a major discovery situation.
Tom MacNeill: We may be. The two historic, highest grade placer creeks in the Cariboo Gold Rush were our creek -- LIGHTNING CREEK -- and Williams Creek, by Osisko's project. The geological thesis is that those creeks got filled up with gold as it was ripped off the canyon sides with fluvial water flow back 50 million years ago in the Tertiary period when these creek beds were formed. The Cariboo Quartz Mine, which is called COW MOUNTAIN and is part of the Osisko mining complex now, was discovered by simply following the gold nuggets up to the where they found lode gold in quartz vein outcrops. Now, 1.2 million ounces have come out of that complex already and I think they've drilled off at least another 4 million ounces of between 4-5 gram material already. And I they're just getting started! We're just way behind them. We've got a tremendous geophysical signature that cross-cuts the valley that holds this paleo-channel. Realistically, we're looking at the same system and a placer creek with the same richness as their system, with all the same structural geological controls. It's really just the mirror image of everything happening there. David, we couldn't be more excited about the project.
David Morgan: I know this is a variable and it's a tough question to answer, but with the cash flow you'll be getting and the current more robust gold prices, what would it take time-wise to determine that it's such and such a size?
Tom MacNeill: Well, we'll get a pretty good handle quickly. Remember the paleo placer gold is a wonderful deal -- we've got a partner that's going to develop that for us and we don't have to put up any cash for that. That's a beauty for Omineca Mining and Metals. Should that throw off significant cash flow, that's as fast as we can drill. We will be doing the first campaign early this year, as soon as the snow is off the mountainsides. Our anticipation is that about 18 months later, if we find what we think we have and that's a more detailed discussion then by the end of 2020 we could be doing our first maiden resource calculation on the project. Things can happen quickly given what we've got in the paleo setting. It's a neat story in the fact that most geological investigations start big and then narrow-in to where they're gonna define a resource. We know where there's a tremendous amount of placer gold and we're starting there, just like the old timers did. It's like going from the inside out. We know that our first target is 500 metres from where we have a whole bunch of gold in the ground, which didn't travel more than 500 metres geologically. We've got a whole bunch of gold, now we start moving out from there. We can very quickly pinpoint where we're gonna target the first drilling campaign -- we've got three target areas right now in close proximity. By summer time, we'll have some results on them.
David Morgan: I think we've covered the people, the project, the money, the cash flow, is there anything that you'd like to discuss further?
Tom MacNeill: Not really. It's got a very tightly held share structure. It used to be a private company when we did the bulk sample. All of the people involved in the project and all of the shareholders are really long-term players in the mining industry who have developed lots and lots of resources. You really couldn't ask for a better setup. We're excited to get going. You just have to picture it -- we've got a bunch of gold in an old river channel and we think we can find where it came from pretty quickly here.
David Morgan: Very good. I wish you every success.
Tom MacNeill: Great, thanks David. I appreciate it.
David Morgan: For full disclosure, we have written up Omineca in the latest issued Morgan report that will be out March 1st. I do not have a position in it yet, but we are recommending it for those aggressive accounts that want to speculate and I always wait at least three days after a new recommendation before I purchase in the market.
Visit the Morgan Report website, https://www.themorganreport.com/
