Automated transcript · Written by software from the replay's audio. It can mishear names and figures; the replay is the record.
25:52 Mining is changing. We use a lot of geophysics and need a lot of geophysicists with the work that we do in the Athabasca Basin. And again, that's a skill that takes years to train on and develop. And it's a skill that isn't a big program at universities. So again, having different incentives in place, I think, would definitely help, you know, grow the capacity of what Western Canada is able to do with the incredible endowment that we have on the natural resource set. You know, Drew, that's a good point, but I'd like to, you know, I don't think it's just the government incentives. I think it's something we as industry need to do. And it's something I'm really passionate about. I, you know, I started a charity 13 years ago, Every Student Every Day, which works with communities and First Nations all across the Yukon to, you know, understand what the barriers are to kids getting to school and getting that education and work with them to help address some of those barriers. And it's not the top down, here a company, here's some money, go hire somebody and try to, it's the, here's some things that we know work that we can help empower communities to help get their own students to school. And a lot of it is the trades and technology. We've got a whole, we've got 6 things that we know work and one of them is science, trades, technology, which we fund in a couple of the community schools, both in Dawson and Mayo, and it's been very successful in being a draw to getting kids in
27:23 there. And we all know we need trades, we need the technical experts, and we need people in the community who are actually working at the projects and benefiting from them that are in their area. So, I think it starts with a lot of us leading as well, not just waiting for the governments, particularly since their whims change every time we have an election. And it takes a long time to actually make change and get people involved in the industry. So I think it's something we need to work with our industry associations more on as well. I've been involved in Saskatchewan for 20 years, and certainly the Saskatchewan government is very well rated by the Fraser Institute. I think we all know about that. But one of the incentives that I always supported in Saskatchewan was the Saskatchewan Mining Association.
28:16 Every summer holiday runs a Mining Association teachers tour, where they get about 30 high school teachers, or no, school teachers from around Saskatchewan, and they expose them to the mining industry in a big way. They take them underground on uranium, on potash mines. They fly up to see the uranium mines in the North. We toured our site. I often have done a presentation on diamonds to this group in Saskatoon. I think it is a very advantageous so that you get teachers on side with the mining industry that the mining industry isn't bad. The mining industry is essential. Yeah, I'll jump in real quick there as well.
29:05 I will say hats off to SMA, the Saskatchewan Mining Association. We've presented to that same group of teachers and I think it is presenting mining in an exciting light. The opportunities that are there with our companies and the teachers I think are where it can start. So it is a great program and again, an industry group like the SMA driving that forward. This is a good opportunity to incorporate the audience because, and a reminder for anyone that came in late, we are accepting questions in the chat, trying to incorporate it into the conversation at hand. I believe I'm supposed to read it as Mr. Tilden posed the question, have any of you thought to go to high schools and universities to recruit students and offer them a long-term employment, thereby lifelong employees?
29:57 I'm going to a school to present tomorrow and I regularly present in Yukon schools and talk to them. We do, in my career, mostly been in the Yukon, we have actually run programs specifically aimed at mentoring, working with the First Nations, which is in Dawson, which I did a lot of work. We actually did like a two-week program where we had in-class safety training and then we actually sent them out to various mine sites and let them, you know, just be mentored. They didn't have to work just here's all the jobs that you might do because, you know, when you're under 18 you can't actually work at a mine site in the Yukon right now under the workers' compensation. But getting them out to see the site, and that's also something that we do with the First Nation in Mayo. We've brought out young people just to see the site and see what jobs are available and try to encourage them. So I think that's a really great idea.
30:55 And we also have our Yukon University, which also is doing that. And I work a little bit with some of the people there that, you know, is about encouraging young people to come into these careers. So great question. I'll move on to another one unless anyone wants to add anything. Glowards is wondering if we'd be willing to discuss social licensing around exploration, how to carry that through to production, particularly in the context of First Nations or Indigenous relations. Anyone want to address this individual's question? Sure, I'll jump in. Yeah, it's something you know I think is very important for mining these days to have that social license but also to be able to have the economic benefit come to the local communities And that's something that we've done right from the beginning of working in the Akabaki Basin and being able to have the local communities on side with us and utilize them even though we are a junior company to have them do the contract work that we have available that fits that they have the skilled labor for. So I think it's an important piece and again this is coming from a junior exploration company with you know the limited you know full-time employment roles but still being able to pass on the
32:26 economic benefit to the community because that is what will get you the support of the community if they're seeing the tangible benefits of having you operate there. And we think that's important. And again, I guess part of the tangible benefits is being in communication with the local community as well, so that they're able to see that you're there and being able to work together obviously brings these projects forward. Yeah, I'll echo a lot of that. I think it's paramount importance to establish these relationships right at the very beginning. You know, you're in somebody's traditional territory or, you know, there's other local communities. And I think it's, we're behooved to ensure that everyone is better off for you having been there than they were before. And the way to do that, I think, is to have open, honest, transparent communication and working relationships.
33:22 People make sure any concerns are, they have a platform to address those and to continue to work as a collaborative group of stakeholders all along the way. And it's certainly the right thing to do. And I've seen it in the past, I've been involved with projects where a great discovery leads to life-changing gains for local communities, whether it's infrastructure, schools, hospitals, etc. There is a tremendous amount of benefit that mining can bring to local communities and communities around the world. I think that's something that needs to be better publicised by the media. Mining, for whatever reason, is always given this negative slant, but there's a lot of positives that come out of mining, other than the obvious stuff of giving us the materials that we need to live.
34:15 It's helped a lot of people's lives. And I think a lot of people, that's a big part of why they're in it, you know, going to all these remote places for opportunities, obviously, to make economic gains, but always help the livelihoods of many other people as well. So it's certainly something that it's very important. The, Oh, George, I see. Yeah, go ahead. I would certainly support David's view on in our evaluation of the project, we have employed extensive local groups and obviously generate a lot of goodwill from that. And that has to continue into the life of mine so that there is participation from everybody and all the stakeholders ultimately benefit from the project.
35:05 It's not just for 1 group. David brought up an interesting point about the perception of mining in the industry, and I'm sure all of us are familiar being ingrained in the industry about the incident that happened in Turkey last week or a couple of weeks ago. The perception has to be more on a local level or is it a... I don't know where I'm going with this exactly, to be frank, but if anyone wants to chime in on this, should the focus and emphasis be on these local communities for the perception or should there be like a mass adoption or acceptance of this industry? Well, it's a big question, Kyle, but you know, I think you always have to focus on the community, even though we've got a broader perception in, you know, people in the city don't sometimes realize that they use things that are mined every day and their livelihood depends on it.
36:03 Whereas in rural communities, they do, But they're kind of 2 separate issues. Your social license and your communication with the community is something that is paramount. You know, understanding the community, taking the time to actually listen, and you know, the question around exploration to production, well, that social license and the work you do has to change from when you start at early exploration as you go through production. And it really has to be based on what the community wants and the needs and what you hear. And so there's no simple recipe that this is what you have to do. Here's the check boxes, because they're moving check boxes. And it really depends on your project and the community. So it's a really big question. You know, overall in society, mining needs to do a better job of reminding people that they need mining, that their cell phone has 40 minerals and metals in it, and that, you know, the tap water doesn't just come out of the tap, that all those pipes were mined, or maybe they're plastic, but even plastic comes from mining. So, you know, we as a society need to get back to understanding the importance of mining and the critical metals, the roles it's going to have in helping us get to this green economy that we're not at yet.
37:17 There's a lot that we need to do in society and it really is, it's gonna be bigger than any one mining company. It has to be our associations and our governments really understanding the role. Chairman Minkoff, excellent. So in preparation for this, I did come up with a question per panelist and chair, we touched on the question I had planned for you. So maybe I'll ask Mr. Tilden's question for you because I'm pretty certain it's directed toward Banyan. Are you offering any scholarships? And you're on mute, just to. Yeah, so We do. Actually, we set up a scholarship a year and a half ago under the Yukon Foundation, which is a foundation that administers them so that it can be a bit independent. And we have up to $5,000 per year for students in mining-related careers. And often, we've actually broken that up if there were more students too. So, and you know, we're just an early exploration company and we intend to continue to grow that scholarship.
38:30 I know there's other Yukon companies that have set up their own scholarships working with the First Nations as well as through the Yukon Foundation or the Yukon University. So I know like Western Copper and others have done that as well. So we're seeing that as a driver for sure to get youth and students. You know, if you can get your way paid through university because there's a scholarship into mining, that might bring some new people in. And it's a really broad career. You know, you don't have to work at a mine site to be involved in mining. That's the other message we really need to get out is you might be the CEO like some of us sitting here, you might be the lawyer, the accountant, which isn't necessarily a mine site job. And then there's all those mine site jobs that are also very well-paying. And there's a lot of cool technology jobs now, AI, data processing, all this analytical stuff.
39:22 Mining has become as much of a scientific endeavor as anything else. The perception really needs to be improved I think on a broad scale. David, I have a question for you and it's open to Tara as well, really. How would you say Yukon stacks up in terms of other jurisdictions of Canada, like the eastern provinces of Ontario or Quebec or Newfoundland? I think there's certainly some benefits with both areas. I think from a pure exploration potential, I think the Yukon, as I mentioned, is probably on the top of many lists globally, especially in a place where there's rule of law and you're in a tier 1 type of an environment.
40:15 I think from pure opportunity, I would rank the Yukon sort of right up there. Ontario and Quebec have other benefits. They have the benefits of more infrastructure, which probably translates into lower operating costs. But then again, there's, you know, it's very hard to paint a broad brush with anything. Ontario and Yukon are big places. There's areas within those that have their own different dynamics, whether it's accessibility, whether it's First Nations perspectives or other local communities' perspectives on mining. So I think it's a really difficult question to ask, but certainly it's a benefit to each. I think the Yukon is a phenomenal place to work And just from the pure opportunity that we see there, and I think other people see there, and I think, look at what the majors are doing. I think almost every major mining company now has taken a toehold in some capacity into an exploration company in Yukon. So they're sort of seeing this area as a up and coming gold camp or probably multiple gold camps.
41:24 And that's why they're looking to make that focus. Yeah, fair enough. Sarah, if you had any further commentary on operating in the Yukon, feel free to do it now. Sure, you know, we're both biased because we work and operate there and, you know, it's the place that I know the best, even though I've worked all across Canada and the U.S. North. There's the other part is the permitting process and the settled land claims that, you know, the Yukon benefits from. You know, the original umbrella final agreement was 1992. And so we've had self-governing First Nations, 11 out of the 14, which is really important in terms of certainty and understanding, you know, the where the lines are or, or where there's overlap between different traditional territories, which and also the unique permitting process and environmental assessment process that came out of that. I think that is actually a big advantage for us as we move forward because there is a pathway through the permitting process which has the First Nations involved and they were involved in designing it.
42:28 So I think that sets us apart. The infrastructure, you know, you can't beat the hydropower in Quebec, so that's hard to compete against, but you know, looking towards a jurisdiction that has great geology and a lot of the pieces that check the boxes, I don't think there's any jurisdiction that that always checks every single one of the boxes. But, you know, Yukon's certainly getting closer to checking all the boxes for the investment that we want to see. Thank you for that. George, I want to bring you back into the conversation here. Now, many on the call are familiar with precious metal companies and might be interested in precious metal exposure as well as uranium. Can you make the case for why someone might want to consider a diamond company?
43:16 Yes, I certainly can. I'm coming up at the beginning of next month. I'm 40 years in the business of diamond exploration, so I'm a believer. But it's diamond prospects that are viable are not found frequently and usually their exploration and evaluation can both be time-consuming and very costly. However, in the case of a project like the Fort Alicorn, the Star Diamond, Star Around South Diamond project, once you've found something, it's really worth hanging on to. It is extremely interesting. We are dealing with mantle-derived rocks that have been brought to the surface.
44:06 The geology is beyond compare as far as I'm concerned. You're dealing with peridotites and eclogites and minerals that have crystallized at, you know, 150 to 400 kilometers down in the Earth and have been brought to the surface, there is a real uniqueness about these minerals. And in the case of the diamonds in the Forte La Corne, we have an unusual diamond size frequency distribution. There will be big ones in our future. We've already discovered a 49.6 carat stone in the evaluation of our project. There are other very high value stones with about $11,000 a carat for a single diamond.
44:57 There is a uniqueness about this project, enormous ore volume, very interesting diamonds, high proportion of type 2a stones, type 2a diamonds can be the most unique gin and tonic white, they can be slightly brown, and they can in rare cases be pink. Those are all opportunities from the kimberlites in the Fort Alicorn. I think exploration for diamonds is, I've had a wonderful career and I would thoroughly recommend it. Although the diamond projects are hard to find and you need to work at it. Thank you for that. Drew, in the Athabasca Basin, many Uranium speculators, investors most likely would like to have exposure in the region. How would you choose or how can they choose or differentiate the different small exploration, uranium exploration companies?
46:00 Yeah, I mean, I'm biased. I think we offer a tremendous opportunity in the Athabasca Basin, but maybe that's the best way to start when you look at the Athabasca Basin on a broad map. Look and see which companies have dominant land positions. We are the largest landholder in the Southwest Basin, an area that we think is up and coming. But with every exploration team, you need to then look at the people that are there. Have they had experience in the area? Have they found deposits? Have they created shareholder value in finding those deposits? And I think that's a pretty critical step when it comes to junior mining. And then the second or maybe third thing, I guess would be the news flow, get in touch with the company, sign up for their news. Are they consistently taking steps to be advancing their project? Are they putting their dollars to work in the right places?
47:04 And from there, I think you will get a pretty good understanding of, you know, which companies are putting in the work to have that discovery success or in cases of maybe other companies on this panel, where you've already had the discovery, but need to have the build out and the start of development. But again, I think that's sort of how I would, I would take a look at it. And again, Coming back to Stallion and what we've done, we've checked all of those boxes in a big way. Obviously, the largest explorer in the Southwest, a team that's been behind some significant value creation and geologists that have found world-renowned assets and news flow that continues to really drive our projects forward. Even news we had this morning covering 2200 square kilometres with a regional effective survey that is a significant value creator for the land package that we have. So that's a broad way to take a look at all the juniors.
48:14 But it's a big question and one that will take some work. So I think that's the best advice to give to junior investors is, you know, roll up your sleeves and get in touch with the management and really dig into each story and the value they provide. Before we get to the closing remarks, the individual in the chat here, Dad's Rock. It's a good handle there. I believe he or she would appreciate me reading it verbatim because I think it shows a lot of the frustration many people that are investing or speculating in the space feel. Does any presenting companies involved in any actions to stop market manipulations, blind naked shorting, high frequency and algo trade-in.
49:03 The junior sector has been beaten to a pulp. It's very unjust to investors as companies such as yours are the project generators and therefore generators of wealth for a vibrant economy. Should the tick test be reinstated, good luck to all. And If anyone has commentary, if you're part of this movement, anything like this? No one has an opinion on the matter? I think it's a very astute comment. There's a lot of issues out there which are unjustly penalizing the junior Canadian markets. There's a great organization that's been founded to combat that. It's Safe Canadian Mining. I think you guys are involved with that in some capacity in helping Eric Sprott and a number of other industry stalwarts.
49:54 It's good to see there's progress. Obviously, things move slowly, unfortunately, especially with regulations in the capital markets, but certainly I think the more vocal people, companies, investors are, the better the chances are of remedies being implemented. So I'm sure there's, you know, maybe Kyle, you can direct them towards more resources in this regard. Yes, that's rocksafecanadianmining.com. I believe it's that simple and there's a petition you can fill out there. I believe it was a really successful year, 2023 for that organization and becoming aware. We did host an event with Eric Sprott as well, which had great attendance. We could, I could pass you that link through our YouTube channel if you're interested. Definitely reach out in that regards.
50:45 I believe that's all the questions from the audience though. So I like doing a little 30 second, 1 minute closing remark from each panelist. What can individuals expect in 2024 for your companies? And David, we'll start with you. Well, for sure. Well, listen, it was a great panel. Thanks for having me. White Gold, we had a couple of very significant new discoveries we've made in the last couple of years. I mentioned earlier the 2.1Moz of Gold we have at deposit. That is open in all directions and we continue to show additional mineralization close to that deposit. Some more news flow to follow in that regard. But we made a very significant new discovery on our Betty property, which is contiguous to Newmont's coffee deposit, hitting some exceptional grades, 5g over 25m, 3.5g over 50m, right on the same fault. We think that is a tremendous new opportunity.
51:43 We are going to certainly look to follow up on A couple of new properties. We have such a tremendous land tax. I think when you look at White Gold and why it was so interested for us to get involved and we were able to attract Nico Eagle and Kinross to become our partners is because it's such a unique opportunity. We're in this historic area with so much Gold, plaster production, it's seen such limited work. The team that made the big discoveries in the area, it's our technical team. They think they've cracked the code. We're now scratching the surface. They've been incredibly successful in the last few years. And we think based on the work we've done over the last couple of years, the opportunities ahead of us are as good, if not better than what we've seen before. So we continue to build our ounces, make new discoveries, expand our new discoveries all the while. I think there's a very significant tailwind to the Yukon with Newmont permitting their mine next door and a lot of the other great work that many other companies in Yukon are doing right now.
52:41 Thank you for that. Tara, the 2024 catalyst for Banyan Gold? We just put out some pretty incredible news with our 7 million ounce resource, which we've built since we really made the discovery in 2019. We also put out positive metallurgy and we're continuing to do more metallurgical work. So we'll have additional news flow from that work that we're doing. We are planning an exploration program. We are still have a pretty strong treasury from the financing that we did in December of 2022. We still have $7 million and we do have some income, which means that we'll be able to get back out in the field. And we're working on what program we think is really going to add the most value. It's terrible to have options, but we can continue to grow the resource. We can focus on drilling out what you might mine first in high grade. We can look at some of our targets, you know, similar to David, we have over 300 square kilometers of land package and we've barely explored anything but the 5% where we have our resource.
53:41 So focus on new discoveries. So look for some news on that in the next month or so as we develop those plans. And we really try to figure out in this market, how are we gonna deliver the most value for our shareholders? It's a difficult market for juniors. That's definitely not a secret. So to be in the position we are to be able to have options in the cash to implement them is pretty unique. So we're looking out for shareholders and we'll have some news flow through 2024. And Drew, maybe I'll add on top of it for you, your thoughts on the Uranium market in 2024, as well as the catalyst for your company specifically for the year? Yes, absolutely. I mean, Uranium has become a very hot topic. It's got attention when it moved from $20 a pound several years ago to now over $100 a pound. It's part of the clean energy and green energy revolution, a nuclear renaissance.
54:40 We look to electrify our economies and need the carbon-free power source that's baseload power to do that. So, I think we've seen Uranium companies pull back over the last 3 or 4 weeks, but we've still seen Uranium prices stay above US$100 a pound. So, it's our, my view, I guess, that Uranium prices will continue to move higher. There's a significant supply constraint. There's already a shortfall of supply versus demand in the market and demand is growing and we think there's more catalysts coming that will grow demand further. So for us, it's an incredible backdrop to operate a junior explorer in. We see the Uranium prices going much higher in the years ahead.
55:27 And that makes the pounds in the ground worth more and more and more. And that's what we're trying to do at Stallion. So, you know, having a big land package, we've got over 3,000 square kilometers of land in the Athabasca Basin, you know, the best real estate for Uranium exploration in the world. And we've advanced that to the point where we've just launched the mobilization of our maiden drill program. We'll have drills turning shortly and we'll be putting that news out to the market. And that's the ultimate test for a junior explorer. Our neighbour, F3 Uranium, 7X'd on 1 drill hole in the Athabasca Basin at the end of 2022 and Uranium prices were US$45 a pound, not over US$100 like we see now.
56:17 That significant potential from 1 result is possible with our company, but we're also doing a lot of other things to lean on other levers of value creation, bringing up several other key targets from such a big land package. We think we're going to have multiple Tier 1 targets that are going to be available for drill testing as we continue to move forward. So a really exciting time, very near term for us. But again, even the next couple of years look really exciting as we continue to do the work and look for that next big discovery on our land package. Thank you for that, Drew. George, what can people expect from Star Diamond this year? And Star Diamond Corporation, as I've said, has the largest undeveloped diamond project on the planet.
57:07 And it has a unique diamond population with some exceptional value stone that we anticipate mining in the future. In November last year, we announced a transaction with Rio Tinto where they will relinquish their 75% share of the project, and we will gain 100% of the project. We anticipate that transaction closing in March, in other words, next month, in a few weeks time. We look forward to that closing and the opportunity that it brings our company to get our teeth stuck into this project. Rio Tinto had done a lot of very good work and we can use that to our benefit and further develop the project from that work that Rio did. We will define a revised mineral resource. We believe that will be stronger as a consequence of their work. And then based on that, we can work our way into a PFS to provide a new baseline from which we can provide a metric for the value of this project.
58:23 We look forward to this opportunity. Certainly we've done a lot in the background. We can build on that work and we look forward to the answers in 2024. Thank you. And thank you everyone for participating today and especially the audience too. Great questions, it was a nice interactive discussion. If you did come in a little late, this event is being recorded, so it will be available on YouTube in the coming days here. Thank you all for participating. Great discussion.
