- After being completely halted, Quebec’s 22 permitted mines were ramping back toward full operations as of April 15.
- CAD18 million raised at sequentially higher prices in past 12-months.
- Gold price is at all-time high in CAD and 55 other currencies – may not be accurately reflected in stock prices.
- 60 meters away from a pretty big expansion target.
- Drilling since November 2018 with one rig – currently up to 4.
From AMEX Exploration, we were joined by Kelly Malcolm, VP of exploration, and Victor Cantore, CEO to discuss their Quebec based gold mining projects amidst global shutdowns. They share their excitement about the successes they’ve seen over the past 18-months and what they are looking forward to as mines ramp back up toward full production. The following is a transcript of the interview:
Lara Smith: Hello, good evening, my name is Lara Smith from Core Consultants. I’m here on my couch in Tel Aviv under lockdown. I’m joined by Kelly Malcolm and Victor Cantore. Kelly is the VP of exploration and Victor is the CEO of… [Oh here comes my dog who’s joined for the party] and they are with AMEX Exploration who are developing the Perron, have I said that right? My French is not good. The Perron gold mine in Quebec. Welcome.
Kelly Malcolm: Thanks so much for having us on. I’m also on my couch in Toronto at the moment.
Lara Smith: So you’re on your couch in Toronto, Victor where are you?
Victor Cantore: I’m on my couch in Montreal.
Lara Smith: So thank you for inviting me into your homes. So maybe let’s just start off, you could just tell everybody what you’ve been working on and whether those plans are going ahead or whether it’s stalled, what the focus is on right now.
Victor Cantore: Yeah. Perfect. Kelly, I’ll let you go over it since you’ve been right on top of it, talking to everybody on the ground, even though we’re all locked down, so I’m going to let you run off with it.
Kelly Malcolm: Sure. So we are, or were, in the middle of a hundred thousand meter drilling program on the Perron project. We had four drills operating until the Covid crisis sort of struck. What we did was when the government mandated a stop work program for exploration companies, is we left all of our drills onsite. Two of them are actually sitting in the hole right now, very close to target. And the guidance looks so far like we’ll be able to resume exploration on the 4th of May.
On the day that happens, we’ll have drillers drilling, we’ll have geologists working, everyone will be fully back in action, obviously with a new safety focus, largely focused on limiting infectious diseases. But we’re essentially ready to go. We’ve got a lot of money in the bank, which is a bonus that I would say we have compared to many other exploration companies, and what’s really exciting is that we have a lot of it in flow through money, which has to be spent by the end of this year. So we’re not paring back our exploration program whatsoever. We’ll be actively pushing forward the second that we’re able to, in order to spend those flow through dollars and add ounces of gold to what we think are some really compelling, cool deposits on the project.
Lara Smith: Okay. And Quebec has basically given the guidance that first week of May, you can be operational.
Kelly Malcolm: Well, what they did originally was declared that mining was to be completely stopped. So all the mines across Quebec were fully halted. Everything was put on care and maintenance. And then as of the 15th, so yesterday, just the mines themselves were given approval to resume operations, so that’s the 22 permitted active mines in the province, so they’re all slowly getting back to almost full production and the guidance that we’ve seen so far, which hasn’t been formally mandated, looks like the 4th of May will be our resume workday. That’s not official, but it’s as official as we as we can get so far.
Lara Smith: That’s great. And that’s not too far away either. Okay. So from there, where’s the plan from there? So drilling, hopefully first week of May. What’s next? How long is that drill program?
Kelly Malcolm: Essentially in perpetuity, we haven’t stopped drilling since November of 2018. We started with one drill rig. We’re up to four. We’ve basically been continually expanding the drilling program. Our project has really. It’s really grown substantially. We’re very, very happy with the results and successes we’ve had so far. And those results and successes have allowed us to attract significant capital.
So over the past year, we raised, Victor, what is it, 18 million bucks?
Victor Cantore: About 18 million dollars, that’s correct.
Kelly Malcolm: That’s sequential finance, [in Canadian, yes] with sequentially increased priced financings, so we’re in a really good shape. And even in this lockdown period, all the management’s been actively working, reaching out to investors, we’ve got three geologists still working, essentially full time on modeling, we’ve got a geophysicist doing a compilation of all of our data. We’ve got basically the team still fully at work. We’re busy, all day, every day, and it’s actually a nice breather and that we have this time to look at all of our results, compile all of our data and identify potentially new targets or new extension targets.
So it’s been a terrible time, obviously, for humanity. It’s not been a terrible time for our company. We’ve been fortunate to be able to use this time advantageously.
Lara Smith: That that’s really, really positive. And maybe we can pick your brains now on, on gold. Let’s talk gold. So gold is breached over $1,600 an ounce. We’ve got analysts like me saying this could be it. We could breach that 1900 top level, which we saw in 2011 [yes], I am a gold bull by the way, but beyond that, where do you think? We’ve seen some fabulous numbers of even 5,000. I was speaking to somebody the other day and I don’t know if it can go there, but we are effectively in a recession. I mean, Europe was going into recession before all this happened and now we’ve got this covid 19 with the world has stopped, and we don’t know what is going to look like and how it’s going to restart. So what do you think for gold?
Kelly Malcolm: So I’d say, aside from the macros, like if you look at gold and Canadian dollars right now, it is wild. We’re at the all-time high Canadian. I don’t think that’s yet been reflected in Canadian producers’ share price premiums, but just on that level alone, like we’re in heaven for Canadian gold companies, and I think that’s yet to be reflected in the market. But Victor is probably more of the economics guru on our team.
Victor Cantore: Well, when you look at the gold price in Canadian dollars, just a couple of days ago, when it hit a fresh high in Canadian dollars, we were close to $2,500 Canadian per ounce. If you look around the world, there’s approximately 55 countries in the world where gold is at an all time high, and it’s about to hit an all time high also in US dollars. The other thing where people ask, well, you know, the U S dollar will come down. That’s going to, it’s going to be reflected on that. The thing is for the Canadians, it’s a little bit different because our dollar is basically a petrol dollar. I don’t think the price of oil is going back up anytime soon.
So I think our Canadian dollar is going to stay depressed, compared to the US dollar, for quite some time, I think these are going to be the exchange rates for quite a while, so it wouldn’t surprise me seeing gold in US dollars going up to well over 2000 – 2500, and obviously it’s all speculation. We’re all speculating who knows where to really go, but you’re not seeing a 3, 4, $5,000 an ounce Canadian dollar gold. It’s quite possible, it’s not a dream anymore.
Lara Smith: And any other thoughts on the projects, on other projects you’ve seen in general, like some of your competitors? I know you’ve got a view on your competitors. Let’s hear some of them, what gold projects out there already looking promising?
Kelly Malcolm: I’m looking at any of the larger producers that I think are still majorly deflated. I think they’re a really great buy. There’s been some really great exploration companies coming out.
Lara Smith: Give us a hot tip, we won’t hold you to advice or anything like that, but can you can give us a hot tip?
Kelly Malcolm: Hot tip? I would say Amex is looking really good right now.
Victor Cantore: I guess any of the gold producers, right? Kirkland Lake. Kirkland Lake would be, KL would definitely be, I mean that thing was beat up and they bounced back quite nicely and I think it would probably go a lot higher. They were beat up with that acquisition that they did with Detour, and I think he was a visionary on that acquisition where the market beat him up for it, and I think that was one of the smartest moves out there, ’cause as gold goes higher, that asset will be, will be worth multiple times of what they paid for it. In a very quick period on top of it too.
Lara Smith: Okay, great. Alright, so thank you so much. We’ll leave it there. Thanks for tips, Amex Exploration, we’re definitely following your company. If there’s anything else you’d like to add just before we go?
Kelly Malcolm: Essentially just keep your eyes out for news, the second we start drilling, we’re about 60 meters away from a pretty big expansion target, so we’re really looking forward to intercepting that and hopefully getting some really great results from that.
Basically just if you’d look back at our news over the past 18 months, essentially every press release we put out has something pretty spectacular in it. And I would say keep your eyes out for the future, because with the grades we have on the property, every once in a while we have something that really knocks it out of the park.
Victor Cantore: Thanks for having us. Thank you.
Kelly Malcolm: Thanks so much. Really appreciate it.
Lara Smith: Thanks. Bye.
