Transcript
Automated transcript · Written by software from the replay's audio. It can mishear names and figures; the replay is the record.
0:08 Hello, everyone. Welcome to GFG Resources' live event today, hosted by SICKS. I'm pleased to be joined by their Vice President of Exploration, Anders Karlsson, who is going to be going through a Q&A session today with us. So just as a note to everyone in the audience, if you want to participate, ask Anders anything, feel free to submit questions in the chat found on the right-hand side of your screen at any time today. And later on, we're going to be doing a Q&A session with our guest, Andrew Carlson, who is going to be going through a Q&A session today with us. So just as a note to everyone in the audience, if you want to participate, ask Andrews anything. Feel free to submit questions in the chat found on the right-hand side of your screen at any time today. And later on, we're going to be submitting a link to that same chat. Feel free to click on that when it's there and get in touch with the team by filling out the survey that's going to be, you'll be directed to. No further ado, let's get
0:40 started on some questions that we received from, or rather in advance. Anders, I just want to start off with, could you provide a brief background of yourself and your experience prior to joining GFG? Absolutely. Thanks Cam, very much for having me. Great to be here. Yeah, so my background is obviously hard rock from southern Manitoba, small farming community. So my BSc and Masters were at University of Manitoba and Laurentian University respectively. So definitely rooted in Archean geology and Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.
1:20 Worked for a major, some government mapping and a junior in my first few years. And then in 2010 joined the CB Gold operation with the Cloud Resources, now SSR Mining. And was fortunate enough to work with Brian and Mark right off the bat there. And we kind of started making discoveries within the first year. And then that kind of just supercharged the cycle that we were in 2011 and 12 for us. And that led into 2016, an acquisition of cloud resources by SSR Mining. And then into that kind of period, a lot of business development work post 2016 with the new group leading to the merger with Alisur Gold in 2020.
2:09 So that's kind of where I've been the last 12 years is mainly exploring within Saskatchewan paleo-proterozoic belts, but also working with the global exploration team within SSR Mining, looking at other projects globally, and working a lot on near mine exploration within the operations. Okay, great, absolutely. I'm wondering if you could just dive in a little bit more to the motivation that made you move from SSRM to GFG.
2:42 12 years looking at the same rocks, It was wonderful. Like I said, Paleo-Proto-Rhizoric rocks. A lot of my background is within our Kean systems. And so when Ryan and Mark, We keep in good touch, we're good friends obviously, we worked together for 6, 7 years, had good success. When I started to think about a change and what that might mean, I was always in touch with them, looking at their programs, seeing what they were doing. And I was always impressed by the land package that a $20 million junior company could amass within the Timmins District and to see what they've grown it into with Pandora within the Swayze, but also with Moncler Gold Arm in the Timmins area proper within the Abitibi.
3:39 Just really impressive to me how they were able to achieve that. So very attractive to look for new Gold deposits within one of the greatest mining camps within the world. And so that was the main draw for me in terms of technical. But like I say, having worked with Mark, Brian, Rick, Marilyn here in Saskatoon through the Claude resources acquisition and through that, that really kind of laid the foundation for the people that I knew that I wanted to work with in the future. No, fair enough, Absolutely. I'm just wondering, how do you plan on leveraging your experience, your broad experience with greenfield opportunities in various regions to benefit GFG's exploration efforts?
4:27 Coming in with a perspective from a mid-tier is very important for me. I don't want that perspective to change very much even though I'm sitting in a different seat with a much smaller company. The potential is the same. The goal is the same. And I think one of the things that I want to bring in is structure, creating a team. We already have a very strong team based in Timmins, working with the team to develop systems internal to GFG that are going to position us very well for future discoveries down the road. Right. So as the new Vice President of Exploration at GFG, I'm wondering what are your short-term and your long-term goals?
5:18 The short-term goal list is pretty long right now, only having been in the seat for 5 weeks. And so that's definitely something that we're working on is prioritizing the short, medium and long-term goals. So the first thing that I really wanted to focus on, I think that our first board meeting was my second day. So that was a good way to kickstart things. It was, where can we add value? What are we doing that's adding value right now? And what are we doing that's not adding value? Or are there things that we don't need to be doing? So going from the project, you know, district corporate level and understanding what's gonna add value, what's not, it is very important right off the bat. So a lot of the short-term goals are focused around that.
6:06 You know, medium-term goals in terms of establishing systems and things like that, that will come, but everything that we're doing, building models, rebuilding models, advancing models, and ensuring that all of our efforts are directed towards a multi-million ounce discovery in the next few years. So that is the long-term goal. Long-term for our group is 3 years, something like that. And so, you know, they're shorter timelines than you might see in a mid-tier or a major company, but those are the goals that we're working towards. Absolutely. And then talking about long-term goals, I'm wondering if you could share your thoughts on the potential for further gold discoveries at GFG's gold projects in Timmins?
6:51 We're very well established in terms of the land packages that we have. Like I said, Penn, Doray, Montclair and the Greater Gold arm properties in Timmins allow us to leverage a lot of our experience that Brian and I have gained over the years and implement those into new properties. So definitely a lot of exploration potential, No sizable deposits on any of these properties, but that's a lot of the potential that we see ahead of us. So by looking at the smaller deposits and zones that we have, learning about those Montclair deposit is a very good example of that on the southwest corner of the Gold Arm property. So we're going to leverage the information that we have there, take that, build the new model, extrapolate that to the larger Gold Arm property and look for not only deposits that are around the same size, but ones that we can find at incremental and step change sizes to create a material discovery within the company.
8:02 Absolutely. What strategies do you have in mind for strengthening GFD's pipeline of drill targets to unlock value at Timmins?
8:12 One of the things that I'm most passionate about is building a target ranking system that properly evaluates the targets, deposit zones within your system. So you can't take a structure, a target ranking system that worked elsewhere and apply it to Timmins, not when you get into the details. And so one of the first things will be to ensure that we're building the right target ranking system for our properties. Once we have that established, We want to bring all of the historical data, make sure it's compiled properly, layer all of the data sets and choose the best targets, rank the best targets, bring them into the pipeline and ensure that we have that even distribution from near mine, near resource, brownfield, greenfield targets, so that we can effectively and efficiently work the targets, advance the pipeline.
9:12 And since it's a numbers game in our business, evaluate as many targets as we can as efficiently as possible until we find the right one that can deliver value. Okay, fair enough. And just before I change topics a little bit, I just want to remind the audience that this is an open forum. If you have any questions for Anders, please feel free to submit them in the Q&A chat found on the right-hand side of your screen at any time. But Anders, just going, you know, as I've mentioned a little bit onto a different topic, based on your experience working in a global business development group, What insights can you provide
9:46 on potential merger and acquisition targets for GFG resources? Within GFG, for our current size and where we're operating, everything has to be on the table. So whether it's staking, JVs with other junior explorers, synergies with other companies around us that make a lot of sense, those are the things that we need to be looking at. Of course, the company has been doing that. We've got a strong team here that's been evaluating projects over the last 7 years. And we need to continue to be able to do that while leveraging the relationships that we have within the belt and looking for the best projects and opportunities. That's on our side. From the larger side, from the mid-tier and major perspective, we're a junior company within one of the best jurisdictions in the world with a very large land package.
10:45 And many operators in the belt obviously won't have the same size of land packages or they've been somewhat exhausted, they've gone through a lot of the targets. And so one of the opportunities that I see is for those producers who need to keep a minimum baseline critical threshold of ounce production,
11:08 we're positioning ourselves so that we can be looked at for the land packages that we have, the targets we'll develop and hopefully add a lot of value that gets the attention of the mid-tiers and the majors in the belt. Right, okay. I'm just wondering, what excites you the most about GFG's future?
11:29 Definitely the opportunity ahead of us. You know, you can't smile a little bit when you think of a, you know, $20 million junior gold explorer in Timmins with one of the largest land packages in the belt. So when I look at Moncler, Goldarm, Dory and Penn, I really see a huge opportunity to be able to look at the whole, compile it all, ensure that we're using the right target ranking to evaluate targets, advance them, and make a material multi-million ounce discovery. I really see that as the path forward for us. That has to be the focus. We need to be aggressive and we have all of the pieces. We've got the senior management, we have the land packages. We just need to build our systems internally, create our plan, make sure it's aligned with strategy and execute.
12:22 All right, absolutely. Alex is wondering if you could talk about the exploration work that's been done already on the property and what technical differences that you're going to use to unlock value that might have been previously missed? Well, I can speak to Goldarm for sure, which is the newest property just north of Timmins. So Goldarm sits on overlaps that the Pipestone Fault north of the main break in Timmins. This type of land package, this one in particular, has never been fully consolidated. So like Penn before it, like parts of Dore, it's never been looked at on the whole for what can the entire land package offer and what can we learn from small bits of it and extrapolate that, apply it to exploration programs over the whole area. So certainly when you're looking within the Timmins area, you're dealing with cover. You've got 20, 30, 40, 50 meters of till, you have to be able to see through that. There are very few outcrops in certain parts of the Gold Arm property. And one of the challenges and opportunities will be to come up with new innovative techniques, like base of till sampling, but also using LIDAR as effectively as possible.
13:36 It's only been 10, 15 years that companies have really been using LIDAR. And the manner in which we can use those data sets and overlap them to find value that previous explorers wouldn't have had when looking at the global
13:52 property on a much larger scale. Those are the types of opportunities that we have. We're going to be applying a lot of LIDAR to interpret which tools we can sample, where can we sample them. We're going to be looking at the structural architecture through magnetic and what other geophysical data sets are available and bringing it all together, integrating it fully like we've never been able to at Goldarm and in this part of the Pipestone and apply it to mineral discoveries. Right. Joe wants to know, in your opinion, what sets GFG resources apart from other North American precious metals exploration companies? I can certainly say that having worked with Mark and Brian and this team here, that to me is very different.
14:45 I've worked with a lot of teams through the business development phase at SSR Mining, have looked at a lot of companies, and I would say it's generally quite rare to see a team that's this close, that stayed together this long, that's had this kind of success, you know, in previous iterations and companies, I would say that's quite rare. Then you
15:08 overlap the fact that we're in a tier 1 district in Timmins, you have very large land packages that like I just said, have never really been consolidated or explored, you know, all together. And then you put the current market that we're in, the junior market is not in a great place where, you know, it's a struggle for a lot of juniors right now. But when you look at the mid-tiers and the majors, prices have been good, production has been quite good for a lot of mid-tiers and majors, and even with inflationary costs creeping up, there's still a lot of money there and a lot of need for mergers acquisitions. And so at $20 million, I really see GFG as a great opportunity internally for us to go and aggressively explore, compile LAN packages and go out there and build value. So a lot of companies have a few of these things. I really see us as having a lot of them and everything we need
16:10 to go out and make a material discovery. Right. Bill wants to know, how much money do you need to raise in the next 6 to 12 months? Better question for the people next door here, but we just raised about $4.3 million in the last couple months. So we're fully funded for the next year plus in exploration. I wouldn't say we would have any need to raise any money in about the next year. Okay, fair enough. Joe says this, maybe that they missed it, but do you have experience in mineral exploration with geology directly or similar to the geology in the Timmins District? Definitely Archean systems. The 1st Archean system I worked in as a student and then a few years was in the Rice Lake Belt in southeastern Manitoba, so just west of Red Lake. I've also worked in Archean Greenstone Belts for a few years in Pickle Lake, Ontario And part of my MSC in mineral exploration at Laurentian University was working under Mike Lesher, Dan Contact and with Harold Gibson.
17:24 And so a lot of those courses are field-based.
17:28 And so, Wawa, Timmins, Kirkland Lake, Val d'Or, Marathon, all of these areas are areas that I'm very familiar with. I've been on the ground, I've seen a lot of deposits in these camps. So I would say, you know, a lot of my experience in gold has been in Saskatchewan and paleo-proto-Arizoic belts, but you know, you put some more alteration over it, the alteration systems in these Archean camps are much more significant than what you would see in a typical paleo-proto-Arizoic camp. And so yes, the rocks are very familiar to me, the terrains are familiar, but the intricate nature of the deposits and just the enormous number of ounces of gold and timmins, that's new for me. So I'm definitely in a steep learning curve right now in terms of learning the belts, learning all the assets.
18:18 But overall, the geology for me is very familiar and very confident that we can go forward seamlessly and get right down to the exploration part. OK, awesome. Joe also has another question. He's just wondering, are there any new exploration technologies or methods that you're looking to use that could be beneficial to GFG?
18:41 Definitely. As I stated before, looking through the till is one of the biggest challenges that we face. And it's not just in the Timmins area, it's in parts of the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Alaska, overseas, and in the Lapland Belts, and in Finland, things like that. So it's an issue that a lot of different groups are trying to tackle. And there's a lot of research being done on new techniques to look at different ways of seeing through that cover. Now at Montclair, Gold Arm, the till thickness is 5 to 20 meters roughly on average. On the Eastern parts, there's almost no till. So you've got your rate on bedrock, but there are definitely a lot of techniques on the till side, sonic base of till sampling, things like that, that we need to look at in terms of upping our game to be able to go out and make these discoveries.
19:38 I think integrating multiple datasets is one of the most powerful things we can do. You never want to rely too heavily on any 1 or 2, you know, criteria or datasets when you're trying to target in a covered terrain. You really need to look at it from a holistic perspective, overlay all of the data sets, and where you've got 5, 6 or 7 overlapping, that creates a target, even if one single lease that didn't create it on its own. Okay, fair enough. Well, listen, Anders, I think it's been a great conversation so far. It's great to meet you. It sounds like it's very exciting at GFG right now. That's it for today at this point. Looks like all the questions that were received. So I wanna thank you. And of course, I wanna thank everyone in the audience who's joined us today.
20:24 But before I wrap up, I just wanna pass things over to you if you have any closing remarks for the audience. Thanks very much, Cam, for allowing us to tell some of our story today. Just want to thank everybody for viewing and watching today. Thanks very much for following the story. I'm very excited. It's wonderful to be here as part of the GFG team. I'm very excited in terms of what we're going to do together. We're just getting started, so please keep tabs on what we're doing. Follow us, send us questions, and I hope everybody's on board for the ride. Thanks very much. You
