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Women in Mining Panel

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Fri, April 23, 2021 at 4:00 PMendedReplay
Women in Mining Panel
Company
GR Silver Mining Ltd. (TSXV:GRSL), Durango Resources, Thunderstruck Resources Ltd. (TSXV:AWE)
Date
Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 4:00 PM ET
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Automated transcript · Written by software from the replay's audio. It can mishear names and figures; the replay is the record.

0:11 All right, well, hello and welcome everyone to the Women in Mining panel hosted by 6. We are joined today by 3 female leaders of mining exploration companies. I am pleased to introduce you to Marcy Kiesman, President and CEO of Durango Resources, Brenda Dayton, VP Corporate Communications at GR Silver, and Bryce Bradley, President and CEO and Co-Founding Director of Thunderstuck Resources.

0:37 So in this discussion, we'll take a deep dive into each of these panelists' backgrounds, experience, and take a look at what is to come for each of their respective companies. As a reminder, you can submit your questions at any time on the Q&A panel on the right-hand side of the screen. And as always, this panel is being recorded and will be available to watch afterwards on six.com. So welcome everyone. To kick things off, if you could just briefly introduce yourself and give us a bit of insight into your background, starting with you, Marcy. Okay, thanks for having me, Dasha. So my name is Marcy Kiesman, as you said. I come from the financial background and de-risking projects. I studied management accounting and specifically strategic management so that's more my forte and how I ended up coming into the public company and mining industry was started out doing financial statements and corporate filings and then started strategizing, helping to build properties and doing that sort of thing. And then I just evolved into going from CFO positions to CEO.

1:43 Wow, amazing. And you're based in Vancouver? That's right, yeah. Nice. All right, well, welcome. Brenda, if you can give us a bit of an introduction. Thank you for having me. My name's Brenda Davin. I'm VP Corporate Communications at GR Silver. I've been there for the last 2 years, so I'm new to the role. But I've been in the mining space for the past 15 years in various governance and communication roles. Prior to that, I was in banking and insurance.

2:10 Coming from Vancouver today. Great, well welcome. And last but not least, Bryce, if you can just introduce us to you and give us a bit of your background. Sure, yeah. So I co-founded this company, Thunderstruck Resources, maybe 6, 7 years ago. But prior to that, I was mostly in investment banking. So focused on raising capital for these little junior companies. Oil and gas and some energy, but mostly these little junior exploration companies before deciding to jump in and actually start my own company And then obviously I have the capabilities of financing it with my co-founding partner, Brian London, who also brings many, many skills and contacts to the table.

2:56 And I'm based in Fiji now since last October due to COVID, normally Toronto area.

3:02 Great. Interesting. So I know that you and Brenda have a background in banking. I was wondering what drew you to working in the mining sector? Who, Marcy?

3:15 We can start with you, Bryce, and I will, I wouldn't say that I was initially drawn to mining. It was my first job out of university, and my degree was not even in geology or banking. I had a Bachelor of Science in ecology, which was the study of animal behavior. As I soon learned, it's a kind of a lateral move into mining exploration in some respects, because it's the kind of a, you know, it's an aggressive kind of industry, right? Where you just, you gotta be very aggressive and just get out there and explore and try to get do what you can. A lot of competition, very male-dominated of course with the egos and whatnot, but when I got out of university it was my first job and I was just a secretary, not say just a secretary, that's not what I mean, but I was entry level position, let's just say. And I was extremely irritated that I didn't know what they were talking about, both on the geological side of things and also on the finance side. So I chose to go in the direction of finance and started taking all the

4:18 courses that you need to get to be a banker and to start your own exempt market dealer, to start your own little tiny bank and raise capital. And that took a few years. So I did that for several years and then decided to, you know, we got my co-founding partner and I were a little bit tired of raising capital or supporting other people's companies when you don't know what they're doing with the money necessarily. So I would lose, sometimes lose contacts or

4:51 depending on what the company did with their money or didn't do, I would jeopardize some of my contact. So I decided, well, why don't we do it ourself? And then we know exactly where everything is being spent and we can answer it to our investors directly because we know everything inside and out. So that's essentially what we did. Thought it wouldn't take this long to get it. We thought that we would be way further down the path, but by now, it's been 5 years or so, but these things take time and we're definitely, definitely moving ahead in many respects, which I can get into later. But that's about it. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I look forward to hearing more about that later. But Marcy, what drew you to working in this sector? So sort of like Grace, I don't like being in the dark either. I've always been interested in geology and how things are formed and things are made. I was a bit of a closet science geek, still kind of am.

5:47 So coming into the mining side of things for me wasn't a big stretch, even though I came with the accounting background. I always came from the accounting schooling knowing I wasn't going to be a CPA for the rest of my life. It was never my dream to be a financial statement writer. So I've always been interested in it and it started out back when I was doing the work of CFO and we were basically doing financials and I was having to report in doing MD&A And what was happening was I was asking these guys, well, how come these give you all this money and we don't only have so many soil samples? Like what's going on?

6:23 Where's the disconnect? How am I supposed to explain to shareholders where this money is going? And so the guy on the other end of the telephone says, you know what, Marcy, if you think this is so easy, you can come back here and you come out here with me and I'll show you why we only have this many samples. And I was like, okay. So pretty much ever since then, I started going out into the field and working along with our guys. That way I do understand when there's some circumstances, as it was in that case, it was all swamp, so it's pretty hard to take soil samples when you're sampling in the middle of a swamp in the middle of summertime. So then it's like, okay, now I get it, I understand, it helps me understand the geology and I think it helps me run Durango better knowing that I'm out there with the guys, understand all the pros and the cons of what's going on and I'm not afraid of getting my fingers dirty so I'm with big strong shoulders so yeah that's kind of how I love it. It's great. It's a demon. You don't own you don't have no service. You get to go out there and get eaten alive by black flies. It's great.

7:26 Wow, really hands on. Super interesting. And Brenda, what drew you to working in the mining sector? Well, for me, I kind of fell into it by happenstance. I was in a business center and there was a small mining company that was beside my office. And I just watched it from the periphery for a little bit. I really enjoyed the changing landscape of the mining space. You never really know what your day's going to look like. It's always evolving. I also find that it's a sector full of opportunities to grow both personally and professionally. So for me it was an easy transition from what I was doing to mining. I've taken on many different roles, but I've always enjoyed the different people that you get to meet, the different experiences, whether it be working in Columbia or

8:21 in Quebec or California, that you have lots of different opportunities and that the people are just, it's interesting to be able to work with so many different diverse people. Amazing. Yeah. I didn't really consider obviously how diverse obviously and how many people you get to meet, but also all the different locations you get to go to when you're working at different companies. So that's really interesting. I would love to get to take a little deeper dive into each of your respective companies. If you could just introduce your company, what jurisdiction you work in, the commodity you mine, and how you either ended up working there or how you came to create your own company as 2 of your CEOs. So I'll start with you Marcy.

9:06 Okay, so Durango is a junior exploration company and we're actively exploring in one of the most exciting gold camps in Canada and that's in Winfall Lake, Quebec. We've got a package of claims there that we've been actively working on for the last few years. And we're just in the middle of waiting for a program that we did over the winter months. And so, yeah, we've got our access is just a few hours drive from LaBelle. So we share the same all season log in dirt road with Cisco Mining and Bonterra Resources. So we've been pretty busy. We're basically a junior mining company that we're trying to overcome all of the odds and make some big discoveries All we're in the jurisdiction of Canada. All of our claims are in Canada.

9:57 Most of them are in Quebec It's the best place to be for for access and location and knowledgeable workers

10:07 great geology infrastructure and expertise back there. So our commodities are precious metals, critical elements, and we've also got some infrastructure materials and a project in DC here. The reason we have all our properties is location, location, location, where as I come from a strategic background, all of our properties are very strategically selected. They're next to big players and active camps and there's a reason behind every property we have. And it will, it wouldn't fall late and then the green stump belt because the best place to find a mine is in the headstream of another mine. So that's kind of us in a nutshell and why we are where we are. Great. How many properties do you have?

10:54 So we've got 4 main properties. We've got a limestone project in northwestern BC, And then all the rest of our properties are in Quebec. We've got our lithium project beside Namaska Lithium in Northern Quebec. And we've got our discovery project near Troilus, gold in the Chibuku area. And then we've got our Trove and there's a package of things that we have that are all next door to Asisco and in Bonterra. So mostly gold. And then we've got the lithium and limestone just to mix it up a little. Just to mix it up. All right. Thank you. Well, Brenda, can you introduce GRSilver, please?

11:36 Just give us a bit of the background of the company and what jurisdiction and commodity you work for. Sure. So GRSilver Mining has been trading on the TSX Ventures since March 2018 under the symbol GRSL. The company has aggressively grown its portfolio in that short time with acquisitions from SSR Mining, 1st Majestic and most recently MAKO Mining, resulting in becoming the first company to control 100% of the key gold and silver assets. That's Rosario mining district in Sinaloa, Mexico. As I said, I've joined the team 2 months ago and just enjoying learning about the projects certainly don't have the technical expertise in the world for just a short time.

12:25 That's wonderful. Have you gotten to go to Mexico since your time? I guess you joined during COVID. The team has been traveling back and forth to Mexico and doing their 2 weeks quarantine. I go get my COVID shot today, so I suspect I'll be down there

12:41 looking forward to getting down and seeing the people and the projects and getting to learn how to get ground up.

12:50 Right, absolutely. That's very exciting. And Bryce, can you introduce Thunderstruck Resources? Sure, so Thunderstruck, all of our assets are in the country of Fiji, which is in the middle of nowhere. I'm living in Fiji now and I had to make the decision to either stay you know locked down in Canada or stay pretty much locked down in Fiji. There usually is no COVID here. We've had a couple cases last week So we're for the first time since I got here in October, we're in we're in a lockdown, but it's only hopefully they'll quash it early. They tend to react very quickly, very swiftly, quite harshly with a lot of police. And then it's then it's over with again. They don't have the infrastructure to deal with COVID in this country. But so all of our assets are here. We have 4 assets in the middle of the main island, spanning zinc, copper, gold, and silver, across the 4.

13:44 And We will be doing 2 drill programs this season. The season runs like May, June. We'll be reopening the roads. It's kind of rainy season, cyclone season from generally like December

13:58 to like now. It looks like it's over now. So then we reopen the roads from all the cyclones and whatnot, and then get in there and start drilling and exploring again, say June, July. So we'll be starting our 2 drill programs. One is with the joint, our zinc copper property has a joint venture with the Japanese governmental entities, a $5 billion exploration department of the Japanese government called Jogmech. We're entering our third year with them drilling, and we may be able to extend it into the following year. It's the third year of a 3 year. And then we're supposed to make a decision to develop the property further with them or not. We may extend it due to COVID because there's been so many delays. The other property that we're going to be drilling for the first time is our gold silver asset, which is the one that we've been really excited to drill.

14:51 We've been preparing it for the last 3 years just to get it ready for drilling, IP on it, like geophysics sampling. So we have the targets all ready to go. We built the 15 kilometer road into the jungle, and we just got to clear that road now again and get in there. It's extremely remote, but it's kind of like our attitude is almost like the opposite of Marcy's, of our approach, which can also work in that, because this island is so remote, no 1 ever could get to it before. We're 3000 miles, I think, or miles, I think, from New Zealand, that's our closest country. So we're just on our own here. And so nobody really came here up until 100 years ago to do any exploration.

15:38 But since then, they found a gold mine that's still in production.

15:42 It has, I think, another 5 million ounces of gold in it. And since then, they've built full-on roads around, full-on infrastructure. So it's, and there's a deep, deep water port. So it's ready, and it's a very mining-friendly country because they've had 100 years now to use, they adhered to British mining law. So we have a because people have been mining in the gold mine to the north, we have a really skilled labor force that we can tap into to use on our properties. It's all it also means that for the landowners, we don't have to educate them too much on what exploration is when we do our deals, our land compensation agreements, because they're all familiar with the industry. So because of that, because of this, the fact that no one could get here up until recently, it's just rife with prospectivity, right? It's a highly mineralized island and untouched. So more or less like the opposite of Marcy's approach, both would work, both work, of course. There's definite advantages to being in Quebec for sure.

16:48 But there's, and this is harder in many respects because it's in the middle of nowhere. And our project is in the middle of the jungle in the middle of nowhere on an island. But we think that there's, We'll find out at the end of this season when we strike gold on our gold asset, because it looks like it's high grade at surface. And we think all of this effort is worth it. Time will tell. We'll know something by the end of the year.

17:15 Great. Well, looking forward to it. I mean, you touched on it, Bryce, and I was just wondering, because all 3 of you mine out of very different jurisdictions, we have Mexico, Fiji, Quebec. Can you just briefly highlight some of the benefits, also challenges of operating out of your jurisdiction and region? Starting with you, Marcy, I guess. Okay. So for me, the only hindrances that I live in Vancouver side of the country rather than Quebec. Honestly, I have no complaints there. The Quebec government is great to work with. Permitting is easy compared to, relatively speaking, compared to the rest of the provinces in Canada. We've got the infrastructure, we've got the manpower, we have pretty much everything there. The government's very supportive.

18:05 There's also a lot of flow-through opportunities and whatnot that we have that we can tap into back there. So all in all, it's a great place to be, which is why we have the majority of our projects back there. Only issues can be is weather. We always have to work with whatever Mother Nature gives us. And this year we had a little delay in our program because normally it's cold and frozen back there. And this year it was very unusually warm and wet. So we had a lot of delays due to weather that no 1 ever really foresaw because it was like the warmest weather in history back there this year. So that obviously caused us some delays and a lot of grief and COVID on top of it all. We're really having slowdown of our assays.

18:50 It's been very busy with mining back there. As I said, I've got a Cisco for our neighbors and Bonterra for our neighbors. A lot of drilling going on this past year and this spring. And because we're such a small, small pitch in the middle of all the whales, our assays kind of just get slipped in here and there and everywhere because we don't have the 80,000 meter drill programs like our neighbors do. So we've had a lot of issues just waiting and waiting and it's been busy back there, which is great, but waiting is very hard and I'm not a very patient person. So

19:25 thanks to our shareholder for being so patient because it's not easy, let me tell you. But it's a great place and we've got a lot of action back there, so I really don't have any complaints. We've got a lot of activity in just Canadian juniors in general and some of the mid to majors we're surrounded by. There's a lot of consolidations in the area that have been happening in our regions.

19:48 And there's fewer and fewer of us juniors left exploring in these areas I find. So that's less of us that are actually left looking for the discovery. So we're hoping we'll continue to hang on to all our shareholders because we know that the best lifts on the stock prices is always in the discovery stage. So when you make the most money is usually when you get a little micro cap junior like us and then you find that anything exciting and then the stock price goes up.

20:16 When you get to the mid-term, long-term, the big players, their short prices won't appreciate as much as little guys like last fall. Yeah, well, I used to live in Quebec, so I understand those winters. They are very cold generally, So it's strange that there was a warm one this year. But Brenda, how is it like in Mexico for silver? Well, again, that you know, I knew I haven't traveled to site yet. But we're we've got a very busy drill program going on currently. And with the recent acquisition, we have concessions, majority of the concessions, are key assets in the Rosario mining district. So At this moment in time, we've had no sort of troubles with the weather, although I understand we're heading into the rainy season there, so that may include some of the activities.

21:12 But at this moment in time, we're in a fairly stable and supportive jurisdiction with community support and lots of employment opportunities within the region. Great. Well, I'm excited for you to get down there in Mexico soon. And Bryce, I know You did talk a lot about Fiji and what it's like to mine there, but if you could just highlight some of the benefits and also some of the challenges that you face. Well, one of the main benefits, as I briefly mentioned, is the fact that it hasn't been picked over like many of the assets in Canada and the US because of due to easy access, right? We get virgin ground or we get ground that had actually been worked on by say Anglo. There's a few major companies that came in in the late 70s and then really no 1 came in for a while.

22:00 So from that perspective, the fact that we're here, I think that our plan is, anyway, to be like the major exploration company in Fiji and to be known as, you know, for Thunderstruck to be known and synonymous with exploration in Fiji. We're going to stay Fiji-focused, And we have really good relationships with everyone. So we're not gonna go outside of the country to do any other projects elsewhere. But it's highly mineralized, highly mineralized. So it's like almost everywhere we turn, you see, It's hard to say no to picking up new properties, but we don't want to spread ourselves too thin yet at this stage. So we want to still focus on the 4 that we have. I think that the plan looks like that we will start picking up more properties and then maybe joint venture them to other companies if it becomes too much for us, because there's just so much here. And as I mentioned, the infrastructure is all in place now, finally, with a mining-friendly government, which is key, key. The other good thing is there's no real crime or danger here. Like say, if you were mining in Africa or exploring in Africa, there's nothing silly like kidnappings or guns. There's no guns on the island.

23:13 Also, this is not an issue really for Canada and not too much for Mexico, but say it's certainly Africa and other places, Australia, there's no dangerous animals or snakes, no poisonous snakes or spiders. So I'd never feel like our crew is not safe or in any kind of danger whatsoever when we send them out to no cell phone coverage for weeks at a time where the satellite phone doesn't even work half the time. So but we know we're never really too concerned about any dangers all we have is that wild pigs and that's it. Yeah, wild pigs and mongoose. Mongoose and wild pigs those 2 things. So that would be the advantage. Some of the downsides of course is getting equipment in if you need it, right?

24:00 1 upside, another upside is that because of COVID, there is no COVID here. So all of the crew can work very freely. Everyone in our office, there's no measures that we had to put in place except for this week. Okay, but that'll be over next week. And no restrictions to movement and to work. So that's a huge bonus, but getting equipment in and out and getting people in and out, especially during COVID, that's a real pain in the neck, I gotta tell you. We're bringing in a geologist from Gibraltar of all places. I didn't know anyone lived in Gibraltar. It turns out 30,000 people live on that little rock between Morocco and Spain. But he did his master's thesis here with us on our gold asset. His name's Oliver Victor. And so he did his master's a couple of years ago, and now I'm bringing him in full time. He had to make a decision.

24:50 He's really excited. He's a young guy, just graduated. He had to make a decision to actually move here. So I got him a work permit. So he'll be here probably a year. If he can leave for vacation, fine. But he's committed to come in probably in May, mid-May, quarantine for 2 weeks. And then he will be 100% focused on Liwa, our gold asset, gold, silver asset, where he did his master's thesis. So he'll be doing all the mapping, you know, just overseeing the entire project, including, you know, there'll be a drill program going on as well. So that's exciting. So getting people in is a little bit of a pain. That's a downside. Also, like Marcy's saying, weather, what do you do, right? Like, we normally, you have like a cyclone. We had 3 cyclones this winter. All the locals said, you came at a very unusual time it's never usually this bad right but my 12 year old daughter is I brought brought her obviously can't leave her in Canada so she's at the International School I think she went to school maybe 50% of the time over December to now.

25:54 She's out of school again. They just got back from a break and they just gave him another 3 weeks off because of this COVID thing and then also the weather with the cyclones. So that's a downside. The weather is kind of an issue. Apparently, there was 0 weather issues starting now until maybe October, November. So that's what I'm looking forward to. We got through it. But I got to make up for it. Yes. All right, well, thank you. Well, so this is a woman in mining panel. And I would be remiss if I didn't highlight that you were all 3 women working in a predominantly male industry and with fewer than 1 in 5 mining leaders being women. I was wondering if you could highlight some of the benefits, but also maybe some of the challenges that you face working in this sector.

26:42 And I'll leave this as an open question. Do you have anything to add? I don't know. Marcy, Brenda, you think? Sometimes guys, I mean, it's so, I would say it's less than 1 in 5. Personally, when we go to conferences, I don't see one, it seems like it's more, especially the leaders of the industry, I would say is less than that. But regardless, I would think that guys want to talk to a female now and again instead of dudes non-stop, right? Like, I don't, like, if it was the other way around, if it was all women all the time, I'd love to see a guy walk in the room. It just seems to be. Well, it is interesting if you go to like PDAC or whatever, when you do go into the room and talk to people, I think you might have a little better chance of being remembered if you're a female than a guy, because there are just so many men.

27:31 But so many suits, and that's the thing, is like every guy in the suit after all they all kind of look the same but Dresses or skirts and colorful tops. Whereas guys are always kind of looking the same And then when I make meetings with governments just by email or if my assistant in the office makes meetings for me, whatever, they invariably always just say, yes, we look forward to meeting Mr. Bradley because my first name is a male name. And so that makes it extra memorable because I walk in and oh, okay, I'm so sorry about that. I get that all the time too and I have Marcy, so I don't know. I guess people just assume. You just assume. That's what makes me think there's like less than 1 in 5. Yeah. Because it may be an assumption, but it's a fact. Yeah, I was actually shocked at that number, but maybe it isn't quite 1 in 5, but that's what studies show. I would agree that there is a differential, and I don't think 1 is in the way. I would say, though, in the past 15 years, there's been a marked increase in the importance that we certainly provide mentorship.

28:36 We as women leaders provide support and mentorship to other women that are entering the field because it's not easy and there's not a lot of people sort of helping you navigate through some of the challenges that we're all faced with. So, you know, I like to offer my assistance when I can to people that are trying to jump into the mining space. And, you know, if I can give some guidance that from the experiences I've had, and it's helpful, I like to be able to do that. Right, absolutely. Yeah, and you were saying, Bryce, that you like to hire women. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, so I have 1 woman on the board other than myself, of course, And I've known her 20 years. She's a geologist, a big investor in the company as well. But our field geologist, Prinice, she's a local too. So I try to hire as many locals as possible and in a perfect world, female locals, if possible. Because this culture is not really, it's getting better, of course it is. But women are working, and there's a lot of equality in some respects.

29:42 But there's a cap and a ceiling, as usual. We all know the story, how that works globally. But I hired a girl coming here with my daughter in October with the COVID restrictions and all this stuff. I had to stop in Los Angeles for 3 days to do a COVID test that the Fiji government would accept, because they would not accept the Canadian COVID test, so very annoying. But anyway, from the flight from LA to getting here, I met a Fijian girl who is 22 years old and was over in the US for 2 years on a volleyball scholarship, doing her business degree, a business admin degree. And I hired her, not in the plane, but I told her, come to my office when you can. And then I met her about 3 or 4 times And I hired her initially now as an office admin, learning all of the accounting.

30:36 She intends to do her MBA and start it in July. And we have said as a company, or I have said, that yes, we will support that and we will pay for some of her MBA. She can do it online and also work with us because it's great to see someone who kind of almost has a mix of the Fijian laid back Fiji time, which is another downside. I forgot to mention on the downside conversation, the Fiji time kind of, you know, taking things really slowly concept with mixing it, mixing Fiji culture with a kind of a Western deadline based business ethic. And she kind of has both of those. So I'm so excited. And she's been great. She's been here since November. I love her, just absolutely love her. Yeah, that's why we'll support her MBA as well. Oh, wow. I mean, it's amazing that you can hire local as well.

31:28 Her dad was so shocked that she comes off the plane and gets a job, right? She's in less than 10% employment in Fiji. He said, how did you, but how? You mean you just met the CEO at the airport? And she says she wants to interview me. He goes, it doesn't work like that in life and it doesn't usually. It certainly didn't work like that for me. Nobody saw that for me. Right. Well, hopefully in a post-COVID world, when you can meet people more organically through traveling and going outside at least, and not only over Zoom or over the internet, you'll be able to kind of build those connections more. But that's an amazing story. I want to get a little bit more insight into each of your companies and just what do you believe sets your projects or projects apart from other junior explorers as an investment opportunity for the investors listening today?

32:24 And Marcy, if you're happy to start. So yeah, I think Durango is a pretty special company, not just because I'm the CEO, but I'm also an avid shareholder. I think I'm probably the largest shareholder that I know of still. All of our directors and our technical committee are very, they're all good shareholders. Our technical committee, every person on it is a shareholder. And our technical chair is a surreal discovery maker. He's got a lot of discoveries under his belt. The closest 1 is next door to us, just to the north, Bonterra, the Gladiator Discovery. Dale made that discovery. So I think he's pretty good at the helm, guiding us along.

33:12 We're a very low entry point for bond shares in the market compared to any of our peers. We've got a lot of catalysts that are coming up with the drill results, drill results, drill results. We've got lots of exploration coming up with some more drilling. We've got some pretty exciting projects and All of them are surrounded by mid to majors. As I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of consolidation happening in the areas. One of our members in our discovery property, the whole company was just an agreement to purchase the entire company was just new at the end of March this year. So I think things are going to be pretty exciting for Durango this year for sure. As we are an all woman board, we're trying to break the mold and get those numbers up for you guys.

34:00 We're actively looking for a discovery. Like I said, I'm a big shareholder. My friends and family are all very big shareholders. I don't have any room for failure on this deal. So I'm gonna make it from hell or high water and I'm just gonna keep going until I find it. So yeah, I think we've got a lot of exciting things that are going to be coming up for Durango. So definitely keep an eye on us. And if you want to come along with us on our journey to find a discovery, I'd say pick up a few shares in the market. Great, absolutely. Well, thank you. And Brenda, what sets GR Silver apart as a junior explorer, as an investment opportunity? So we hold a number of advanced silver and gold projects, including 2 past producing mines and a current 43-101 silver resource at this NRCL silver project.

34:49 We're expanding our mineral resources while concurrently working to de-risk our exploration assets while already announced high-grade silver and gold discoveries. This year, we're implementing a very aggressive drill program with together we're going to release 2 main resource estimates in our planalsis project that we anticipate increasing our overall resources and we expect that to happen prior to the end of the second quarter. With the recent acquisition we control 3 contiguous projects filling about 75 kilometers of regional structures and hosting 24 under explored gold, silver, quartz stains and historic workings. And we expect that to support additional discoveries as we move forward. 2 of these projects are past produced and are fully funded for development and operation and thereby de-risking the investment.

35:41 Our recent $11 million bought deal financing ensures a strong cash position that we can, and that combined with our supportive shareholder base, which includes 1st Majestic Silver IV and an experienced leadership team in 4, we feel very strongly that JR Silver's story is 1 to watch as we move into the rest of 2021 and into 2022. Great, absolutely. Well, thank you. And Bryce, what sets Thunder Shark apart? Well, I mean, the jurisdiction, of course, obviously, where we are. It's a highly underexplored island. We have first pickings, you know, it's like low hanging fruit really, because there's not that many explorers in the country, although they are coming now. We have, There's 3, we are, yeah, I think there's another 2 and there might be 0.333 1 coming from Canada that are listing on the exchange.

36:39 So the word is getting out, however, we have very strong relationships here. So I think that we'll still be able to pick up the assets that we want beyond what we already have. We have 2 drill programs that will be happening this year. As I mentioned, the first one's called Coracayu, high-grade zinc and copper. It had already been drilled by Anglo, so we knew that. We had the historical data, 7% zinc, like 2%, 3% copper. And so we went back to twin the holes and we got actually higher zinc and higher copper than Anglo did, which was very odd because Anglo is a big company. You'd think it would have been similar or the same. So but anyway, it was a happy problem to have. Then we drilled last year. It was a bit choppy because of COVID. We couldn't get guys in in the time we wanted to and the geophysics came after the drilling. And anyway, so that was a bit of a mess. We're going back in again this year doing our third year drilling.

37:30 And it's fully financed by our Japanese partners. So that's good. We're finalizing the budget for that right now, this week and next week. So hopefully we'll put a press release out with the budget and the timeline and the details of the DROP program. The gold asset is the one that everyone's excited for. And I keep feeling like, because it's just been so difficult to get it set up that it's gotta happen, it's gonna happen. The other good thing, what sets us apart I guess, is the fact that I'm here, you know, whereas before I used to have to fly around and do conferences, wear myself thin pretty much, and come here for 2, 3 weeks, check out everything's OK, then take off again, time zone problems, et cetera. But because of COVID, this is an actual advantage for COVID, definitely for us. I had to make a decision. I made, I think, a good decision to come here and I'm here.

38:20 I work, you know, I'm working 6 days a week. They take Sundays off. Saturday, it's Saturday here, Friday for you guys, but, you know, work 6 days a week. The office is highly, is very motivated. We have a team, a really strong team kind of group effort. That is also a benefit, I think, of female leadership. Forgot to mention that part back in the... You know, we did more of a team-based approach instead of just ordering around, you know, do you do this, you do that. So I think that we have a solid, solid team in place. The fact that I'm here and I can try to fix problems as they happen. Government, government has an issue, da-da-da, I'm boom, I'm there. And so I think that's it, That sets us apart. Our market cap is ridiculously low. I mean, I think that our market cap is like 7, 8 million bucks. And I believe, you know, just the Japanese partnership alone is 0.5 that of what they're going to be spending. They may even extend their joint venture another year and put some more cash into it. We're waiting to see if he feels on that one. But I think our market cap is really low, but that's similar to a lot of the companies these days. So maybe that doesn't set us apart so much.

39:29 But it's given that we'll have assays coming through on gold, silver and then zinc, copper from, you know, say July to the end of the year, it could be a good entry point. I think we're like 7 cents. It's bad for the company, but it's good for the investors, Bryce. Yeah, You got to look at it that way. Don't be bitter. We're underappreciated. Yeah, there are some questions here from the attendees. And if anyone has another question, please submit them now. But Bryce, you answered the question, is the NERSTRAC drill program fully funded? And you said it is. No, no, it's not. That's actually no, it's only 0.5 true. Because we have 4 properties. And 1 property is a zinc copper property called Kora Kayu that is in a joint venture with the Japanese called Jobmech.

40:21 And they are fully funding that 10I see. Mold asset, that's 100% ours. I don't wanna give that one away. I wouldn't know what kind of value to put on it. At this point, I would just shoot myself if I did a deal for X amount of dollars to give away 70% of the asset and then we hit huge gold grades. And so I want to keep it ours and finance it ourself until we get a better handle and maybe forever, just keep it ourselves 100%. So that one has to be funded. And then we will be doing a financing probably, well, definitely in May. I'm not sure for how much that we need extra on that one. We, cause we have a few, we're okay. But for the drill program, I don't have the program solidified yet. We're going to do it in May, but there will be financing on that.

41:06 The other 2 were joint venturing. So we're looking for partners on that one. I see. Okay. So the one is fully funded. Does Thunderstruck own all of the projects? 100 percent, I guess. So they own 3, we own 3 of the 4,100 percent. Okay. And then the fourth one with the Japanese, We are in a joint venture where we will own 30% and they will own 70% and I admit that it wasn't the best deal as far as dollars. I gave away 70% of the asset for 3.5 million Canadian, which is really not a lot. But my attitude at the time was no one knows where Fiji is and who we are. And so if the Japanese government spends a full year of due diligence, which they did, and it was painful because they're Japanese, they definitely did a lot of due diligence on the country, on the government, on the safety, on us as management.

41:59 And At the end of that, they allowed us to be the operator, which gave a huge nod for any joint venture that we try and do in the future on our other properties. It just gives a huge nod and it makes it that much easier for other companies to do due diligence because they already know the Japanese did all the due diligence that is ever necessary on the government and the country, they really would just have to focus, and on us, they would really just have to focus on doing due diligence on their asset that they want, the mineralogy of their particular asset, but wouldn't have to go too hardcore on all the rest. So that's why I gave 70% away on that asset, pretty much just to make life easier for us going forward with joint ventures. And we would be doing, of course, more stringent terms going forward. The gold 1, we allow 3 100%, just that one with the Japanese.

42:50 And we're going to keep the gold 1 100%. But I'm looking to joint venture the other 2, which is a copper porphyry, copper gold porphyry, called Rama. Then another VMS zinc, zinc, copper, gold, silver, volcanic massive sulfide called Nekoro. We want to joint venture those 2 ones. And I'm in the process of doing it right now with Rama. Great. So that's about it. All right. Lots on the go. Marcy or Brenda, do you want to speak to whether you are funded or what is the cash position? Yeah, our inaugural program that we're doing right now that we've just finished up is all totally funded. We'll have some cash left over to get things going on our other projects. We're probably doing some raising dependent on what the first round of assay results come back.

43:40 We don't know how much we'll need because we don't know how much more drilling we're going to do in the depths and all that sort of stuff. The assays will help us make those sort of decisions. Yeah, so but all of our projects we own 100%. Great. And Brenda, does GR Silver own 100% of the projects? And are you fully funded? We're just closing our financing. We anticipate that to happen this weekend. We do want to 100%. Oh, wow. OK. This week? Very soon. All right. Well, so We have one question here from Bradley, which I think is quite an interesting one. He's asking, why is there such a funk presently in the junior mining space? Does gold need to break out? Is it seasonal or is the competition for speculative investment dollars?

44:32 This is a thing for crypto and green tech, Or is the trading volume seem to be way down? What will it take for investors to come back to the junior mining space? Which I think, Yeah, well, everything is it's a mix of everything, right? Like, there's people that have like, run away from gold to go to crypto and Bitcoin and cannabis, like there's so many other options out there. But I think with the trillions of dollars that have been papered out this last year and that are going to continue to be papered out, I think there's only one way for gold to go and it's this way. So you just have to be patient. Juniors are always the last ones to respond to any sort of movement, even in the gold prices and stuff. We're kind of the laggers.

45:23 That's the way it goes, but you just got to be patient. Mining requires... I don't know. I've long, I've stopped like probably 10 years old even trying to figure out the market, you know Sometimes the markets will be on fire and our stock will be gone or will be on fire when we haven't even put anything out Like there's not even any real press releases and then we'll put out great news and it goes down and you're like, well, okay, I just give up. So all I want to do on our end with Thunderstruck is just put our heads down, hopefully get a resource going, sell the resource to a large mining company for production. I mean, that's all we're trying to do is find a mine. And we know that the stock will catch up at some point. At some point, it has to, I mean, it has to. It has to, Matt, it gets, you have to get valuation at some point, right?

46:15 It's kind of all over the map. We're in a very strange industry. I don't know why, why are we here anyway, Marcy, Brenda? What are we doing in this industry? Trying to find a gold mine. Who doesn't want to find a gold mine. I mean, ever since you were a child, you want to find a gold mine. I think it's that simple. 3,000 junior mining companies listed globally right now. Yeah, and that's part of the problem, too, is just getting your stories out, like having 6 is great, Dasha. I just want to say thanks again for having this because it's really hard nowadays with social media and just media generally. There's so much, it's such an instant thing. People need to hear about us. And really, if you're either going to go crazy and spend all your budget on advertising or you're going to spend it on putting it in the ground on trying to find a deposit in the mine, you know what I mean?

47:13 You kind of have to do a little bit of a happy medium. But I totally think that there's, like I said, gold and silver. Just wait till the end of the year. We should have another follow-up chat to see. I think we're going to be in a lot of fun place, all of us. Great. Yeah, thank you. And so that's why we host these panels, obviously, to get the message out there and so that you're visible to investors so you can spend your time and money where you need to, which is obviously the mining. Brenda? Yeah, I like the fact that we can do this virtually. I like the fact that we can, it's very efficient to be, sorry, I've been hitting on bits. Oh my goodness. I almost cry. I rescued him from the pound because there's so many animals here and I've never had a cat ever in my entire life. But at some point you're like, I can't watch these things die on the streets anymore. Okay, anyway, I mean, it's great that we can have virtual conferences like this, because for all of us, like all 3 of us, we really save a lot in, of course, our time, which is valuable in flying all over the place and the expense of the hotels and the booths and the time zones and whatnot. And we can still be really close to our projects. And I find that it's been the COVID situation has made, has created a lot of efficiencies, including what you're doing right here, Dasha. It's got to try to look at the upside because if you don't, it's COVID. But this is 1 good thing about it. It came out fast. Absolutely.

48:41 Brenda, we have time for one more question. And the Last question here is for you. So GR Silver, when will there be an updated resource? Tim is asking. We anticipate the resource to be released within the second quarter. We're expecting that the resource will be released in the second quarter. I can't give you a specific date, but we're certainly working towards a Q2 release on 2 resources in the Pomoxas area. Great, thank you. And Sharon is actually asking another question for you, Brenda. Is there a drill program planned in the near term?

49:30 These are the proceeds that obviously we're going to continue to expand the resource with a continued drill program. We're just finishing up the budget now for all the different exploration activities that we're going to be doing. We have a new BP exploration that joined the firm a month before I did, Hansa Kachbol, and he's working on making plans for what's gonna happen in Mexico over the next, the remainder of this year and certainly into next year as well. Great, Well, thank you. Well, I really want to thank all of you for joining me today. And this panel has been a great experience. I've learned a lot. And like you said, hopefully we can do more of these to get your story out there. And just to continue, share your story and continue to learn and get the news out to their investors.

50:19 So thank you so much, Marcy, Brenda and Bryce for joining and joining me today and having this great panel, but also to all the people who attended and submitted questions. If you didn't get a chance to get your question asked, we will be emailing out a short survey and you'll be able to leave your contact details and we can put you in touch with any of these companies and as well as obviously this summit is being recorded and we'll post it on six.com so you can rewatch it at your own time. So thanks again, everyone, and have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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Speaker profile Bryce Bradley

Bryce Bradley

President & CEO, Co-Founding Director at Thunderstruck Resources

With a strong background in Capital Markets and Investment Banking, Ms. Bradley has facilitated the structuring and financing of dozens of private and publicly traded small and micro-cap companies. She founded and served as President of Generic Capital, and Saltus Mercantile Corp. (now Robson Capital Partners), two merchant banks focused on capital raising and advisory services for mining exploration companies. She received an Honours B.Sc. degree from the University of Toronto in 1996 and completed the Canadian Securities Course and Partners, Directors and Senior Officers Course. She supports multiple local and international charities as an active member of the Rotary Club.

Speaker profile Marcy Kiesman

Marcy Kiesman

Chief Executive Officer and President at Durango Resources Inc.

Mrs. Marcy Kiesman has been the Chief Executive Officer and President of Durango Resources Inc. since April 2010. Mrs. Kiesman provides Durango Resources a significant competitive advantage combining accounting, finance, information management and strategic planning skills necessary to drive business performance in the changing global economy.

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