Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Midas Gold (TSX: MAX) Hits High-Grade Gold at Its Stibnite Gold Project in Idaho: Interview with CEO Stephen Quin

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is President and CEO of Midas Gold (TSX: MAX)(OTC: MDRPF), Mr. Stephen Quin. Stephen, thank you for joining me today.

Stephen Quin: Thank you Gerardo for inviting me.

Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. We've been looking forward to you to coming back on. We received the first couple of assays from the first two holes, or for the first three holes I should say, at the Stibnite Gold Project there in Idaho. I've been excited for these numbers and that excitement I think was validated. The headline reads, "Midas Gold Reports High Grades at Its Stibnite Gold Project in Idaho." Just to go over briefly those numbers, the one hole hit 35.2 meters at 3.1 grams per tonne gold. Another hole hit 22.9 meters at 4.7 grams per tonne gold. I just wanted to have you on and hopefully you can provide some insight as to the numbers. It sounds like they beat even your expectations?

Stephen Quin: They were significantly better than our expectations for the area, like two to three times better grades than we were anticipating based on our pre-feasibility study model. Part of the reason we drilled there is we did feel there was some upside in that area, which is why we were drilling it. We're obviously very pleased with those results.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. I understand that the two holes, the significant ones, were at the north end of the Yellow Pine deposit. Is that correct?

Stephen Quin: That's correct. Essentially the program that we're doing, and this is the first results from that program that's still ongoing and will continue into 2017, is that there are areas of inferred resources that were used in our preliminary economic assessment in 2012, but pre-feasibility study we did in 2014 you're prohibited from using inferred resources. So you have these areas where you have tonnes and grade but you're not allowed to use them and that's bad enough, but it's actually worse than that because they fall inside the reserve pits. You have to treat them as waste, so they actually have a negative value because you now have to mine them and throw them away according to the model that's in the pre-feasibility study.

There's obviously some pretty low hanging fruit there to go off to those areas and obviously step one is to convert them inferred to indicated and that gives you a double benefit. You now take something that's a negative and take it away, it's no longer waste, it's ore. You also see the revenue gain on top of that for having material that is positively economic. That's obviously just a win by itself. Obviously when you see on top of that grades that are much higher than you're anticipated it becomes even more of a win. That's definitely what we've seen in this area with these drill results at the north end of yellow pine.

This whole program is very targeted, focused on that type of opportunity where we can see in a double or triple wins coming out by getting rid of waste, making it ore, making that ore into profitable material and having better grade than we anticipated for that area. You just see the win multiplying itself through the drill program.

We obviously were very positively pleased by these results and looking forward to seeing more of these come over the next few days and weeks.

Gerardo Del Real: Another part of the news release that I thought was significant is the two holes are about 100 meters northeast of the higher grade trend. Is that right?

Stephen Quin: They basically pushed it out about 100 meters, the higher grade trend that we had previously defined that was part of the pre-feasibility study. This just extended that higher grade for about 100 meters further than it was originally anticipated, so it's just more positive.

Gerardo Del Real: The additional drill results that we're anticipating I'm assuming are going to be in the central and southern portions of the yellow pine deposit? Is that accurate?

Stephen Quin: That's correct. There's two holes completed in the very center, the guts of the Yellow Pine deposit, already finished there. There were two holes at the south end of the Yellow Pine deposit where, again, we had inferred material that needs converting. Those results are pending. We're already started on the next batch of holes beyond that. We'll see a series of results come out between now and the end of the year, and then we aim to be back rolling again in January and continue for a couple of months and see some additional results come out next year.

Gerardo Del Real: We're definitely looking forward to it Stephen. I want to thank you so much for coming on. Is there anything you'd like to add?

Stephen Quin: I've got a question why to gold price is down and why are share prices down, and we got great results. That's the vagaries of the markets. I think these are very results and I think we'll continue to deliver good results and that should be a very good value for the company. That creates an opportunity for people to invest.

Gerardo Del Real: I suspect that if you keep delivering these type of numbers the market will wake up to it and everybody should be rewarded handsomely.

Stephen Quin: Thank you very much Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Stephen, thank you for your time.