Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Millrock Resources (TSX-V: MRO) Sells Stellar Copper-Gold Interest, Is Advancing Several Other Projects in Alaska and Mexico

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real  with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is President and CEO of Millrock Resources (TSX-V: MRO)(OTC: MLRKF), Mr. Greg Beischer. Greg, thank you for joining me this afternoon.

Greg Beischer: My pleasure, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: It's been a bit since we spoke. You had some good news this morning that I wanted to share. I wanted you, hopefully, to give us the details. The headline reads, "Millrock Sells the Stellar Copper Gold Project for an Equity Stake in a New Alaska Exploration and Development Company - Polaris Minerals". Can you give us the details?

Greg Beischer: Sure. We're pretty excited about this. We acquired these claims almost five years ago now. We worked on them ourselves for a while. Then, out of the blue, two years ago, in 2015, rather timely in a down market, a private company called Vista Minerals came along and took an option on the claims. They've worked away at a slow rate, but advanced the project.

They approached us, maybe six months ago, and asked if we would renegotiate whereby they could earn 100% by paying us in stock for the project. Turned out, there was another listed Australian company right next door that owned a copper deposit, Caribou Dome. They'd been working away, expanding that resource, and proving that it's really quite a high grade copper deposit.

We all ended getting together. Millrock has sold its interest in its Stellar Copper Gold Project. The upshot is that we'll own just under 10% of the outcoming company, which is Polaris Minerals. And, of course, we'll have a royalty, which we always shoot for. Additionally, some advanced minimum royalty payments and some milestone payments.

This group, the Coventry Group, seems to be well connected, financially, in London. They're about to raise $10 million, a good part of which will be expended this year on our Stellar claims to verify the high grade copper gold historic resource that we think exists there.

Millrock will operate this exploration. We charge a management fee, based on a percentage of explorational expenditures. That puts a little bit of cash back in our till and keeps our team of geologists moving, which is all good for Millrock.

Those revenues really help us set our overhead. We like to keep that burn rate as low as possible and this really helps.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. You mentioned the exploration program. That's important, because we're going to see action on this target and this property immediately. That's scheduled for the summer this year. Is that correct?

Greg Beischer: That's correct. It's honestly getting pretty late in the game. Alaska's field season's already underway and we're probably some weeks before knowing for sure that Coventry's done its job and raised the financing. We're going to have a very jam packed field season, if indeed this all comes together.

We're laying the plans. We're getting ready, as we can. If it all goes ahead, we'll be very aggressively redrilling the Zackly high grade copper gold deposit, where there's a historic resource of at least 200,000 ounces of gold and a deposit that grades 2.6% copper.

Some of the work that Vista did, over the last year and a half, has shown there's really great potential to extend that known deposit along strike in both directions. Likely, we'll have one drill confirming the historic resource and another drill scouting for extensions to the deposit.

There's a decent chance that we could significantly expand this deposit. It would become compliant with the Australian JORC Code. If it's big enough, of course, then Millrock gets a milestone payment as a result.

It will be an action packed summer with drill results coming in September, October.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, excellent. Now keeping with the Alaska theme, I believe the last time we spoke, in March, we talked about the Joint Venture Agreement with an affiliate of Kinross. I think that was the Liberty Bell Project. Any news or updates there, Greg?

Greg Beischer: You bet, yep. In fact, we've got people in the field today doing a quick stream sediment sampling program. The main work will start a few weeks from now, where we'll have a team all over the property. Everything looks good. The plans are in place.

As I mentioned, this year will be a year of getting ready to drill next year. We'll be doing the geochemical geological surveys we need to pick the best possible drill targets.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Now, sticking with that theme, about picking the best geological drill targets, I know we had spoken about the Los Cuarentas property in Sonora, Mexico. Any updates there? I understand there's some field work going on, and some refining of targets, in anticipation of a future drill program. Is that still ongoing?

Greg Beischer: Yeah, that's right. I've been saying all along, over our last interviews, that Los Cuarentas will be the next one out of the chute for drilling, but we've stepped back and decided to do some trenching in a number of different areas prior to that drilling. We really want to maximize the chances of drill hole discovery success. We don't want to rush things.

We're always anxious to drill and make news for our shareholders, make that big discovery, but thankfully, for our business model, we're able to take a slower, systematic approach that maximizes the chances of success.

Watch for it soon. We'll definitely be drilling it, but it's more likely now to be in the early Fall.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. I imagine between now and then, we can expect trench results and updates on the exploration program. Is that correct?

Greg Beischer: That's right, yep. On top of that, a number of different deals cooking. Picking up more ground in Sonora, in our alliance with Centerra Gold. Watch for news about our British Columbia projects.

Gerardo Del Real: Wonderful. Well, Greg, as that news materializes, hopefully I can have you back on. I want to thank you very much for your time today and for the update. Again, looking forward to a busy summer. You have a lot going on.

Greg Beischer: We sure do. Thanks a lot, Gerardo. Talk to you soon.

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