Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Revival Gold (TSX-V: RVG) CEO Hugh Agro on the Favorable Mining Sentiment in Idaho & Following Up the Hugely Successful 2019 Drill Program at Beartrack-Arnett

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of Revival Gold (TSX-V: RVG)(OTC: RVLGF), Mr. Hugh Agro. Hugh, how are you this morning?

Hugh Agro: Good to be with you, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you for taking the time. I want to get into everything that was accomplished with the drill program in 2019 that just came to its conclusion. There's also a lot of work to follow that up, including met work and a resource update in early 2020.

But before that, I know you're in Idaho as we speak and I'd love to get some feedback – it's been I think over a year since I've been down there – I'd love to get some feedback on who you're meeting with, who's around, what the environment's like and how receptive or not receptive people have been to mining and exploration down there.

Hugh Agro: It's a wonderful place to be. I'm in Boise with the Idaho Mining Association and the annual conference that is taking place here in Boise today. There's about 350, 400 participants and the buzz is palpable. A lot of success over the last couple years in exploration and mining in the state of Idaho and a lot of attention being drawn to the state. Lots of participation from industry, suppliers, from companies, from government officials. The crowd is youthful.

As I say, the enthusiasm and the energy is palpable and it's a great place to be today. It's wonderful blue skies and a lovely fall day in Boise. All good on all counts.

Gerardo Del Real: With $1,500 gold right around the corner – I look around the world and every day I can't stress enough how important it is working and exploring and developing a project in a supportive jurisdiction. You can take Ecuador, you can take parts of Peru, parts of Mexico, you can look around the world and it's increasingly becoming more and more critical that you have not just good teams and good projects, but that you're in a good supportive jurisdiction. I'm glad to hear that is still the case in Idaho. You know it's one of my favorite mining jurisdictions. I can't say enough about it.

I also can't say enough about what you accomplished in 2019. The drill program just came to its conclusion. I would love for you to provide a summary of the latest results because 5 of the 6 holes hit near-surface oxide mineralization. That's going to be important because I know a lot of the drilling is going to be worked into a new resource update in early 2020.

Could you provide a brief overview of the drill program, what you feel it accomplished and, frankly, what's next?

Hugh Agro: We spent about $5 million on exploration this year in drilling. We drilled 25 core holes at Beartrack-Arnett and the objectives really fall along two thrusts. The first thrust in the medium-term is to develop an oxide resource close to surface with which we can leverage the existing infrastructure at Beartrack. That consists of an ADR plant, power, water, roads. All of the necessary starting components to fast track through to production. That's thrust one.

And thrust two is to continue to build out the scope on the much larger and longer-term project of the mill material at Beartrack. And we succeeded on both counts this year with the drill programs. We're really happy with the results. These last 6 holes that we put out conclude the summer 2019 drill program. And as you point out, success in 5 of the 6 holes and we're continuing to grow the mineralization near-surface in oxides at Arnett.

There's a lot of other things going on but just on the point of the drill program, another successful year for our crew and team all done safely and all entirely within environmental compliance and we're really happy with the way it came out.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Summer drill program, just to provide some highlights, hit gold mineralization in 23 of the 25 holes drilled. Obviously that's going to play a big part in the upcoming resource update. How is that coming along?

Hugh Agro: We're tracking very well. RPA, Rosco Postal Associates, is doing the work for us with our team. We are now through the initial wireframe modeling of an updated resource at Beartrack. We have completed the geological model for the Haidee area at Arnett and we'll turn that over to RPA to do their work. Part of their work will be a review of our QA/QC.

They've been to site, they're very happy with the work under the leadership of our VP Exploration, Steve Priesmeyer. Thus far it's all thumbs up, no red flags in terms of RPA's review. We're tracking well on plan here to get the resource completed in the first quarter of next year.

We've got a lot of work ahead of us. We've got some interpretive work to do. We've got all the the modeling work to do, but the components are coming along nicely. One of the components, as you alluded to earlier, is metallurgical test data. On that front we're now about three-quarters of the way through the mill material test work. I don't want to go into the details, but we're feeling very good about the way this is going and we'll have the results out before the end of the year and then that will dovetail with our resource update.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Hugh, I'm going to let you get back to it. Thank you very much for the update. I'm looking forward to having you back on soon as we get the results from the met work.

Those are critical to me because you mentioned thephase one approach, of course, is that near-surface oxide material that does leverage the existing infrastructure, which is substantial. But of course the long game and then transitioning into a phase two, the way that I understand it, is being able to recover economically on the sulfides. Would you categorize that as an accurate description of kind of the phase two approach?

Hugh Agro: You're quite right, Gerardo. And herein lies the opportunity for us because we are now are in this system and we have now a pretty good idea of how big it is. And it's very big. So now the question becomes can we efficiently get it processed and build a viable plan for exploration. A big part of that will hinge on the metallurgy.

We were feeling very confident about the scale of the system. We're feeling very confident about the direction on the metallurgy. Beyond that, the key questions that we often get asked are around permitting. And as we started out this conversation, the environment in Idaho is very supportive for responsible mining.

If you look at what's happening elsewhere in the world, those big companies that are producing gold in foreign jurisdictions will most certainly be bringing their attention back to the United States. We've got a knowledgeable and educated population. We've got a good pedigree in mining, particularly in states like Idaho. And we've got geopolitical safety and security.

This is a place that's going to be the future for mining in the world. Idaho's proven itself to be very perspective from a geological point of view. We're knocking off all the steps that are required to turn Beartrack-Arnett into one of the big projects for this state. And it's all going according to plan.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent to hear. I know that share prices for even the better juniors like Revival Gold don't know it yet, but we are in a new gold bull market. The fundamentals, the technicals all point to that. There's going to be, in my opinion, Hugh, a rapid revaluation for the better companies with the better assets in good jurisdictions and excellent management teams.

Revival Gold checks every single one of those boxes. I'm looking forward to 2020 because at these price levels, it's a pretty compelling speculation. I'll leave it there. Hugh, thank you very much for your time today.

Hugh Agro: Thanks, Gerardo

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