Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Rockridge Resources (TSX-V: ROCK) CEO Grant Ewing on Acquiring Additional Claims that Doubles the Size of the Raney Gold Project in Ontario

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Rockridge Resources (TSX-V: ROCK)(OTC: RRRLF), Mr. Grant Ewing. Grant, how are you this morning?

Grant Ewing: I'm doing very fine. Thank you.

Gerardo Del Real: We are all eagerly anticipating the final assays from the last 3 holes of this first drill program to follow up, of course, on your 6 meters of 28 grams per tonne gold that you announced on April 29th. 

I know that's upcoming, but in the meantime it looks like you were impressed enough with what you saw to double the size effectively of the landholding at your Raney Gold Project. With gold at $1,700 and a clear gold bull market, it seems like a timely staking of the land. Can we talk about that?

Grant Ewing: Yeah, certainly. So we've expanded our landholding at the Raney Project. This was based on encouraging results that we've obtained from the first set of drilling, as well as we've got a far better now understanding of the geology of the district and how the gold occurs. So we've doubled our landholding effectively. We're controlling now about 28 square kilometers. 

Most of the land we picked up was to the north contiguous to our current claim group, as well as to the west on strike with what we've identified is a very perspective structural corridor that extends beyond the old claim boundary. Now on our western side, we butt up right against Newmont Gold and they have the Borden mine of course, about 35 kilometers to the west.

Gerardo Del Real: Now I referenced that 6 meters of 28 grams per tonne gold, and I know that was approximately 75 meters west of the historical drill hole that had returned 6.5 grams per tonne gold over 8 meters. You just mentioned the company to the west of you obviously and the corridor that extends that way. Is that starting to look like that's where the high-grade zone is leaning towards? Is that the current thinking?

Grant Ewing: Yeah. At this point, we're still developing an understanding of how the gold occurs. We know that where we see increased quartz veining, we have a better chance of higher grade gold. So to date, we've just drilled off an area that is about 250 meters long, and that's our drilling plus all of the historic drilling on this project. So just a very small area has been drilled. Most of that has just been near surface testing of the gold potential. 

Now based on our current program plus a lot of compilation and assessment of historic data, we think that this corridor that hosts the gold where we've drilled to date extends a considerable distance to the west. If you go about 2 kilometers on trend with our drilling the west, there's an area that in the past has been looked at and there's some surface mapping done in that area. There was pyrite and quartz carbonate veining identified. This lines up nicely with where we've done our drilling to the southeast. So we think we have a very extensive structural corridor to assess for its gold potential over the coming months on this project.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Now you mentioned that we have 3 holes pending, obviously. Timeline-wise, when would you expect to see those? Weeks, maybe a month?

Grant Ewing: Yeah, I would say within the coming days, we should have those back. Really what we're doing now is planning for the next step of exploration here. We know that this project has just been lightly tested and it has excellent potential for new discovery. So we're now planning the next field program, which could occur as early as this summer. Then that would lead into the next drill program to assess the structural corridor thoroughly.

Gerardo Del Real: You drilled 9 diamond drill holes that was approximately 2,070 meters. What did that program cost? Because if I recall correctly, it was relatively inexpensive given the results that you got and just the geological insights that you've been able to gather from the program.

Grant Ewing: Yeah, that's right. So we did a very cost-effective drilling program here. All-in costs were about $160 Canadian per meter. So that stacks up very nicely. I think that the big advantage of this project is you can drive to it. It's about two hours southwest of Timmins. So you drive about half of that distance on a paved road and then onto a secondary road for the last half. So great access, great infrastructure in the region and that leads to some very cost effective drill programs.

Gerardo Del Real: You have a neighbor nearby, GFG, which just attracted Alamos Gold as a strategic investor. They've had some recent drill success. How far away is that property from you?

Grant Ewing: Yeah, so they've got a couple of projects in the district. Their main project that they announced results on recently is just to the northeast of us. So this is an area in the Abitibi greenstone belt or the Swayze greenstone belt we call it. It's a subprovince of the Abitibi that has excellent geologic potential. Several companies are working in this area, including some majors, as well as other juniors like GFG.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, you have GFG and then you have the big boys, right? You have IAMGOLD, you have Newmont, flanking you on each side. You have Timmins way up north to the northeast there. Definitely in the right address. 

I'm excited for the summer program. I'm looking forward, Grant, to having you back on as soon as you get assays from the pending 3 holes. Anything else that you'd like to add?

Grant Ewing: Excellent, Gerardo, thanks for the call today. I think we're pretty excited to get going on the next program here this summer mapping, sampling and lining up targets for drilling, will be a good time for this company as we're really in virgin territory. This has been only weakly looked at in the past, this area, and we think there's great potential for new discovery here.

Gerardo Del Real: It's a good time to find gold. I expect the second half of the year to also be a good time to find more copper. I know that you still have obviously the Knife Lake deposit, which is a deposit that I'm excited about and that I believe will create a lot of value for shareholders. I couldn't help but notice that that Barrick recently announced it was looking for copper and copper-gold projects. So a lot of upside giving the current market cap.

Grant Ewing: Yeah. And we're real happy to have a strong gold project as well, as you mentioned, a strong copper project. The Knife Lake project has a considerable copper resource identified and excellent potential for new discovery. So that will be lined up for further work in the future. Both projects provide, I think, shareholders of Rockridge with some great potential for shareholder value creation.

Gerardo Del Real: It's a good one-two punch. Thank you so much, Grant.

Grant Ewing: Okay. Thank you.