Brien Lundin sits down with CEO Tara Christie to bring everyone up to speed on the dynamic story of Banyan Gold Corp. (TSXV:BYN). The recent results indicate that the company is continuing to de-risk and grow the resource beyond 6.2 million ounces.
Guest: Tara Christie, President & CEO
Company: Banyan Gold Corp. (TSXV:BYN)
For more information please visit: www.banyangold.com
Recording Date: January 15th, 2024
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Hello everyone I’m Brian London and I’m here with the golden newsletter YouTube Channel Please Subscribe at the button below and we feature on this channel interviews with some of the more Dynamic Junior mining companies out there in today’s market so with that said I’m especially pleased to welcome Tara
Christie president and CEO of banan gold symbol byn on the Venture exchange and B A GF on the OTC Tara I am very familiar with your story which I I to be frank with everyone I think is a very Dynamic and exciting story um but I’d like you to or
Our job here is to bring everybody up to speed and one of the ways what I’d like to do first is kind of position where banan is in this little small Universe of Junior mining stocks you know I’ve made an argument to my readers that this downtrodden Market of the past couple of
Years has created a really rare and exciting opportunity where investors can get the same kind of potential as a Grassroots exploration Play you know the kind of company that can go up four or five times in value with the discovery but they can get that kind of potential with a more
Established company that has a project with uh very large resources in many cases and in some cases uh you know economics and drisking and all of the rest so that presents a lot less risk for the same kind of potential that you would typically get in a much riskier
Play so all of that said can you tell me what banion has to offer in this regard and you know does it fit that mold and and in what ways does it do that you know we we fit that um drisk mode quite a bit you know we’ve already got a 6.2
Million ounce INF ferred resource it’s on Surface near surface mineralization we have infrastructure already on our property you know roads power cell phone service even fiber optic cable and we’re right beside two mines and you know it’s kind of that if you build it they will come um this is the newest mining
District in Canada and we’re seeing tremendous discoveries from Snow Line you know Sitka Victoria Gold’s Raven is only four kilometers from us and that’s a really exciting high grade plus we have Victoria Golda producing heat bleach mine from this you know this Tombstone sweet mineralization that’s
Really exciting and here we are you know we just put out results this morning showing we’re continuing to grow the resource beyond that 6.2 million ounces this is a remarkably consistent deposit and you know we we believe there’s lots of room to continue to grow this deposit
As well as drisk it and we’ve been working on the drisking side you know we’ve already got the infrastructure this is a jurisdiction where you can permit we’ve got two mines that are permitted right beside us particularly in areas that already have roads and infrastructure that’s a that’s a huge
Advantage we’ve started you know our Baseline work for our environmental we’ve started some our metallurgical work uh some preliminary engineering and that’s all the stuff that you need to do as you drisk it I think you know in this gold cycle which you know we all know the majors have not replenished their
Resources and reserves and here we are sitting with a that a six million ounce resource is substantial for almost any gold company um so I think we’re in a really great position yeah it seems so and I’d like to get into some of those aspects that make it particularly attractive in a
Moment um or get further into it but let’s set the stage a bit more tell us a little bit more about uh the deposit itself as geometry grade characteristics potential for growth Etc okay so 6.2 million ounces the grade of that overall is 61 right now the resource has three deposits the airst
Strip deposit which is a calcarius replacement deposit it dips at about 60° it’s a 90 to 110 meter thick package of rock but the primary deposit which is almost 4 million ounces in the resource right now is the power line deposit and with the results we put out this morning
We can see that it’s connected with orex Hill so it’s going to make sense to start talking about that as one deposit um with it being contiguous very similar it’s a sheeted vein deposit um you know these intrusion related deposits you get these quartz bearing sheeted veins that
Have gold lots of visible gold ours are dipping roughly horizontal at about 15 degrees um so this is now you know our largest deposit with both power line and orex Hill connected and the drilling that we did also continues to expand orex Hill to the east we know there’s
Room for it to go grow particularly to the East and the South uh to the West we know the mineralization continues the overburden gets a little bit uh deeper but it’s uh it’s definitely got room to grow and airstrip we haven’t worked on airst strip since uh you know 2019 we
Know it has room for growth um we’ve just been so focused on expanding power line in orex hill so yeah these deposits there’s still room for that to get over that you know I think eight million’s a really critical number in the market five million is is important for being a
Deposit which will you know a major starts to take a look at because you know million ounce deposits are no longer you know unless are super high grade and have infrastructure are really tough for people to raise the capital for so you know this type of deposit 5
Million ounces and then do we have the potential to get to eight I believe we do so I think that makes us quite exciting we do have some higher grade within that deposit you can see it in some of our results and that’s one of our our plans for 2024 is certainly
Focusing on understanding that higher grade and how we can put it together into you know mind your high grade first is is how you really make the economics of a Project work yeah and let’s explore that a little bit you know a couple of things I I see the obvious potential
When I look at the maps for expansion because you have the three primary deposits you have some gaps uh that couldn’t be filled in uh between those but you also have lateral expansions of those deposits and not even even considering dep which we can talk about
A little bit as well uh but in a large project like this bulk tonnage you really want to try and find those sweet spots in the high grade and you know you and I have talked about this uh over the last year or so about where the highgrade sweet spots are and you’ve
Kind of assured me that we already have them and I saw that in the results released today you had uh some about one gram uh material over significant widths and as I look over the historic results you really have a lot of that in this deposit how does that geometrically fit
With the rest of the deposit where you can maybe use those as the uh the stter pits or what what you mine first as you say to try and and turbocharge your economics so you know looking at our inferred resource most of the holes are at 100 meter spacing that’s a pretty
Wide spacing so yes we’ve encountered some of these higher grade areas and we see some Trends we certainly have a northern Trend which roughly goes east west which is closer to the surface and then one kind of this to the South which is a little bit deeper but also seems to
Be real and the real truth-telling and you know Drilling your high grade will be when we start to infill drill uh in some of these areas and not only will that upgrade the resource um to indicate it which we’ll want to do um as we advance the project but it’ll also
Confirm some of those higher grades so some of the modeling work we spent a lot of time this winter because we weren’t drilling um we spent a lot of time going through our data modeling it looking at it different ways talking to different experts trying to understand how and
Where we can find that higher grade and then you know we got to get out and drill it off and that’s really we can talk about it and we can show what we know about where the higher grade and you know on the maps that we have there’s clear patterns on where we
Expect the higher grade to be uh but then you got to get out there and and test that geology uh so and that’s what and then once you get that then you can start designing your mine plan around you know mining some of the higher grade
Stuff up first you see it in the sensitivity chart first if we to use a 0.5 cut off we’d have 4.5 million ounces globally at 0.95 so um you know there’s lots of indicators saying that it’s there now we just have to get out and and show that it’s there yeah you’re
You’re stealing my thunder there tar that was my next question and when you look at that sensitivity table that’s another thing that hit me is if you uh if you take your a your cut off and raise it just to 0.5 you don’t lose that much and it’s still a worldclass deposit
And at that point it essentially becomes uh fairly highgrade open pit deposit of that size uh so that’s really impressive and I would guess that kind correct me if I’m wrong but that kind of implies that the surprises that you every project provides along the way your
Surprises are more likely to be positive surprises as you get more uh drill density around those high-grade targets that are now just kind of popping up on in the inferred resource yeah and you’re uh you know looking at that sensitivity chart that’s some of the work that we did uh over the
Winter was looking at different cut offs and then actually looking well where’s the pit then uh and so that kind of gives you an idea of the distribution of the high grade it’s one of the the techniques that we’ve used this last winter to to analyze our data so you
Know certainly as and increase our odds of having success as you’re talking about you know what is our our upside and you know do we have more upside versus downside having done that work and modeled it a few different ways to give us um where our highgrade areas are
Potentially certainly increases our odds of success and that’s one thing that I tell my team and we’ve been thinking about what could we do um what do we know what could we do to improve our odds of success and then you know do some of that work and then um you know
Ask that question again okay what now can we do to improve our odds of success so um that’s this deposit is is quite remarkable and how consistent it is and that’s uh um given us lots to work with yeah and and it seems like you mentioned
Your team and from looking at your um uh your corporate organization it seems like you do have a uh very highly qualified team and one that is built now for some of that more uh I guess investors think some of the more boring work of doing the the technical studies
The environmental baselines the uh uh the permitting uh progress the metal or iCal work etc but that’s so important when you have a project that is sitting out there like a prize for the for the majors or some group to come in and take over what they want to see is all of
That drisking or as much of that drisking being done how does that fit into your plans say this year oh it’s a critical part of it so you know bringing on Kai wallison last year as my VP project development was a really key addition you know we’ve got really
Strong geology our exploration we’re growing this deposit U but but having that piece to to lead our Metallurgy internally uh start to do some of the preliminary engineering think about the studies that are ahead and and the Baseline environmental work and we have a big advantage in that we have all the
Baseline data from heckla formerly alexco right beside us which interestingly Kai was part of Permitting and then he’s worked on lots of projects all across the Ukon so he’s bringing that wealth of experience in that area to our project and we’ve already already got years of data and that’s one of the
Problems with projects you know Majors pick up a project and then they discover there’s a whole bunch of stuff that or or maybe they knew it buying it uh that one they have to start from square one on the Baseline environmental or the Metallurgy um and so we’re really
Working hard to tick those boxes so that when people come knocking on the door we can say hey here’s the recipe card of what we’ve done and here’s what needs to be done and here’s you know a realistic timeline to move it forward and so you know making sure we’re doing our own
Internal risk assessments of what it is that you know needs to be done to really make this project a compelling um project to move forward yeah because if you have not done that kind of work there are companies that just won’t approach you or would not consider a a
Purchase uh because of the risk involved but but also a lot of those steps are seemingly boring uh they would apply a discount toward that if they have not been done um so you’re really maximizing the value it seems right now but the the resource it’s big it’s 6.2 million
Ounces You released results today that were very impressive and extensive uh in line with previous results and even better in some cases that’s post resource estimation how much drilling do you have post resource uh and how much more do you have because it’s obvious from these results today it’s already grown from
That level to some extent not determined yet uh how much more exploration work drilling work are you be going to be doing this year and how is that going to potentially impact the resorts very generally you know speaking so post Resorts we have 24,700 meters of drilling oh really that
Much yeah so that was last year’s drilling we actually ended up stopping Drilling in August when the forest fires were around uh and that you know that’s why we have a strong treasury now of $7 million uh because we decided to wait for some results it didn’t seem like the
Market was rewarding good drill results anyway uh through the fall so um and it’s given us a lot of time to really focus in on understanding where we’re going to add the most ounces where we’re going to find the higher grade so what we’re doing now uh before we announce
What we’re going to do for 2024 is we’re continuing to do some more analysis like putting those results out today um to really understand what we achieved last year and where we’re going to add the most value in the cont context of the current market you know I’m still not
Convinced that the Market’s really rewarding exploration results except for for new discoveries we know that the critical the drisking work our Metallurgy is definitely part of the plan for for 2024 you know you don’t stop doing Metallurgy until the day you actually uh start producing gold afterward even even afterward
Because you need to understand that so um you know we’re encouraged by what we’re seeing and we’ll have some results out the market uh fairly soon um on that but but we know we’re going to continue to work and we’ve got options and and that’s great you know this is a an
Exciting project and we want companies that you know have you know do different styles of mining whether it’s Heap Leach or Cil or um you know to see what those results are um because this is large you know as you said the the deposits open um east west north south but it’s also
Open at depth so these these kind of deposits can be very very long lived and uh different companies are going to make different Capital decisions based on on what they see in the depos it and how much we’ve der risked it uh and are you getting higher grades at depth haven’t
You identified some started to identify some higher grade zones at do you know we’ve only drilled a few deep holes we drilled a whole at power line last year because you know we we’ve always said we think airstrip uh crosses underneath power line and so you know we’ve drilled
To like 480 meters vertical and we know that there’s still power line mineralization we don’t have enough holes to understand whether you know it’s globally higher grade um or you know a depth until we do that we focused on what an economic pit would be so roughly 200 meters vertical in the
Resource that we’ve drilled out uh because I don’t think the market would be rewarding deep bounces right right right now H but it’s there for sure and if we could actually and remember this is a intrusion related deposit but we’re in the Koopa or the the area surrounding
The intrusion or above the intrusion we haven’t found the intrusion yet so even to have such a large deposit surrounding an intrusion in the metasediments is quite unusual um so you know what’s the strength of the intrusion we don’t know uh and where is it well we’re working on
That that story as well and we’ve done some some looking at the graphite looking at high temperature minerals trying to understand where the intrusion might be as well but meanwhile the real story is we’ve got this huge on-surface deposit right right and you got what what a lot of companies would kill for
Already and uh you know that’s another important aspect if you’re taking if you’re trying to to build a a project that a major or other groups of companies will want to come in and buy leaving some mystery in there leaving some upside potential is really important they need that they need to
See that this is not completely uh Limited at this point that they’re going to get some surprises and again good surprises uh speaking about the the buyers right now the investors the potential shareholders what they get with Bion and getting back uh in to our original premise that kind of value that
You have what uh what are you trading for now in terms of uh per ounce on resource an evaluation and how does that compare with say what typical worldclass large scale projects like this have sold for historically in just normal markets per ounce so you know we’re trading at
About10 to 122 per ounce in the ground so pretty low valuation which gives lots of upside you know other Yukon examples um you know historically we saw you know one project taken out at $170 per ounce another at $250 um you know globally right now there’s quite in this market we’ve seen
Things from 80 to 150 um it really depends on on jurisdiction as well um even even that those comparatively lower prices uh that gives us a lot of room to revalue and I think that you know that’s without speaking to what the quality of those projects are what the infrastructure
What the jurisdictional risk is so um you know we have huge advantages and not having jurisdictional resist risk security of tenure a permitting process that might be be slow but we’ve seen two minds go through it in recent years and um in your neighborhood in our neighbor
Right beside us so you know that’s a huge advantages for the project yeah and and in closing that’s one of the things we want to stress to people is here you have a a project that is ticking all the boxes progressively to drisking but already has all of the the eyes dotted
All of the teeth crossed is huge world class and uh selling for a small fraction of what similar projects have sold for historically so again you get that kind of potential that you would normally get only in some kind of Grassroots Discovery play with but with much uh less uh relatively less risk
Than you would in that kind of a play Tara I think uh that that pretty much sums it up for everybody thank you so much for your time today and good luck with the drilling and uh drisk as this year progresses thanks so much thank you Brian