Interview with Robert Carrington, President and Chairman of Newrange Gold Corp., (TSXV: NRG, OTCQB: NRGOF, Frankfurt: X6C): Exploring and Developing the Pamlico Gold Project in Nevada
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By Allen Alper Jr., President, Metals News Inc.
on 4/11/2019
Newrange Gold Corp. (TSXV: NRG, OTCQB: NRGOF, Frankfurt: X6C) is an aggressive exploration and development company, focused on near to intermediate-term production opportunities, in favorable jurisdictions, including Nevada, Colorado and Colombia. With numerous drill intercepts of near surface oxide gold mineralization to 340 grams gold per metric tonne, the Company’s flagship Pamlico Project is poised to become a significant new Nevada discovery. At PDAC2019, we learned from Robert Carrington, President and Chairman of Newrange Gold Corp, that they have recently completed preliminary metallurgy tests, with extremely fast leaching and 97% extraction. Near term plans include more metallurgy tests, and a drilling program to begin work on a maiden resource, during the second half of the year. According to Mr. Carrington, Pamlico Project will be a very simple efficient operation, with low Cap-Ex, very low Op-Ex and a very low cost of production.
Newrange Gold Corp.
Allen Alper Jr: This is Allen Alper Jr., President of Metals News, here at PDAC 2019, interviewing Bob Carrington, President and Chairman of Newrange Gold Corp. Could you tell us at Metals News and our readers/investors a bit about your background?
Robert Carrington: I'm a geologist by schooling, and I now also have my engineering ticket. I've been involved in mining really since I was eight years old. It's in my blood, so to speak. I'm a native Nevadan, so this is really in my backyard. It turns out that the family we acquired this project from was an old family friend. The patriarch was a good friend of my father's and we acquired the project shortly after that gentleman passed away from a stroke. His family didn't want to be involved in mining anymore. So it was just a golden opportunity for us and we've had tremendous luck ever since.
We've completed 47 holes. Almost every hole has hit what we would consider significant mineralization. Right now, Pamlico looks like it's going to be a very large oxide system with a low grade hail surrounding extremely high grade structurally controlled gold zones. They're really not veins as most people would think of them. They're large brecciated zones that are filled with iron oxides. The gold is actually in those iron oxides. There's no problem with silicone encapsulation, or any refractory minerals. We just recently completed some preliminary metallurgy bottle rolls. And on a 24 hour bottle roll we're getting over 97% extraction, so it's extremely fast leaching.
Effectively, the bulk of the gold at Pamlico can be considered to be micron gold, in a volcanic host rock. It's almost like a Carlin system, without any of the problems that Carlin systems have, like prig robbing carbon or silicon encapsulation, any of those things. The other thing that's really interesting about Pamlico is it tends to be extremely clean, there’s really no arsenic, antimony, or mercury that's detectable in the mineralization system, it's really surprising.
Allen Alper Jr: Very exciting! What are your next steps?
Robert Carrington: We're going to be doing some additional metallurgy and we're looking at doing quite a bit of additional drilling this year, with the goal of putting enough drilling into this so that we can initiate a maiden research, during the second half of the year. Preparatory to that drilling, we're in the process of mapping about eight miles of underground workings that are in there from the 1800's. We have a four man crew that's in there sampling and mapping. Then we're doing the survey, actually, with a cutting edge LIDAR technology, it's portable LIDAR technology that has self-locating and mapping software and we're seeing literally millimeter accuracy with a unit that you can walk through, just like you would walk through the halls of the show here. Which is amazing technology.
Allen Alper Jr: It's very exciting, so tell us more about your Management Team?
Robert Carrington: I'm a degreed geologist and an engineer. Our CEO Robert Archer is the co-founder of Great Panther Silver. He took that company from concept to being a significant silver producer. He’s also a geologist, he's been a long time shareholder. He first joined our Board a couple of years ago and then just this year came on as CEO. Bob is very well connected in the financial circles and markets, my real strength is in technical operations, so we make a very good management team. Other people of significance that we have in the Company; David Russel sits on our Advisory Board. David is a mining engineer, who has operated mines for Newmont mining all over. We also have a number of highly respected geologists that serve as consultants to us, including Tom Chadwick and Nate Tewalt. All together Senior Management and Consultants bring close to 200 years of expertise to the Company.
Allen Alper Jr: Tell us a bit more about the property and where you are with permitting?
Robert Carrington: We're early exploration. We have 47 holes on the property. When we first acquired the property, we completed property-wide, airborne magnetometry, radiometrics and a property-wide ground based gravity survey. We've done extensive geochemistry. There are a number of other targets we've identified on the property. We've completed 47 RC drill holes and we just finished 4 core holes, PQ diameter core holes, very large diameter core. We've received and announced the results of the first of those core holes. One of the reasons we drill that PQ diameter core, the rock at Pamlico is so fractured I was concerned that we were actually losing course gold into the fractures in the rock system. And the core, at least out of the first hole, seems to support that. Because we're seeing much larger intervals and higher grade intervals in the PQ core than we got in the RC hole that we twinned. One hole isn't a definitive model, but we have 3 holes that are pending at the Ashe Lab.
The gold is such a heavy mineral and with the rock package at Pamlico being as fractured as it is, the gold will selectively blow out into a fracture before it goes up the drill hole. So if anything I think we're under reporting.
Allen Alper Jr: So what challenges will that present as you go forward into mining?
Robert Carrington: Those challenges are mostly on the exploration side, from a physical mining standpoint it's great because what we're seeing at Pamlico is the gold is all on the surface of the rock, it's not in the rock, so there's a very good possibility that we'll actually be able to operate this as a run of mine heap leach. Which would mean very low cap ex, very low op ex and a very low cost of production. With the oxide nature of the mineralization we see here, because we have an oxide blanket that goes to 300 meters, the only other system in Nevada that I know of that's oxidized that deeply is Round mountain mine, it's located just off to the east of us. And they have an oxidation zone that goes down to between three and 400 meters. Very similar system. The host rocks there have a lot of characteristics that seem to be fairly similar to Round mountain and Pamlico. From an operations standpoint, the oxidation and the fracturing will have no real effect. We may have to have a slightly lower pit wall, for a pit, simply because of the risk of pit wall failure but that's easily offset by potentially not having to crush the rock.
Allen Alper Jr: Great! It's actually going to reduce costs overall?
Robert Carrington: Oh, it'll reduce costs substantially. There's another mine in Nevada that has similar physical characteristics, where they're operating as a run of mine leach on oxide ore that leaches very well. That mine is currently operating with the 63 part per billion cut off. Early in my career that wasn't even a good geochemical anomaly, so it's very very substantial that we have all these very favorable metallurgical characteristics showing up in this deposit, and the property is 20 minutes out of downtown Hawthorne. You can literally stand in the parking lot of the El Capitan hotel in Hawthorne and see the drill rig, when it's drilling. The property is 20 minutes out of town by state and government or county maintained roads. There's actually a county maintained road that goes up to within about 200 feet of the portal. Mineral county is probably one of the most supportive counties in the state of Nevada for mining. The county commissioner, everybody in the county, really wants this project to go forward. I think we have all the parts of the recipe to make a great success going forward.
Allen Alper Jr: And this is all literally in your backyard.
Robert Carrington: It is, it's two and a half hours from my front door. So it's very nice after having worked all over the world to be able to get in my truck and drive out to the project.
Allen Alper Jr: What would you say are the main reasons that investors should be looking at Newrange gold?
Robert Carrington: Well, it's an unexplored, high-grade, near surface, oxide-gold system in Nevada. In the most recent Frasier report, Nevada is the number one most favorable jurisdiction in the world for mining today. You know it's an excellent jurisdiction, outstanding environment, you can work 12 months a year there, with no problem at all. You have no security issues, you know what the ground rules are going in, it is just a very stable, favorable environment, in which to work.
Allen Alper Jr: And you have a great Management Team with a history of success.
Robert Carrington: Yes, yes, that's important, we all know what we're looking for.
Allen Alper Jr: Do you have anything else you'd like to add?
Robert Carrington: I think, as we move forward, with drilling, we'll see a lot more high-grade. The nice thing about having those high-grade pods is if we go back into a period of really adverse metal prices, we can always increase our cutoff and be the last man standing. I think as we move forward we're going to see the metallurgy support my thesis that this will be a run of mine leach, where the high grade will go into some kind of a vat leach system, the low grade will go into a series of leach pads, giving us very low cap ex and very low op ex and incredible recoveries.
I also want to thank you for interviewing Newrange Gold Corp for Metals News. We appreciate it very much.
Allen Alper Jr: You are clearly a brilliant geologist. It’s like talking with my Dad. I’m very impressed with the way you are applying your extensive knowledge to design a plan for mining your gold and strategizing to succeed with your Company in good times and bad. Thank you. I’ve enjoyed talking with you. We’ll publish your press releases as they come out so our readers/investors can follow your progress.
Newrange Gold Corp.
https://www.newrangegold.com/
Dave Cross
Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary
604-669-0868
dcross@crossdavis.com
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