Going back to the place where you started work over twenty years ago isn’t what most people do, however Glen Kuntz’s appointment as Mega Precious Metals’ Chief Operating Officer has done just that. The Monument Bay project in North Eastern Manitoba, is where Glen first worked for Noranda Exploration at the beginning of his career. “The opportunity to work together again with Mega’s President and CEO Jim Rogers and focus our combined experience is a great asset for our team, Mega’s shareholders and will further enhance our growth strategy” stated Glen.

Properties being explored by Mega Precious Metals

Goal of Increasing Resources/Reserves

The company has three active projects, two of which are Greenfield projects in the Red Lake area of NW Ontario (North Madsen and Headway Projects) and the third is a brown fields project in Northern Manitoba (Monument Bay).

The Headway project abuts Goldcorp’s Red Lake Gold Mine, and currently is focused on deep drilling to intersect the very high grade ore shoots/extensions that currently exist in the Red Lake Mine. These holes will be approximately 3 kms in depth and are looking to intersect the  same geological host rock that Red Lake Gold Mines  has extracted at > 25 grams per ton mineralization,” comments Glen. “Currently, we have two holes in progress. On the first hole, we had some mechanical problems that we’ve worked through and we are now back on track to resume coring in the near future.  The second hole hit mineralization but didn’t get to the final depths and we’ve just started a third hole. If all goes well, we’ll have three holes through the stratigraphy in the next 4-6 months.”

Jim categorizes Headway as a “bit of a lottery ticket”. He says, “I think the model looks great and it’s very exciting. It’s taken a while to get there but it could easily be another Gold Eagle. So that’s a lottery ticket on the stock.”

The North Madsen project is in the same Red Lake area but has a different host and style of mineralization than the Red Lake Mine. The ore body near surface is fairly wide and therefore has bulk mineable potential. As Glen explained, “We have nearly 400,000 tons at 2.56 grams. The goal is to expand this resource to over a million tons at about the same overall grade or slightly better.”

Monument Bay Update

The most advanced project by far, and the one that attracted Glen to join Mega, is Monument Bay. Glen sets out the current situation, “It’s a northern fly in /out camp in North East Manitoba that has approximately 20 personnel on site.

The project was originally founded by Noranda Exploration and the Manitoba Government back in 1989, where I had worked for Noranda as a summer student.  Since then, > 426 drill holes have been placed into the project. The mineralization stretches for at least three kilometers along strike, and the top 500 metres has been drilled.  The ore body is open in depth and along strike and some of our most recent holes will be looking to tighten up the mineralization and extend the ore zones deeper.

We have two drill rigs focused on both definition drilling and increasing ounces in zones that were currently not part of the previous estimates. Essentially, we want to move a good portion of the current resource, which is currently about 1.1 million ounces, into the indicated category over the next three months and add additional ounces.  In addition, we are mobilizing in some earth moving equipment to allow us to complete some trenching and close spaced sampling along the exposed structures. We are working towards an advanced exploration permit so that we can start underground development in second quarter of 2012.”

In Jim’s view, the Monument Bay project is the one that really underpins the company’s stock. “I think there’s a real mine there,” he remarks. “With an underground ramp, we will get at least 100,000 ounces of gold a year and then we can look below 500 meters. This could be 150,000-200,000 ounces a year (over the long term). We’d be the first in the district to have a mine but I think the district has a lot of potential.”

Project Loyalty

Many companies rate the strength of their team as one of their main attractions. In the case of Mega, there seems to be a genuine loyalty to the areas and the projects. “The people we have on our projects have quite a few years of experience in these different camps, whether it’s in the Red Lake camp or in Monument Bay. Various people we’ve brought back on the Monument Bay project worked on the project as far back as 10 years ago and are very excited about being a part of the project and doing their part in making the project a success.

We’re finding, attracting and hiring people that want to be on site and proactively contribute to developing projects. Essentially, making the decisions required just like an owner of the company.  These people can see the value and they want to grow the operation. In the Red Lake gold camp, Mega has very experienced people in the area. Jim has twenty years of experience  in the camp with Goldcorp’s Campbell and Dickenson Mines. Our current project team consists of Project Manager, Rory Ritchie and Geological Technician, Seija Saarinen who both now have over two years on site, along with the Project Geologist  Danna Magi who has been with Mega for almost a year now.  Add to this my 6 years working at Campbell  Mine and Mega has a very experienced team looking for the next mine.

We offer our people a lot of opportunities to move between projects so they get cross-pollination and exposure to different projects and the approach that is needed to taking a project to the next step.  Being a young dynamic company, we can make decisions and move projects along quickly. All three projects, within the next 3-6 months, are going to have a lot of positive changes”, remarked Glen.

Realizing the Opportunities and Challenges

As well as a strength, Glen believes that getting the right people is always a challenge in the current market: “As you grow a deposit, you need to find more and more people, so you have to be able to attract and retain people. Finding good people is always an important step and even more important is keeping them engaged and eager to learn.” 

There are other opportunities and challenges, especially those of a young company that needs to raise money and get its message out to the markets. 

But probably the biggest opportunity/challenge that any company has is understanding the culture of the Aboriginal communities they are working with and near, the protocols for working with the community and understanding local issues that  many Aboriginal communities face on a daily basis. 

Jim sees this opportunity as one of our top priorities “We’ve are working to get our Aboriginal consultations underway. I think it’s critical to get everything in place to ensure the mutual benefit to all parties. After that, it’s a matter of drilling the ore bodies, putting out the resources and getting out to market to let people know that these things are real and we’re going to make them happen.”

Mega has now reached the stage in its development where events are starting to move quickly. Jim says: “We’re going to be having some good news coming. We’re waiting on some assays from Monument Bay and North Madsen as well as our holes are getting down there at Headway. All of our projects are exciting and a renewed news flow should start very soon.”