Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (TSX.V: BAY): Exploring of Large, High-Grade, Copper and Zinc Deposits in Nunavut, Interview with Tom Ullrich, CEO
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By Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, US
on 1/24/2018
Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (TSX.V: BAY) is exploring for large, high-grade, sediment-hosted copper and zinc deposits in Nunavut, a mining-friendly Canadian jurisdiction. Aston Bay is 100% owner of the 1,024,345-acres (414,537-hectares) Aston Bay Property, located on western Somerset Island, Nunavut, which neighbors Teck’s profitable past-producing Polaris Mine just 200km to the north. The Aston Bay property hosts the Storm Copper Project and the Seal Zinc Prospect, with historical drilling confirming the presence of sediment-hosted copper and zinc mineralization. We learned from Tom Ullrich, CEO of Aston Bay Holdings, that with some very strong institutional shareholders, the company is cash positive, with about $1.3 million in cash right now. Plans for 2018 include analyzing the results of the airborne gravity grid geometry survey, completed last summer, and developing exploration targets, based on these results. According to Mr. Ullrich, Aston Bay property has real potential for discovery of some significant deposits at depth.
Dr. Allen Alper: This is Dr. Allen Alper, Editor-in-Chief of Metals News, interviewing Tom Ullrich, CEO of Aston Bay Holdings. Tom, could you give our readers/investors an overview of your company, your focus and current activities?
Mr. Thomas Ullrich: Sure. Quite simply, we're a copper and zinc exploration. Those are the metals we're looking at right now. We're exploring in northern Canada, specifically in Nunavut. Speaking of the company itself, we have no debt. We have actually about $1.3 million in cash right now. Market cap's probably just over $10 million. We have some very strong institutional shareholders, Commodity Discovery Fund, JPMorgan, Mackenzie Group, and so a very nice, very tight shareholder base.
Up in Nunavut, we have a regional-scale mining claim and exploration permit. It's a block that is over a million acres. We have drill-proven both copper and zinc mineralization, at the surface and near-surface. With some of the people we've brought on in the last year, Dr. David Broughton, a world-renowned expert on these sediment-hosted copper and zinc deposits and myself, we really think we have the technical expertise to go out and make a discovery up on Somerset Island this summer.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds excellent. Could you tell us about the grades and why you feel this deposit is so important?
Mr. Thomas Ullrich: Absolutely. We have two commodities that we're looking for, copper and zinc. We think both copper and zinc were deposited by the same process. Different chemical conditions and different environments, determined which metal was deposited. We think is was a regional-scale event. We're looking at about 200 kilometers.
It's just over 100 miles south of the old Polaris lead-zinc mine. Polaris was a mine that ran from the early '80s to the early 2000s. It was run by Cominco and eventually taken over by Teck now. It is a lead-zinc mine, a world-class deposit. It had around 21 million tons at around 14% zinc. It was able to operate year-round, shipped seasonally, and it made quite a bit of money. When they closed down that mine in 2002, they estimated it had pulled about $15 billion worth of ore out of the ground. That's in 2002 dollars, apparently quite profitable.
We're located on the same mineralized trend, on the island just south of where Polaris is. We have a high-grade zinc mineralization. We just put out a 43-101 resource on our small zinc showing that we have at the surface on Somerset Island. We have just over a million tons there, 10.4% zinc, and about an ounce and a half of silver. These are really world-class grades. Also important to note, we also have some significant copper mineralization on our claims. The area is called Storm Copper, drilled by Cominco.
Both these projects were found by Cominco in the '90s, when they were looking for feed for their Polaris mill on the copper side. They drilled almost 9,000 meters, all a very shallow depth investigation, maybe 150 meters, 110 meters of 2.5% copper, and 56 meters of over 3% copper, and multiple intercepts, tens of meters of multiple-percent copper, a really fantastic indication of a very robust ore-forming system, on the copper side as well.
We dated the copper mineralization. It is the same age of mineralization for Storm Copper as they have at Polaris, so we know we have a regional-scale event here. It's producing world-class mines just to the north of us. It's producing some extremely robust, obviously great mineralization at surface on Somerset Island, on our claims, and our thesis is that this is really just scratching the surface. It's just an indication, really, of what might be hidden at depth. What we're going for now is to look at what else this copper and zinc mineralization on Somerset Island might be telling us about what might be hidden at depth. We think it might be something high-grade, but significantly larger.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds excellent! Could you tell us, our readers/investors, a bit about your background, David's background, and the rest of your team and board?
Mr. Thomas Ullrich: Sure. I'm a geologist. I've been in this business for over 20 years, getting close to 30 now. I was previously a chief geologist. Preceding my stint here with Aston Bay, I was chief geologist for North America for Antofagasta Minerals. In that job, I got to look at all the great copper projects in North America, and this Storm project, the Aston Bay project, was my favorite of all of them. This was the one I thought had the potential to become a world-class mine.
I left Antofagasta almost two years ago to come to work for Aston Bay because of my favorite project, and I thought they needed a bit of help. I originally came on at Aston Bay as a VPX and a COO about a year ago. I moved up to CEO, and just in the last couple months, I've taken over the company completely. The former chairman has stepped away, and now I am in charge of this company completely.
Dave Broughton, world-class geologist, former chief geologist for Ivanhoe Mines, Robert Friedland's group, made some significant discoveries in Africa, particularly Flatreef, a PGE nickel-copper-gold system in the Bushveld complex. Closer to home to what we're looking for, he's made discoveries at Kamoa, and Kakula Nazar, sediment-hosted copper deposits like we think we have up on Somerset Island. For those discoveries, he was awarded several awards, perhaps closer to home the AM BC. That's the Roundup Award for Excellence in Global Ore and Mineral Exploration, and also the PDAC Thayer Lindsley Award for International Mineral Discovery. This guy is a proven mine-finder, and to be honest, the best geologist I could possibly have to work for us looking for these kinds of deposits, not in the Congo this time, but in Canada. Important to note that he did come to us. He is here because he wants to make a discovery. We're just very happy to have him on our team.
The rest of our technical team. Mike Dufresne, in charge of Apex Geoscience, is our QP, and he's been working on the project for five years. Dwight Walker, a very straight and narrow CFO. He's our part-time CFO, very great guy, very honest guy to work with. We've also just brought on Sophia Harquail to help us with IR. She actually grew up in the industry, has taken the IR degree, and is helping us now have more engagement with our investors.
Over the next two months, we are bringing more really high-quality, very connected people onto our board. I think our investors can look forward to that. I think it will be cheered by the market.
Dr. Allen Alper: It sounds like you have an extremely strong team and an excellent property. Could you tell us your key plans for 2018?
Mr. Thomas Ullrich: Now we are ready to look at the results from our gravity survey that we ran this past summer. That was an over $2 million airborne gravity grid geometry survey. We've already released some of the very low-resolution maps, just very plain 2D maps of some of that, and they clearly show some really spectacular targets down dip and a long strike, potential anomalies, high-density anomalies associated with known mineralization, both copper at Storm and zinc at Seal, and also some other anomalies outside of the known areas, all of them down this belt again at the million acre claim block.
We have quite a few really interesting anomalies. Over the next few months, one by one, we're going to look at these anomalies in little areas, and work them up. We're going to reprocess the geophysical data, sit down with Dr. Dave Broughton and take a look at all the layers of data that we have here and one by one, put them out in press releases, and then get ready for our drill program this summer. We hope to drill something like 3,000 to 4,000 meters this summer, potentially more if we can raise some extra funds to get an extra drill up there. We may also do additional geophysics to help tighten up some of the targeting. We'll see how that goes, as we go through the data over the next couple of months and develop these targets.
Dr. Allen Alper: Sounds excellent! Could you give our readers/investors more information about your share and capital structure?
Mr. Thomas Ullrich: We have just over 75 million shares out. Our share price has popped up a bit. We were a bit depressed by the end of November into December.
We have a placement going right now for hard money. It is 16 cents per share, and you get a half-warrant strike price of 20 cents that's good for two years. I'm very happy. I think that warrant, the half-warrant, adds a lot of value here. It gives us two years of exploration. I think if we can make a discovery this summer, we’ll have a year of delineation or working it up to get the maximum value from any discovery we make, or just a straight two years of exploration up there. I think that has great value.
With our share structure in general, we are very tightly held, strong institutional shareholders at 34% institutionally held, 16% management and insiders. The original claim holders have about 15%, as well as Teck Minerals, the holders of the original data, they have 3%, which leaves a free float of about 27%, which is not much. I know about 7% of that is with our former CEO and a couple other people, so in terms of loose shares, we probably only have about 20% or less actually free-floating.
It can be difficult to get a significant position in the company, but we've been looking to free up some liquidity, and we think it's been quite successful over the past week or so. We've been able to get some more significant volume. For example, today, we're at almost half a million shares traded, which is, for us, very significant, but we've had several days of over 100,000 shares traded. That seems to be the new norm for us, a little more significant trading. Now that we are getting closer to our drill program, I think people are getting a little more excited. We are getting a bit more movement on our stock.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds very good. What are the primary reasons our high-net-worth readers/investors should consider investing in Aston Bay?
Mr. Thomas Ullrich: Really, the potential for discovery here! We're a micro-cap company. We have significant copper and zinc mineralization already proven up at the surface on Somerset Island. We have this million acre claim block that really has the potential to hold some significant deposits. One of these layers of sediments may be mineralized. On Somerset Island the sediments are, for the most part, very flat-lined, so unless the mineralization is in that very top layer, we may not see it.
We've done all the heavy work now, all the hard work. We've done this gravity survey. We've done some of the geology. Previous operators have used various different geophysical methods to build up the database we have here. We think all the potential for mineralization is hidden at depth. The only way to find these things is to do that geophysics, and then get those targets and drill them. We think we have a good potential to make a discovery here because we see significant metal at the surface at both Storm and Seal, and elsewhere up and down this claim block. We think that's an indication of a very robust system, hidden up there. That's what we're going for. We want to make that big hit.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds excellent!
Mr. Thomas Ullrich: A lot of us, our management, insiders have a 16% ownership. I have put over a quarter million dollars of my own money into this. We all have skin in the game. We're all believers. Dave Broughton is buying in on this placement right now. We're all highly invested. We want to make a discovery, make money from this for the shareholders. We're not here for the salaries. We're here to make a discovery and make money the same way the investors do.
Dr. Allen Alper: Sounds excellent. Is there anything else you'd like to add, Tom?
Mr. Thomas Ullrich: We are super excited to be getting onto Somerset Island this summer. There're going to be some fantastic targets, and we can't wait to see what the drill rig shows us.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds great. It sounds like it's going to be an exciting year, 2018, and a very fruitful one.
https://astonbayholdings.com/
Thomas Ullrich, Chief Executive Officer
Telephone: (416) 456-3516
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