Interview with Chris Dupont, President and Director of Explor Resources Inc. (TSX-V: EXS, OTCQX: EXSFF, FRANKFURT: E1H1, BERLIN: E1H1): Flagship Timmins Porcupine West Gold Project, Located in the Gold Rich Timmins Camp in Ontario.
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By Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, USA
on 8/30/2016
Explor Resources Inc. (TSX-V: EXS, OTCQX: EXSFF, FRANKFURT: E1H1, BERLIN: E1H1) is a Canadian junior mineral exploration company currently focused on their flagship Timmins Porcupine West gold Project, located in the gold rich Timmins Camp in Ontario. The exploration drilling is conducted by Teck Resources as part of their earn-in on the TPW property. We interviewed Chris Dupont, President and Director of Explor Resources, who started his mining career over 40 years ago as an underground laborer and worked his way up to become an Officer and director of several mining companies. We learned from Mr. Dupont that Explor is advancing two other projects: the Ogden Gold project, which is the continuation of the Timmins Porcupine West Project across the Mattagami River, and the Kidd Creek property that can become the next major base metal deposit. Near term plans include exploration drilling at Kidd Creek and Ogden, as well as more exploration diamond drilling by Teck at TPW.
Dr. Allen Alper: This is Dr. Allen Alper, Editor-in-chief of Metals News interviewing Chris Dupont, who is President and Director of Explor Resources. I know there are exciting, wonderful things going on with Explor. Could you tell our readers a bit about them?
Mr. Chris Dupont: Explor currently has three ongoing projects. We have our flagship Timmins Porcupine West Gold Project (TPW) where Teck Resources as the operator is currently advancing the project as they continue on the ground working on their earn-in. The location of the TPW Gold Project is located in a splay fault corridor where most of the Timmins Gold Mines are located as shown below:
Teck Resources have currently spend over $1.5 million towards their earn-in. They have to spend a total of $8 million dollars in order to gain a 55 percent foothold. They are very excited about the results of their exploration program to date. Teck has completed a lot of geochemistry on the property. They have reviewed over 20,000 core and coarse reject samples including QAQC. They scanned that using what they call their SWIR or shortwave infrared unit, spectral data analysis. Satisfied with the results of their drilling and their geochemical analysis they are moving onto the next phase, which included downhole geophysics (currently in progress) followed by drilling which will probably start this fall. I suspect they will completed a $2.0 to $4.0 million diamond drilling program. A majority of their phase II will be exploration diamond drilling.
On the other front, we have completed six diamond drill holes on our Ogden Gold Property. The Ogden Gold Property is contiguous and to the southeast of our TPW Gold Property, as show below. We feel that is the continuation of our Timmins Porcupine West Project across the Mattagami River.
The preliminary program consisted of three sets of two holes each. East set was located with an approximate 2 kilometer spacing as shown on the attached plan. The program was successful in that all IP targets were intersected. The geological environment identified is very similar to the Corporation’s Timmins Porcupine West Property. As it was the case at TPW property, the rock type intersected included Quartz Feldspar Porphyry (QFP), Mafic Volcanics, and Sulfide zones containing fine grain pyrite mineralization.
The following results were obtained from this first drilling campaign:
Hole #OG-16-02 intersected 2.06 g/t Au over 1.50m from 154.5 to 156.0 m
Hole #OG-16-05 intersected 1.99 g/t Au over 1.80 m from 438.0 to 439.8 m.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds very good. Could you tell me more about what your plans for this year and next?
Mr. Chris Dupont: We are currently drilling on our Kidd Township Project. We believe there is a major fault running Northwest to Southeast through the main Kidd Creek Mine Property and the mirror image of the Kidd Creek Mine is located on the other side of this major fault to the Northeast on Explor’s ground. To date the geology intersected is very encouraging and has prompted us to increase, in fact nearly double our planned drilling program.
With Ogden we're going to analyze the results of the exploration that was recently completed and plan a program for a fall/winter exploration program.
Dr. Allen Alper: Could you tell our readers about the importance of the area you're in and why you feel it's so promising for gold exploration?
Mr. Chris Dupont: In the main Timmins' Mining Camp, over 65 million ounces of gold have been produced since 1909. In the area to the west of the Burrows Benedict where it crosses the Porcupine Destor fault as can be seen from the map above over 65,000,000 oz of gold were produced. Where the Timmins Porcupine west Gold Project is located the same structural feature exist where the Mattagami River Fault crossed the Porcupine Destor Fault Zone. We have a structure in there, called the Bristol Porphyry. In the main Timmins camp every gold deposit was associated with a Porphyry. The Hollinger-McIntyre Mine System was associated with the Pearl Lake Porphyry. The Hollinger mine was on the north side of the Porphyry while the McIntyre was on the south side of the Porphyry. Our Property contains 80% of the Bristol Porphyry and we have both sides. This porphyry is five times bigger than the Pearl Lake Porphyry. The Hollinger-McIntyre Porphyry, with the north and the south side of that porphyry, produces a total of 30 million ounces of gold. Our porphyry is significantly bigger and in the Timmins camp and there is a relationship between the size of the porphyry and the size of potential gold deposits.
Consequently we're very happy that we have a structure on 2,000 meters of strike length and also that Teck is involved in continuing the exploration, as they do their earn-in. We're moving forward on the Kidd Creek front, working on our claims near the Kidd Creek Base Metal Mine. We are drilling some of the deepest exploration drill holes in the Kidd Creek mine area since the mine was discovered in the mid 1960’s. The Kidd Creek Mine has produced over 150 million tons of copper-zinc ore since 1965. They're still mining there and they're down to 10,000 feet. We believe in what we call a cluster effect of base metal deposit and we believe there are more deposits near and around the Kidd Creek mine. It's just a matter of a completing a proper exploration program. For example the Horne Mine in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec has 17 base metal deposits in the area, Brunswick Mines in Bathurst, New Brunswick has 43 deposits. We have some excellent targets that we determined by the analysis of the geophysics and geochemistry on our ground. We are currently drilling some of our highest priority targets.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds exciting. You're doing all the right things. What was the past exploration like?
Mr. Chris Dupont: Well in the past people only drilled shallow holes around Kidd Creek. They drilled about 500 to 600-foot holes. That is about 150 to 180m meters in our current language. That is to say the first 200 meters of rock has been investigated. We are drilling 600 to 1000 meter holes. (2000 to 3200 feet) What you have to do, you have to drill down to 3,000 feet and look at the geology between 500 and 3,000 feet and see if the right geology exist to host another VMS deposit. The drill-hole log is like a book and the geologist is there to read the book. From that he can say if we are near and then vector in to where we should drill to intersect the VMS deposit. We're looking at that for the potential base metal deposits. We're hunting in elephant country basically because Kidd Creek is an elephant and no one's found any other elephants. We know that around the Horne Mine and around Noranda there were 17 deposits and in the area of Brunswick Mining there were 43 deposits. Consequently, we believe there're other deposits within proximity of the Kidd Creek mine and that's why we're looking right there.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sound excellent. Could you tell me a little bit more about your background, your team, and your board?
Mr. Chris Dupont: I’m a mining engineer. I’ve been in the business for over 40 years now. I started with Noranda back in the early 1970’s, starting work underground as a laborer, timberman, long hole loader and miner and grew to love mining. Noranda sponsored me to go to university to get my mining engineering degree. After that I work in various capacities in the mining industry. My previous positions include Chief Engineer for Exall Resources, Senior Mining Engineer for Noranda in Timmins, Ontario, Mine Manager for Normetal, Projects Manager for Luzenac as well as President and Director of Kayorum Gold Mines and Director of Fieldex Exploration and Vice President and Director of TOM Exploration For Noranda I worked for their mine contracting and engineering arm called Mining Corporation. I’ve done a lot of studies, feasibility studies, project evaluations. For the last 25 years I’ve been running junior exploration companies. Currently I am president and CEO of Explor Resource Inc.
Dr. Allen Alper: You have a very strong background.
Mr. Chris Dupont: Yes, our board and management team is also very well qualified. Geoff Carter, P.Eng., Director – Geoff is a mining engineer and has been active in the mining industry since the late 1960’s and involved with public companies for more than 30 years. He has held positions at Anglo American, Hudson Bay Mining & Smelting, and was Vice-President at Inspiration Coal. He has also been a director and president of Ourominas Minerals, director of Bankers Petroleum and Trans Atlantic Enterprises. Since 1990, Geoff has been involved in independent research, due diligence reports, NI 43-101 reports and valuations, as well as general corporate advisory for the mining industry.
Mario Colantonio, P.Eng. Director - Mario is a professional engineer and has been active in the mining industry since the mid 1980’s. He received his B.Sc. degree in civil engineering from Queen’s University in 1985. His primary focus has been with the engineering and management for capital and maintenance projects mainly for mine/mill infrastructure including feasibility studies. He has held senior engineering management positions for AMEC and is presently President of a privately owned engineering consulting firm.
Jonathan Challis, P.Eng. Director - Jonathan is a mining engineer with over 30 years of experience in the operation, management, financing and analysis of mining projects around the world. Mr. Challis worked as a mining Engineer with Gold Fields of South Africa before returning to Europe where he worked as a mining analyst and project financier for several European Institutions. He subsequently worked as a mining analyst for McLeod Young Weir in London, England and in Toronto, Canada. In 1994, he joined CM Oliver in Toronto as a Director and Senior Mining Analyst. In 1997, he joined Ivanhoe Capital Corporation and was involved in several Canadian resources companies in the roles of CEO, President and director.
Gerhard Merkel Director - Gerhard has extensive experience as a CEO and CFO. His past experience includes being the CEO and CFO of Metex (Germany) Trading Company from 1994 to 2005. From 2005 to present, he has been CFO and COO of CGM Import-Export Ltd (Portugal) Import/Export. This company deals in the wholesale and retail of catering equipment. They are also involved in the production of catering accessories.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well that sounds like you have a very strong board too.
Mr. Chris Dupont: Oh yes. We have a very, very strong board.
Dr. Allen Alper: Could you tell me a little bit about your capital structure and your finances?
Mr. Chris Dupont: Right now we have about 107 million shares outstanding. Our stocks are trading around 17, 18 cents. We have broker warrant options outstanding, probably around 5 or 8 million. We're publicly traded. We trade probably half a million shares a day would be average, at around 16, 17 cents at present.
Dr. Allen Alper: Could you tell me a bit more about your relationship with Teck?
Mr. Chris Dupont: We decided we've taken the TPW Gold Project as far as we could take it. The board decided that we needed a partner to take the project to the nest level. We considered several companies and picked Teck as the company with the money and the resources to take the project forward. As a junior it's one thing to find the project. It's another thing to build the mine. You're probably going to need 400 to 500 million dollars. A company like Teck has the capital and they can turn around and do the work to raise the money. They have the expertise to do it. Saying all that, they still have to spend eight million dollars in order to earn a 55 percent interest. Once that's done, if they want another 15 percent interest they have to spend another four million. Then it goes into a 70-30 joint venture type relationship. Teck will have 70 percent and we'll have 30 percent of the project.
We still have our other projects, our 18 other projects on the go too. With Teck involved that frees us to concentrate on projects like Kidd Creek and Ogden which is great because if we didn't have them doing that, their project, then we'd have to concentrate on those projects too.
Dr. Allen Alper: That's very good. Sounds like that's a great approach.
Mr. Chris Dupont: I think that's the approach most juniors should take. Because to raise that kind of money, you need to be a major or have the stock at 15 or 20 dollars or more. Most of the juniors right now don't have their stock at those price levels. The only way we can move ahead with the project is to have a major involved and have them spending the money.
Dr. Allen Alper: I think you have an excellent partner out there.
Mr. Chris Dupont: I think they're great. They're fantastic. They have the people, right? They have the cash to do it. So we might as well have them involved.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds really excellent. Could you tell me the primary reasons our high-net-worth readers/investors should invest in your company?
Mr. Chris Dupont: The reason they should invest in Explor is the potential for a significant increase in profit. If you can buy the stock at 17 or 18 cents, and if we hit on Kidd Creek, it could go to, like Kidd did back in '64, 70 or 80 bucks a share. A major discovery propelled it, a significant increase in value. We've got decent projects. They hold their value. That's the way we're looking at it. That's why we have Teck involved. They're going to move it to the next phase. With Kidd Creek, if we find a major sulfite deposit there, we'll probably approach Glencore and use that same method and have them grab the ball and run with it, thereby increasing shareholder value.
Dr. Allen Alper: All right, that sounds like an excellent reason. By the way I'm a stockholder, and I'm very happy with what you're doing. I'm happy with your property and everything else. So you have the three projects?
Mr. Chris Dupont: Yes, we have Ogden which is the gold project. That's working right now. We have Teck, which is involved in Porcupine West. They're handling that. Then we have our Kidd Creek Project that we're drilling on right now. We're looking for the next major base metal deposit. We also have 16 other projects of merit in our inventory. One of these on the back burner is our 100% owned Eastford Lake Gold Project where we intersected 40 feet of 0.50 oz per ton gold. Another is our East Bay Gold Project in the Duparquet Gold Camp where we are the largest land owner and are adjacent to the former Betty and Donchester Mine where there is approximately 4 million oz of gold. These projects and the others in our stable are available for option and or joint venture.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well that sounds very good. It's good to have three good projects going and an inventory of excellent projects.
http://www.explorresources.com/
EXPLOR RESOURCES INC.
15 Gamble St. E., Suite 204
Rouyn Noranda, QC
Canada J9X 3B6
CHRIS DUPONT, PRESIDENT & DIRECTOR
Tel: (819) 797.4630
Toll Free: 1.800.388.8668
Fax: (819) 797.6050
info@explorresources.com
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