TerraX Minerals Inc. Interview with Stuart W. Rogers, President and Director of (TSX.V: TXR; Frankfurt: TX0; OTC: TRXXF): Developing a Major Canadian Gold District at Yellowknife
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By Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, USA
on 7/24/2017
TerraX Minerals Inc. (TSX.V: TXR; Frankfurt: TX0; OTC: TRXXF) is a junior gold
exploration company that has been able to generate multiple new high-grade gold
discoveries, cost-effectively, at their wholly owned district-scale Yellowknife City Gold
project, located in the Canadian Northwest Territories, with a view to re-establishing
Yellowknife as one of the premier gold mining districts in Canada. We learned from Stuart
W. Rogers, President and Director of TerraX Minerals, one of the major cost benefits is
being right near the city, with its infrastructure and homes for the miners. This year the
company has already completed one half of their extensive drilling program and has
acquired more land, tripling the size of their property. This summer they will be doing
extensive initial surface exploration with flying airborne surveys as well as surface
mapping in the area and boots and hammers on the ground to identify other targets.
Dr. Allen Alper: This is Dr. Allen Alper, Editor-in-Chief of Metals News,
interviewing Stuart W. Rogers, President and Director of TerraX Minerals. Could you give
our readers/investors an overview of your company, what's happening now and what your
plans are for 2017?
Mr. Stuart Rogers: Okay. TerraX Minerals is focused on the Yellowknife City
Gold Project. This is a large-scale district play in the Northwest Territories of Canada.
Yellowknife is a well-known mining city. It's along the Yellowknife Gold belt, which is a
mining district like Val-d'Or or any of the other major camps in Canada. It's had
extensive production in the past, high-grade gold production actually, and the ground we
control is both north and south of the past-producing Con and Giant mines. These were
high-grade mines that produced over 14,000,000 ounces between them over a 60-year mine
life at an average grade of 16 grams a ton. We've had some great success over the last
number of years with new discoveries with high-grade gold intercepts. We have the major
benefit of infrastructure as we are right beside the city, so we're not required to have
camps for our people, fly in supplies or any of those additional costs, and obviously,
because this is a mining town, all the infrastructure is there should we be in a position
to move forward towards mine construction.
Dr. Allen Alper: It sounds like you have a great property, a great area, with great
support. Excellent! That's an excellent position to be in. Really fantastic!
Mr. Stuart Rogers: I appreciate that.
Dr. Allen Alper: Could you tell our readers/investors a bit more about what your
plans are for the 2017 going into 2018?
Mr. Stuart Rogers: Our plans were to do extensive field exploration drilling
on the property in 2017. We've already completed a 15,000 meter winter drill program,
which finished up in April. We were back in the field in June. During the winter, we
accumulated more prospective land through primarily staking, and we've expanded the
project area to about 418 square kilometers. Again, dramatic expansion! Last year, we
were 129 square kilometers. We've basically tripled that, and with the additional ground
that we've acquired, we will be doing extensive initial surface exploration this summer,
with airborne surveys as well as surface mapping and boots and hammers on the ground to
identify other targets. The ground we did acquire is very prospective. The area has hosted
a number of mines in the past; a number of which were very high-grade, such as the
Discovery Mine is in this same type of geology, to the north of the ground that we
acquired, and it was a mine that produced a million ounces at an average grade of an ounce
a ton, so very high-grade.
After the surface work is completed and analyzed, we'll be back drilling. It
will be at least 10,000 meters following up on targets from the winter drill program plus
doing work towards building ounces on discoveries that we've made in the past.
Dr. Allen Alper: Excellent! It's wonderful to have such high-grade, large
properties, really excellent. Could you tell us anything more about your resources?
Mr. Stuart Rogers: Well, in the process, we've identified a number of target
areas. We have a data base now of over 85,000 meters on a number of targets. They are
different zones, but very close together. The areas where we're working to build up
resources are within a 2-1/2 kilometer radius, within a few kilometers of each other, what
we call our core gold zone. We're not talking about pearls scattered over hundreds of
kilometers of ground. The work we're doing is to establish resources in that area. We are
of the belief it is one large mineralized system, so we want to do more work to test our
theory that everything is essentially joined together.
Dr. Allen Alper: That's excellent. Could you tell us a bit about your background
and your team?
Mr. Stuart Rogers: Our technical people are the real key to our team. My
background is in finance, so that's really not as meaningful as what the guys are doing in
the field. They're led by Joe Campbell. He's our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He
has done this before. He discovered the Meliadine Project in Nunavut and managed that
project for over 7 years and eventually introduced it to Agnico Eagle who acquired it and
are now ramping up to go into production in 2019. Since their acquisition of the
Meliadine Project in 2010, for just under $700,000,000, they've done extensive work and
basically tripled the size of the resource on the project and completed the work that they
needed for the feasibility study. It's been a very successful project for them. It's a
project with multiple high-grade zones and tremendous opportunity for expansion. This is
the level of experience that Joe brings to our project.
That is the same type of geology we're dealing with at Yellowknife. The big
difference and advantage we have at the Yellowknife project is that it is beside a city
whereas the Meliadine project, at the time, was quite remote. But now that a mine is
going into place, the infrastructure has followed it, but at considerable cost to the
developer.
The team working on our project is led by Joe Campbell, and he has a number of the people
that worked with him at Meliadine on site. Al Sexton, our VP Exploration was his site
manager at the Meliadine project, and we have other individuals, such as the drill
supervisor and a number of geologists, who worked in the area as well. We have an
experienced team, experienced with this type of project in a northern environment and this
type of geology.
Dr. Allen Alper: Excellent! It's great to have a well-experienced team that's
familiar with the area and the geology and to be in an area where you have great
infrastructure support and people support. Great!
Mr. Stuart Rogers: Thanks Allen. I think that basically sums it up.
Dr. Allen Alper: Could you tell us a bit about your capital structure.
Mr. Stuart Rogers: We have 102,000,000 shares issued right now. We have
warrants and options that are essentially in the money that have been providing some cash
to the company over the last while. There are about 18,000,000 options and warrants that
if totally exercised will add about another $9,000,000 to our treasury. Our fully diluted
is currently about 120,000,000 shares, if all the warrants and options are exercised, and
we currently have around $3.2,000,000 in the bank, which is sufficient to do the work that
we need to do this summer.
One of the things people are quite surprised to hear is that our all-in drill
costs, essentially all costs to do a drill program at our project, equate to around $250 a
meter. We've been doing work there for the last three years. We can work all year round,
summer and winter, and that's essentially our cost. A 10,000 meter program will cost us
$2.5 million Canadian dollars, and I think a lot of people are surprised with the amount
of work that we can do being a northern project, but we're very unique, because we have
the infrastructure and we're right beside the city.
Dr. Allen Alper: Excellent! That's a great position to be in to develop your
properties and explore and develop. Great! What are the primary reasons our high-net-worth
readers/investors should consider investing in TerraX Minerals?
Mr. Stuart Rogers: I think the main reason is because this is a major
district project, and it's the type of project that is of interest to the gold producers
who are obviously looking to expand their resources, or replace their resources actually,
and the source of a new project for them, for the majority of the companies, is small
companies like ourselves. So, this is the type of project that will get their attention
because of the size potential. It will also get their attention because of the results we
have had to date, the success we've had to date, and the fact that we have drilled high-
grade gold, near surface and near infrastructure. What, obviously, also makes this project
attractive is the political jurisdiction that we're in. Canada is one of the most stable
countries to work in for a mining company. Most importantly, the area that we are in is
mining friendly. The city of Yellowknife supports the diamond mines and the exploration
further to the north, so we are looking at a situation where mining is not new to the
local community. It's something they actually support, and they would like to have mines
operating near them.
I think it ticks all the boxes! It doesn't have the political risks associated with some
projects. It has a stable government. It has support from the local community. It's a
district. It has major size potential, and most importantly, we have high-grade gold.
Dr. Allen Alper: Great! That's a great position to be in. Excellent! Is there
anything else you'd like to add Stuart?
Mr. Stuart Rogers: We should have results coming out over the next few weeks
from our summer field work. I think it's going to be an exciting summer exploration
season.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds excellent! Our readers/investors should pay close
attention to your press releases, when they go to our site, to see what results you get
and how your resource develops.
https://www.terraxminerals.com/
Samuel Vella
Manager of Corporate Communications
Phone: 604-689-1749
Toll-Free: 1-855-737-2684
svella@terraxminerals.com
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