Murchison Minerals Ltd. (TSXV: MUR): Exploring and Developing Zinc-Copper in North-Central Saskatchewan; Jean-Charles Potvin, President and CEO
|
By Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, USA
on 2/18/2019
Murchison Minerals Ltd. (TSXV: MUR) is a Canadian based exploration company, focused on the exploration and development of the 100% owned Brabant-McKenzie zinc-copper project, located in north-central Saskatchewan, right next to the highway, an existing village, and power lines. We learned from Jean-Charles (JC) Potvin, President and CEO of Murchison Minerals, that they have just recently tripled their land position to 221 square kilometers and have completed an extensive airborne survey over the new claims, identifying a whole slew of very interesting new targets that they are excited to begin exploring as soon as the snow melts in May. We learned from Mr. Potvin that Rob McEwen owns 10% of Murchison.
Jean-Charles (JC) Potvin, President and CEO of Murchison Minerals at VRIC 2019
Murchison Minerals Ltd.
Dr. Allen Alper: This is Dr. Allen Alper, Editor-in-Chief of Metals News, here at VRIC 2019, interviewing Jean-Charles Potvin, who is President and CEO of Murchison Minerals. JC, Could you give our readers/investors an update on what's been going on since the last time we interviewed? Also for the benefit of the thousands of new readers/investors, who have joined us since our last interview, could you give us an overview of your Company?
JC Potvin: Yes. Hi, Allen. It's a pleasure to be interviewed for Metals News. Murchison Minerals is the renamed company, but the previous company was called Manicouagan Minerals. It was the result of a fusion of a private company and Manicouagan back in 2014. There was a share consolidation as part of this reorganization. There also was a new financing. The funds were used to advance our assets in central Saskatchewan, which is rated as the second-best place for mining in the world.
In a nutshell, the company’s assets are located in central Saskatchewan, approximately 400 kilometers north of Saskatoon or 175 kilometers north of La Ronge. The attraction of the location of the claim package is that it's right next to an existing village, right next to the highway that goes to all the uranium fields in northern Saskatchewan, right next to the power line that goes up north.
Dr. Allen Alper: That's excellent!
JC Potvin: From an infrastructure perspective, it's fantastic. The first asset was the ownership of a deposit called Brabant-Mackenzie. It's a VMS deposit that had roughly five million tons of indicated and inferred resources, about a year and a half ago. Since that time, the company did some additional drilling at Brabant and increased the resource to a total of approximately 10 million tons, of which 2.1 million tons is in the indicated category with about 10% zinc equivalent, and another 7.6 million tons at about 6.3% zinc equivalent.
Now, the deposit itself is about one kilometer from the highway. Its three kilometers to the village of Brabant Lake. But the real new twist to the story is the fact that the company has now, in the past five weeks, tripled its land position to 221 square kilometers. We have completed a 1,050-linear kilometer VTEM MAX airborne survey
that included an EM, electromagnetic survey, and magnetic. The line spacing was about 100 meters between lines. The survey covered a good portion of the new claims that were acquired in the last five or six weeks, and lo and behold, identified a whole slew of very, very interesting new targets, very, very strong EM conductors, with recorded or combined very strong magnetic signatures.
What does that mean? If you have a strong magnetic signature with a strong electrical conductor, it more than likely means it's caused by metallic minerals in the ground. Some of these targets are actually up to two or three kilometers long with a very strong magnetic signature, so this is really, really exciting to us. We have the signature of the Brabant-Mackenzie deposit, and we can see that all these other anomalies in fact are even stronger and bigger. This information has come out literally Friday a week ago, so it's brand new. We posted a revamped corporate presentation on the website for the company, MurchisonMinerals.com. For any of your readers or followers, that information is available for their perusal.
Speaking as the CEO of the company, and I'm also a geologist, I see these maps, and frankly, I get all excited. I'm very anxious for the snow to melt. Unfortunately, in central Saskatchewan, the snow melts in the latter part of May. We intend to send at least two and perhaps three teams of geologists and prospectors to go and kick the tires of every single one of these big anomalies. About three months ago, we also completed ground EM and mag surveys on three other different targets that were previously known on the original land package. The results have come back really, really positive, very strong conductors. These are concordant with sulphide mineralization that we see right on the surface, associated with these signatures. In one of these showings, we picked up some values of up to 11.5% zinc, and 1.44% copper, and 30 grams of silver or one ounce per ton, so it's really, really exciting.
In a nutshell, we have 44.2 million shares out. The company has $1 million of cash in the till. The stock is depressed, like a lot of peers, but if you do a comparison of other juniors in this sector, Murchison Minerals, trading under the symbol MUR on the TSX-V, is by far the cheapest VMS-oriented junior out there by far. We think there's some real strong upside on the story, and we'll have lots of news over the coming year. We plan to do prospecting this coming summer, and then we hope to be drilling on quite a few of these new targets come September or October. We'll have a great news flow over particularly the next year, year and a half.
Some of the shareholders in the company include Rob McEwen. Everybody knows Rob McEwen. He started Goldcorp.
Dr. Allen Alper: I just did an interview with him and published it, I guess last week.
JC Potvin: Rob owns 10% of Murchison. Another fellow out of Toronto, Don Johnson, owns 35%. There's an investment fund in Toronto that owns 10%. Out of the 44.2 million shares out, I'd say about 45% of that is actually float, so shares that trade freely. It makes for a very, very tight share structure, and certainly is well positioned for capital appreciation going forward.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds great. Is there anything else you'd like to add, Jean-Charles?
JC Potvin: I must admit, I look at these maps of these airborne surveys we just finished a few times a day, and it gets me really excited.
Dr. Allen Alper: That's great. It sounds like when you get out there this summer and start drilling, it's going to be an exciting time for you, and discovery. Could you say a few more words about your background?
JC Potvin: I'm a geologist by education. I have an MBA. I worked as a gold investment analyst. I was a top-ranked analyst for many years back in the '80s and early '90s. I left the investment business when I turned 40 and started Pangea Goldfields where we were very successful in finding a lot of gold in Peru, and Tanzania, and so on. We sold the company to Barrick in 2000 for $204 million. I was also the CEO of Tiomin Resources. We identified some big titanium mineral sand deposits in Kenya, which ultimately turned into a working operation. I've been involved in Brabant project in Saskatchewan since 2014 as a director and as the Chairman of the company. I recently came back in the saddle as President and CEO. My aim is to move the company ahead in the right direction, and build lots of value for our shareholders.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds great. It sounds like the company is in good hands with a knowledgeable leader. We’ll publish your press releases as they come out so our readers/investors can follow your progress.
https://www.murchisonminerals.com/
Jean-Charles Potvin
President and CEO
info@murchisonminerals.com
(416) 350 – 3776
|
|