Pelangio Exploration Inc. (PX: TSX-V; OTC PINK: PGXPF): Outstanding successful team exploring large land packages on world-class gold belts in Ghana and Canada; Interview with Ingrid Hibbard, President and CEO
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By Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, USA
on 2/21/2021
Pelangio Exploration Inc. (PX: TSX-V; PGXPF: OTC PINK) is exploring large land packages on world-class gold belts in Ghana and Canada, two of the world's most favorable gold jurisdictions. In Ghana, Pelangio owns three properties: the Manfo Property, which is a camp-sized project and the site of seven near-surface gold discoveries; the Obuasi Property adjacent to AngloGold Ashanti’s prolific high-grade Obuasi Mine; and the virtually unexplored Dankran property, located adjacent to the Obuasi Property, where Pelangio recently identified significant gold in soil anomalism. We learned from Ingrid Hibbard, who is President and CEO of Pelangio Exploration, that they anticipate drilling the Dankran property in several weeks. Other plans for 2021 include drilling at the Manfo Property, both for discovery and to expand the resource. In Canada, the Company is currently focused in Ontario on its Grenfell property, located 10 km from Kirkland Lake; at its Dome West property, situated some 800 meters from the Dome Mine in Timmins; and is advancing its Hailstone property in Saskatchewan.
Pelangio Exploration
Dr. Allen Alper: This is Dr. Allen Alper, Editor-in-Chief of Metals News, interviewing Ingrid Hibbard, who is President and CEO of Pelangio Exploration. Ingrid, could you tell our readers/investors your strategy for gold exploration success?
Ingrid Hibbard: Well, yes. Our strategy is really threefold: The most important is the team that we have and the people, with the years of experience, both on the Management level and the Board level. I'm very happy to work with an amazing group of people. It's about people and the projects, which I'm sure we're going to talk about. Next it is important to talk about timing. The gold market is cyclical, and it is important to recognize the right time in the market for acquiring assets when the markets are quieter and down. This allows us to monetize them and unlock value in better markets through successful exploration. We really use our success at Detour as the model for how an exploration company should ride out market cycles. To this end we have had success with Manfo, which after acquisition we quickly made a number of discoveries and then built out a resource.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds great. Could you give our readers/investors an overview of what differentiates your Company, and the work you've been doing in Ghana and in Ontario, Canada?
Ingrid Hibbard: It really is driven by the people and the experienced team. The last time we spoke or the time before we talked about our acquisitions in Canada. We had had a few Ontario projects and we acquired a private company that came with a stable of assets. So now we have assets in Canada and Ghana, both very mining-friendly jurisdictions, with years of gold exploration and great gold endowment. The other thing that's very important to our strategy is to focus on areas where there's already been a lot of gold found, so that we know that those structures are prolific, and you're close to infrastructure, and you have mining-friendly, mining-welcoming local communities.
Dr. Allen Alper: Could you tell our readers/investors, update them on what's happening in your key projects in Ghana?
Ingrid Hibbard: Sure. I'll talk mostly about our recent acquisition Dankran and Manfo, both of which have upcoming drill programs. Dankran adjoins our Obuasi Project and the Obuasi Project, if you remember, is on the very, very prolific Ashanti belt, right next door to AngloGold Ashanti's mine, which produced 30 million ounces, and has another 30 million ounces in resources and reserves. It's a 60 million ounce plus deposit, and we are adjacent to that and on strike. Our Obuasi project covers 284 square kilometers, and we've added another 35 square kilometers onto that, again, on the Ashanti belt.
It's very exciting because it's virtually unexplored. It had been tied up in litigation for maybe 25 years. It has received no exploration attention at all in the last 25 years and very little that we know about before that, and it adjoins a small but high-grade producer. We now have just a tremendous land package of over 300 kilometers on the prolific Ashanti belt. We are just wrapping up a reconnaissance soil sampling program at Dankran and following that with some infill sampling. We anticipate, given the results that we've seen so far, that we'll be drilling there in several weeks.
Dr. Allen Alper: Oh, that sounds exciting. It sounds like 2021 will be a very exciting time for Pelangio.
Ingrid Hibbard: It is. We are very excited to get our planned drill programs underway. Our other project in Ghana is Manfo, where we have a resource of 200,000 ounces indicated and 300,000 ounces in the inferred category. After we finish working at Dankran, we will be moving over to Manfo to do a combination of some exploration drilling, looking to make another discovery, and drilling in the area of the resource, looking to expand that resource, so we expect steady work and steady news for the next five months or so coming out of Ghana.
Ingrid Hibbard: On the Canadian side last year, we completed two drill programs at our Grenfell project. The Grenfell property is about 10 kilometers from Kirkland Lake's Macassa Mine. It had had some underground exploration done years ago, in the 1930s, so we went back there. The first program was done in about March and then we followed it up again in September, October. We got some very high-grade numbers there and we're going back now and doing some modeling and planning for the next program there. Our Hailstone property is a more recent addition to our Canadian property portfolio. There has been a bit of a resurgence of activity in Saskatchewan in the La Ronge belt, and it’s getting quite exciting. Our Hailstone property is a large, 75 square kilometer land package in the La Ronge camp. We will be drilling there in the next four to six weeks.
With all of this it’s clear that 2021 is going to be a very active year for us.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, I'm really amazed at all the exploration work that Pelangio is doing in 2021 and our readers/investors should pay close attention on the results you receive.
Ingrid Hibbard: Exactly. There should be a lot of news coming out. Based on the results of that, we'll be planning the follow-up programs. I'm anticipating a great 2021. At the end of last year, we did do a raise and raised about $2.2 million, so we're in good shape to be able to start doing all this work.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, that sounds excellent! You mentioned a little bit about your Team. Could you elaborate a little bit more on your background and the Team’s?
Ingrid Hibbard: Sure. On the Ghana side, for example, Kevin Thomson is our Senior VP of Exploration and he focuses mostly on Ghana, not exclusively, but mostly in Ghana because he's done over 20 years of work in West Africa, so he has a lot of experience. He lived there for 12 years. He was Regional Exploration Manager for Newmont for a number of years, which meant he was looking at opportunities across West Africa. And then he worked with Perseus, when they were drilling out several deposits. He has a good understanding of the Country, good understanding of the geology and a good understanding of the opportunities. In fact, when we talk about Dankran, it was due to his familiarity from 20 years ago. He has been watching and waiting for that project to become available for 20 years and we were finally able to get it. When you have an experienced team, that's the kind of opportunity that can arise.
And in country we have Sam Tokornoo, who is Ghanaian. He lives there. He has a geological engineering degree and an MBA. And we always knew that having a really strong local team, whether it be in Timmins or whether it be in Ghana, is really important. And boy, has this pandemic ever showed us how important it is to have a really strong local team.
In Timmins, Kevin Filo, our VP Corporate Development, with whom I'd worked over the years, he and I teamed up when we bought the Detour Project and then subsequently we were able to re-envision it as a big open pit and spin it out to Detour Gold, and now that mine is owned by Kirkland Lake Gold. Significantly, Kevin lives in Timmins and he looks after our Ontario and Canada projects. And with that experience of 30 years in the Abitibi greenstone belt, clearly that's his expertise and it's fantastic to have somebody right on the ground there, as well.
And as you know, I'm a lawyer by training. So structuring the deal is very important to me and just the opportunities that gold exploration provides in terms of wealth generation, job creation, the ability to, hopefully, make a meaningful impact on the lives of our shareholders, our partners, our collaborators and the local communities where we work.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, that sounds excellent. It's great to have such an experienced, accomplished team, with whom you've had a working relationship. That's really excellent!
Ingrid Hibbard: Makes all the difference and it makes it even more enjoyable when you work with people that you really trust and who have the ability to make these kinds of opportunities come alive.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, that's excellent. Could you tell our readers/investors a little bit about your share and market structure?
Ingrid Hibbard: We have 70 million shares outstanding and about 32 million warrants. About 25% of that is held by insiders or people who have been Pelangio shareholders for a long time, really closely tied to the Company. So it makes for a nice float.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, that's excellent. It's nice to see that Management has skin in the game and believes in what they're doing.
Ingrid Hibbard: Well, you know what? It's easy to believe now. It was a little bit harder in 2015 and '16 when things were really tough. But that's when the real opportunities arise. So that's when we were able to, in 2018, buy the Canadian project generator and acquire some more assets. So really, a big part of our strategy always has been to acquire when times are tough and operate prudently, so you can maintain your opportunities and your assets. And then you look to work with others and have some collaboration as things improve here and as everybody starts to get excited about the gold market.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, that sounds like an excellent strategy and it has been a proven strategy for you and your team.
Ingrid Hibbard: Yes, it has. Yes, it has.
Dr. Allen Alper: Ingrid, could you tell our readers/investors the primary reasons they should consider investing in Pelangio Exploration?
Ingrid Hibbard: Well, as we started, it's about the people, the experience and the team that we've put together. And we didn't even spend a lot of time on the Board, and the Board is a truly experienced Board as well. Everybody has had 20 years of experience, either directly in the mining industry or as a lawyer serving the mining industry or as a corporate finance or accountant serving the mining industry. We have a very, very experienced Board and a group of advisors as well. We have an advisory Team that adds even more geological expertise to the Team. One is people, the other is the projects, Obuasi and Manfo in Ghana, Grenfell in Ontario, and I need to mention Dome West.
Our Dome West project in Ontario is right beside the Dome Mine owned now by Newmont, and we are 800 meters from their pit. That's an exciting project that we hope to be working on later this year as well. We have projects in proven belts, a proven Management Team, an experienced Board, the right time in the cycle in terms of the gold market and very active exploration going on in both Canada and Ghana.
Dr. Allen Alper: Oh, those sound like extremely compelling reasons to consider investing in Pelangio, Ingrid, is there anything else you'd like to add?
Ingrid Hibbard: In terms of the communities, one of the things we did during the downturn is invested in a local drilling company to help them get up and running. It's very difficult for locals, given interest rates in Ghana, to start a drilling company. So we assisted a local drilling company in finding the financing to start up, because we wanted to bring in specialized drill rigs that leave a small environmental impact. There are now two kinds of drill rigs: a Grasshopper rig, which does air core and RC, is on tracks, and has a very small footprint. In addition, there are some manned portable diamond rigs, just to reduce our impact on the nature and on the environment and on the local communities, by having less of an impact on their crops. Additionally, by helping the local company we are creating not only jobs but business opportunities.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, I'm very impressed with what you're doing and how you're growing your company and putting a great team in place, finding great projects in Ghana and also in Canada. So very impressive work, what you're doing and your team, very great strategy, great planning, both business and geological. It's great to work with suppliers, work with your community and be able to be depended on as a reliable employee, a reliable explorer.
Ingrid Hibbard: It's a win-win. Diminishing environmental impact is essential to our social license to operate and it reduces our operating costs. As well, by developing such a good relationship with the drilling company, we get slightly preferential rates. So it is a great strategy: reduce costs, low environmental impact, and support for the community’s economic development.
Dr. Allen Alper: Oh, that's excellent, Ingrid. I think you really know how to pick the right location for exploration.
Ingrid Hibbard: From the perspective of mining there is such a similarity between Canada and Ghana. They both have such a long mining history and local communities that are favorable. They understand that gold has created wealth in those communities for 100s of years. And they're both British common law countries, so they have similarities in their legal system. It makes it very easy to work in both of those countries. Oh, and one more thing. Did you know Ghana has now surpassed South Africa as the largest gold producer in Africa? Now it's the seventh largest producer of gold in all the world and look what it's created.
Dr. Allen Alper: Oh, that sounds excellent. That's great. That's a huge amount of gold. It's the right place to be. That is amazing.
Ingrid Hibbard: It is amazing.
Dr. Allen Alper: We’ll publish your press releases as they come out so our readers/investors can follow your amazing progress.
https://pelangio.com/
Ingrid Hibbard, President and CEO
Tel: 905-336-3828 / Toll-free: 1-877-746-1632 / Email: info@pelangio.com
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