White Gold CEO David D’Onofrio: High-grade Gold Discoveries in Yukon’s White Gold District

White Gold (TSXV:WGO,FWB:29W) CEO David D’Onofrio joined the Investing News Network at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference to discuss his company’s massive land position in Yukon’s prolific White Gold district, what makes the Yukon such an attractive mining jurisdiction and the number of significant high-grade discoveries the exploration team has made over the recent exploration season.

White Gold was formed in 2016 by legendary prospector Shawn Ryan. Today, the company’s land holdings account for more than 40 percent of the White Gold district, the site of both the historic and modern-day Yukon gold rushes. White Gold’s flagship project is the White Gold property, which hosts the Golden Saddle and Arc gold deposits.

Together, the deposits host 1.039 million ounces indicated at 2.26 g/t gold and 508,000 ounces inferred at 1.48 g/t gold. Other major projects in the company’s portfolio include the Hen property, which hosts the Titan gold discovery (highlight intercepts include 72.81 g/t gold over 6.09 meters, within a 32 meter zone of mineralization), and the JP Ross property, which hosts the recent high-grade Vertigo gold discovery (highlight intercepts include 11.64 g/t gold over 5.34 meters, and 4.31 g/t gold over 11.6 meters). White Gold’s major shareholders include Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX:AEM,NYSE:AEM) and Kinross Gold (TSX:K,NYSE:KGC) who each own 17.99 percent of the company.

Below is a transcript of our interview with White Gold CEO David D’Onofrio. It has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Investing News Network: What’s the name of your company, what is your ticker symbol and what market can we find you on?

White Gold CEO David D’Onofrio: We are White Gold Corporation; we’re listed on the TSX Venture exchange with ticker WGO.

INN: Tell me a little bit about White Gold. Where are you mining?

DD: White Gold is located in Yukon, Canada. We are the largest landholder in that district. Most people will know it from the historic events that happened during the turn of the century with the big gold rush, where people flocked from far and wide to stake their fortune. There was a lot of gold found in the placer creeks throughout this time. Placer gold is still being mined to this day, with over 20 million ounces of gold coming out of these creeks. Why we’re in it, why everyone’s in it, is to answer of where all this gold came from. Let’s find the source of all this gold. I think we’ve made some headway as some of our predecessors have, and we’re looking to continue that on.

INN: What has changed to make Yukon such an attractive mining district again?

DD: Yes, there are a few things. One is that it did go dormant for a long time, so it has not received modern exploration like a lot of other jurisdictions have. So, there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity there. Two is the support of the government and the First Nations. The government is currently investing over C$300 million to build and upgrade roadways throughout the Yukon, particularly in our district, that facilitate mining. The third thing, which is the most obvious, is recent exploration success. In 2010, Underworld discovered the Golden Saddle deposit, which Kinross bought for C$140 million. Around that same time, Kaminak discovered the Coffee deposit, which Goldcorp bought for over C$500 million in 2016. When you have that type of exploration success, it’s going to bring eyeballs to a district.

INN: Right in your neighborhood.

DD: In our neighborhood, exactly. We totally encompass that area. And we now own one of those assets, in fact.

INN: How has the recent action in the price of gold influenced your plans?

DD: We’re very excited about that. We believe this is a unique junior exploration company for a few reasons. Number one, we control an entire district. The ability to do that is rare. The ability to do that in a jurisdiction like Canada is even rarer. Number two is our partners. Agnico Eagle owns 20 percent of our company approximately, and so does Kinross. The third is the recent success in the underexplored nature of this area. The support of the government to facilitate mining specifically is what has really opened our eyes and is what attracts the majors to be involved. For them, they believe it’s a generational opportunity to own that type of a landmass in such a great jurisdiction that is now over 400,000 hectares or approximately 1,000,000 acres. That’s 40 percent of the district, but what we believe to be about 80 percent of the highest-profile targets in that district.

INN: The company is financially stable as well, is it not?

DD: It is. We’ve been fortunate enough to have great partners and great capital markets partners while working in a very efficient manner to manage our capital. Management are our major shareholders, so we’re very sensitive to optimizing the value of shares for ourselves, our partners and our shareholders.

INN: And you’re avoiding diluting the stock as well.

DD: That’s right. We’re going to operate in a manner that’s the least dilutive as possible. How that plays out over time, we believe this company to be a project generator hopefully for decades to come. Whether we spin out our properties or whether they’re acquired by our partners, time will tell. We had a tremendous amount of success — hopefully that’s sort of close on the docket, but it’s going to need very creative solutions to minimize dilution for sure.

INN: As a potential investor, what should I be watching for as the company moves forward? Should opportunities arise, what might they be?

DD: Yes, at this point in time the market is where you have to go find it. With my finance background, what makes me very excited about the prospects of this company are a few things. Number one is we have a high-grade surface deposit of over 1.5 million ounces. So, you can peg a value to that and you can see what that is respective to our share price and our market capitalization.

And number two, we also have a tremendous amount of upside opportunity with projects that we’ve had exploration success on recently. We’re looking to advance those and projects that have not been fully drill-tested as of yet, which can provide for a new discovery. Each season we are working in those three different buckets.

This is a brand new company. We only formed in 2016, and 2017 was our first year of operations. That’s when we bought the Golden Saddle deposit from Kinross. We took back primarily stock in our company to become the 20 percent partner along with Agnico, and we’re just looking to build the ounces there. We had a major high-grade discovery last season called the Vertigo, which we’ve diamond drilled this year, showing that it’s open at depth and along strike. We’ve also identified a number of targets along that trend that look highly prospective. We’ve also had a number of other significant high-grade discoveries, which I’m happy to get into if that’s where you want to go. At this show, that’s the first question the people always ask. We had a hole of 72 grams over 6 meters within a big magnetite body that was highly prospective. It was one of the first two drill holes ever drilled there, probably one of the best drill holes ever in the Yukon.

INN: First two drill holes?

DD: Yes.

INN: Holy smokes. What’s the plan right now?

DD: Right now we’re in our offseason. We wind up in the middle of the fall, late fall. We did have a C$13 million budget last year and were very active with preliminary exploration, geochemical, geophysical work and drilling. We’re systematic. We know we have a district. We’re not in a rush to do anything. We know we don’t need to report to raise capital, et cetera. Now we’re analyzing this data to see what the best path forward is on each of these different projects. We’ll get active again in another couple of months probably.

INN: That’s a healthy position to be in.

DD: We’ve been very fortunate on all fronts actually.

INN: What is your relationship like with First Nations in the area? 

DD: We value the First Nations as a partner of ours. From the very beginning, we’ve been wanting to work closely with them and invite them into our process and it’s been a very positive relationship. The government of the territory as well has made an effort to foster those types of relationships, which has also been very helpful in that process.

INN: It’s nice to be able to come and share such good news, isn’t it?

DD: Yes, it’s not every day, believe me. I’ve been around this for a long time and different jurisdictions have different challenges. This is the beauty of working in a jurisdiction like Canada and the Yukon where there’s a lot of other issues that you don’t have to worry about that people see across the world.

INN: Thank you very much.

DD: It was great to meet you, thanks.

This interview is sponsored by White Gold (TSXV:WGO,FWB:29W). This interview provides information that was sourced by the Investing News Network (INN) and approved by White Gold in order to help investors learn more about the company. White Gold is a client of INN. The company’s campaign fees pay for INN to create and update this interview.

INN does not provide investment advice and the information on this profile should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. INN does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company profiled.

The information contained here is for information purposes only and is not to be construed as an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of securities. Readers should conduct their own research for all information publicly available concerning the company. Prior to making any investment decision, it is recommended that readers consult directly with White Gold and seek advice from a qualified investment advisor.

This interview may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, receipt of property titles, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. The issuer relies upon litigation protection for forward-looking statements. Investing in companies comes with uncertainties as market values can fluctuate.