Outback Goldfields (TSXV:OZ,OTCQB:OZBKF,FWB:S600) CEO Chris Donaldson shared that the company is actively working on two of its four properties in Victoria, Australia.
“It's early stage exploration. We're identifying targets, but we have an active program," Donaldson said. "We're doing what's prudent right now, which is taking the time and really doing things methodically. So we're doing an extensive soil sampling program across the Ballarat West and Yeungroon projects, looking for high levels of arsenic.”
As to the role of these results, he noted, “We're looking to get some heat maps of this anomalous arsenic, which really guides us for where we should do the diamond drilling. It’s more expensive, but also goes a lot deeper.”
Donaldson spoke to the value of the area: “It’s a historic site that had a gold rush in 1850, and it kind of put Australia on the map. Miners from all around the world were mining this high-grade, nuggety gold at or near the surface, and they did very well for 70 years. Then they basically mined it out until they hit a basalt cover or they hit the water table and then they stopped. For the next 100 years, it was very difficult mining until Fosterville made a phenomenal discovery of the Swan zone. It started what they're now calling the second gold rush.”
Donaldson said that Outback Goldfields was fortunate enough to acquire properties five years ago, when mining in the Victorian goldfields began to attract renewed attention. He mentioned that the company is using monitoring techniques to “try to go below that cover and see if we can find the fluid source for that high-grade, nuggety gold.”
Speaking to the regulatory systems of modern mining in the area, Donaldson said, “It's a first-world country. They have processes in place — certainly there's bureaucracy. But it's a known bureaucracy. They might take longer than I’d like, but they permit mines, they permit drilling. So, for us, at least, it's something that you can predict.”
As for the general gold market, Donaldson stated, “The reality is, we're up to US$1,900 gold per ounce, plus or minus right now, which is much higher than it was five years ago. The good news is that these goldfields are generally higher-margin, lower-cost mining. It's a multi-year process, and this is the time that we need to be starting these projects, knowing that it's going to take a few years for them to come to fruition.”
When discussing why investors should consider Outback Goldfields, Donaldson noted, “We're exploring what we consider the perspective of the land. The Ballarat West property covers over 40,000 hectares, and there have been 17 million ounces of gold produced within 5 kilometers of the property. We're in a great neighborhood.”
Donaldson also spoke about the company's next steps for the project, as well as its finances. “We're in the target identification phase. We're about halfway through a soil program, where we've done about 650 holes of the 1,300. We'll get those results this summer, and then have some key targets that we'll start drilling on for the back half of this year — with a bit of luck and some good planning, hopefully we find something great … we didn't spend a ton of money last year after our initial raise, so we certainly have enough to fulfill the the the exploration program that we have in front of us.”
Watch the full interview of Outback Goldfields CEO Chris Donaldson above.
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