Granada Gold Mine Inc. (TSX.V: GGM): Developing the Granada Gold Property Situated in the Heart of the Abitibi Greenstone Belt and Along the Prolific "Cadillac Trend". Interview with Frank Basa, President and CEO
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By Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, US
on 5/14/2018
Granada Gold Mine Inc. (TSX.V: GGM) is developing the Granada Gold Property situated in the heart of the famous Abitibi Greenstone Belt and along the prolific "Cadillac Trend". This potential high-tonnage, near-surface deposit is located 15 minutes from Rouyn-Noranda Quebec, near excellent infrastructure, airport, paved roads to the mine site, and good supply of skilled labour throughout the region. The property includes the former Granada Gold Mine, which produced more than 50,000 ounces of gold in the 1930s. We learned from of Granada Gold Mine, that they have a fairly large resource, which is a combination of open pit and underground. Plans for this year include a lot of drilling to exceed the five million ounce resource, open pit and underground combined, then prepare for a feasibility study that is due in the first quarter of next year. According to Mr. Frank Basa, President and CEO, Granada Gold Mine is positioned to increase its resource by an order of magnitude.
Granada Mine Site
Dr. Allen Alper: This is Dr. Allen Alper, Editor-in-Chief of Metals News, interviewing Frank Basa, President and CEO of Granada Gold Mine Inc. Could you give our readers/investors an overview of your company, your focus and current activities?
Mr. Frank Basa: As you know, we do have a fairly large resource right now. It's a combination of open pit and underground. Our intent is to add more to the near surface. We have permits to drill at two sites, the Aukeko which is farther east and the Austin Rouyn. Drilling these increases our potential mineralization from two kilometers to 5.5 kilometers. We start this month in May, weather permitting. We'll do trenching first, then do probably 6,000 meters of drilling at Aukeko.
We just got our permit last month for Austin Rouyn, so we haven't developed a program yet. Our intent is to do Aukeko first, trenching drilling and then to go back to our original drill target, which we started, called the Extended LONG Bars Zone. But we found something to the North early last year and called it a Genesis Project. We seem to have a fair amount of high grade gold underground and we're targeting it with the drill program 10 - 15 million tons, four to six grams a ton.
We're looking at a fair amount of drilling this year, trying to increase our resource. We'll probably exceed the five million ounces combination open pit, underground and we'll also have hired Ausenco to do our feasibility study, 80 to 100 thousand ounce per year operation only on the open pit material. Right now we're looking at only 800,000 ounces in the open pit. We do have more than that, but we did what we call constrained pit, which has about 800,000 ounces. It's about 1.2 grams per tonne.
That's basically our program. It is exploration, studies to do a feasibility study, and then see how the results turn out. We'll keep putting up a lot of drill data somewhere starting May/June probably for about 18 months.
Dr. Allen Alper: What is your timetable for the feasibility study?
Mr. Frank Basa: I think, more than likely, the feasibility study will be coming out in the first quarter of next year.
Dr. Allen Alper: Could you elaborate a bit more on your resource and where your mine is located versus other mines, to give our readers/ investors a better understanding of why your mine is so important?
Mr. Frank Basa: Well, Al, we're on the Cadillac Trend. I’m sure you know the Cadillac Trend, where all the multi-million ounce deposits are. Our next door neighbor is a Malartic Mine which was the Osisko Mine. They're about 40 miles or 65 kilometers east of us. They have like a ten million ounce deposit. I think, with this drill program, we'll probably be able to exceed the five million ounces in the combination open pit and underground. I think the majority of that five million ounces will be underground. In the drill program, we're trying to focus on extending the mineralized structure beyond the two kilometers up to 5.5 kilometers on strike. We're also looking at doing some deep drilling, which we did in the first quarter of last year and we found a lot of high grade ounces north of the two kilometer mineralized area that we had already drilled.
Dr. Allen Alper: Sounds great! I see you're also working with getting some of your material from tonnage processed. Are you building a plant?
Mr. Frank Basa: We decided to build a plant ourselves at our sister company called Canada Cobalt Works. We've hired Amec Foster Wheeler Environment and Infrastructure (Wood), a global engineering firm, to do the permitting process. The paperwork for the permits, should be completed by the end of this year. We want to source the equipment offshore. We have sourced the equipment for a 600 ton per day plant. That's another thing we want to do, what we call a rolling start. Originally, we tried to use the local mills in the area. But they couldn't treat all the tonnage we have. We have about 600 to two million tonnes of rock to process in three years' time. Nobody could take all that rock from us in that three year timeframe.
Dr. Allen Alper: Could you refresh the memories of our readers/investors on your background, your team and Board?
Mr. Frank Basa: Sure. I myself am a metallurgical engineer. I've worked in gold and silver all over the world. I worked with some of the larger mining companies globally. The majority of the people we have on board are, what I would call, "old school," they're either miners or drillers. We also have a First Nation woman on our Board. We feel it's very important to have a First Nations person on our Board of Directors. We have what we call very seasoned people. They've been doing this for 30 to 40 years, so knowledgeable, experienced and have the ability to develop the assets.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds excellent. Could you tell our readers/investors a bit about your share and capital structure?
Mr. Frank Basa: We've consolidated our stock. We have about sixty million shares out there right now. We raised about three million dollars in the last six months. We're doing small raises now. The intent is to proceed with the trenching and the drilling, and we'll do financings at higher prices. We're trying to repeat what we did originally, with this company. We took the company from a halted company to a market cap of one hundred twenty-one million in about 18 months. It was all done on drilling. We feel that we do have a property that can cause that excitement again. We're going from the original two kilometers to 5.5 kilometers on strike and we're also looking at going underground. We've never looked at underground in the past.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, that sounds excellent. What are the primary reasons our high-net-worth readers/investors should consider investing in Granada Gold Mine Inc.?
Mr. Frank Basa: We're looking at increasing our resource by an order of magnitude. We're looking at five million ounces. We might be able to exceed that. We're in a prime location, the Cadillac Trend. We're in Quebec. The potential of finding a huge deposit is very real. We've proven ourselves in the last cycle that we can find the ounces and now we're looking at increasing the ounces and we're also looking at doing the high grade ounces underground, which we've never looked at in the past. We're looking at increasing our two kilometer strike to about 5.5. We've proven in the past that we can deliver on what we say. Right now we're looking at adding ten to fifteen million tons at four to six grams of gold underground. It's a good location, good team and we expect the results will be good.
Dr. Allen Alper: Fantastic! Is there anything else you would like to add, Frank?
Mr. Frank Basa: No, that's about it. It's basically a combination of a large drill program, with a potential of a feasibility study, first or second quarter of next year. It'll be 80 to 100 thousand ounces. Depending on the drill results, you might increase that from 80 to 100 thousand ounces to above that.
Dr. Allen Alper: Sounds excellent!
https://www.granadagoldmine.com/
Frank J. Basa, P. Eng.
President and CEO
1-819-797-4144
or
Wayne Cheveldayoff
Investor Relations
416-710-2410
waynecheveldayoff@gmail.com
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