Xali Gold Corp. (TSXV:XGC) is engaged in the exploration of mineral right interests in Mexico and Peru.
The company’s growth strategy is to acquire gold and silver projects with near surface exploration potential, near-term production potential, and previous mining histories.
One of its main projects is El Oro, a district scale gold project encompassing a well-known prolific high-grade gold dominant gold-silver epithermal vein system in Mexico.
Today, we are joined by the CEO, Joey Freeze.
TMH: Joey, can you update our investor audience and Xali Gold shareholders on any recent developments at your El Oro project?
JF: Yes, of course. Thank you very much for hosting me today. We are working with Sun River Gold to get a tailings operation up and running. Permitting has been slow there but we are getting some progress. We also renewed an agreement with the municipality, which was required for the permits. Things are coming along quite nicely.
TMH: Why are things slow? Is that just the process or did the whole COVID thing put a little pause on the situation?
JF: I think it’s a multiple of things. COVID, of course, was the big one, they [Mexico] really got hit hard. What happened is a lot of their authorities basically started working one day a week for a long time. That’s really hard on your permitting process.
Further to that. I hate to say but the current government is not as keen about mining, and international miners in their country, unfortunately. I think that’s put a glitch into things as well.
TMH: The company’s subsidiary, CCM El Oro and the Municipality of El Oro, have agreed to renew both the Mexico Mine Tailings Project in El Oro, and the Tourism Agreement. Can you bring us up to speed on these agreements, and what they mean for your operations going forward?
JF: Yes, absolutely. I negotiated back in 2013 to acquire the tailings or have the access to the tailings, reprocessing them to get the gold and silver out. They’re actually sitting in the town. They’re using up land that can’t be used for building houses and they would like to. So, the negotiation was that they would get some land back that they could use, and we would get gold and silver out. We did a resource on it – it’s 120,000 ounces of gold and about 3 million ounces of silver, and some pretty nice grades. It’s kind of a cleanup operation but it’s an economic cleanup operation because it’ll produce some value, the municipality themselves get an 8% NPI and then we’ll get a 5% NPI.
Having said that, we then created a tourism agreement with them. They wanted to use one of our tunnels for tourism and that was all fine and dandy, but they have actually been using one of our shafts for tourism as well, an elevator and taken out some of our active working area. For compensation for that, we’ll get the first one and a half million from their 8% NPI. We’ll get the 5% plus the 1.5(million). There’s no 43-101 cash flow analysis on it, so I’m not allowed to give too many numbers but any case, it is fairly lucrative for us. It’s also a symbiotic relationship because we’re cleaning up their tailings, they’re getting land back that they haven’t been able to use, locals will be employed in the operation and then they’re using our existing mine infrastructure for bringing people from all over for tourism – it’s great!
TMH: Your team is in the early stages of planning a private placement, are there any details you can share at this time?
JF: We’re working on a negotiation on our Western Mexico facilities. We have a plant there that was built by Vane Minerals, and they used to have revenues of $1 to $2 million a year by processing from small mines in the area, and so that’s what we’ve been wanting to replicate. We’re working on associating with some local miners to get that up and running, and so once we have a bit more news out on that, then we’re going to launch a private placement.
TMH: What separates Xali Gold Corp. from the competition and makes your business model unique?
JF: First of all, El Oro itself produced 8-million-ounce gold equivalent. That’s huge past production for a junior to have a hundred percent of the hard rock that has sourced that, and we have the whole district and so we have a lot of potential to have similar production again. We’ve drilled a lot of holes. We’ve spent $10 million, we acquired this from Gold Corp when they were leaving Mexico and so there’s huge potential at El Oro. Plus, we have the tailings and then now we have some potential early-stage revenue from the Western Mexico Properties, the SDA Plant and next door to that is El Dorado that has very high-grade mineralization, very near surface. That would be our first project to be processing. Although, with the new association with some local miners, they also have some mineralization that you would call ore if you had feasibility study, but we don’t have the feasibility. In any case, very high-grade mineralization to be also producing some gold and silver from it. So, cash flow to support and fund our exploration at El Oro.
TMH: What’s the long-term strategy for the company moving forward?
JF: Oh, to find another 5-million-ounce gold equivalent or 8-million-ounce gold equivalent at El Oro and sell the company based on that.
TMH: Simple answer, I haven’t had one that clear and concise, that’s great – and then what’s happening with the Western Mexico mill, why is it a focus for the company? I understand that’s quite important right now.
JF: Yes. Well, Vane Minerals actually built it and they had about six different small operations that they had access to. They didn’t run it as a toll mill, but they brought material in from various locations. We’ve been approached by a couple of groups that want to partner with us on that and get some revenues going. That’s very exciting for us.
We’ve been speaking with Joey Freeze, CEO of Xali Gold Corp. I’d like once again to thank them for joining us and sharing this insightful information about their company with our Market Herald audience and investors.
Xali Gold Corp. trades on the TSX-V under the symbol XGC.
For regular updates, visit xaligold.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by The Market Herald.
