This morning (ET), MiningIR reporter Liam Hardy (LH) spoke with Anaconda Mining’s CEO & President Dustin Angelo. You can listen to the raw interview via our new SoundCloud channel, or read the edited transcript below with some great images of Anaconda’s projects.
LH – Good morning Dustin, can you start by introducing yourself and telling us a little about Anaconda?
DA – I’ve been with the company board since 2009 and started as the CEO in September 2010 (8 years). Anaconda is a growing Atlantic gold producer, we’ve got a couple of different projects right now, our flagship project is in Newfoundland, in the Baie Verte Mining District.
LH – Can you tell us a little more about this?
DA – Of course, it’s called the Point Rousse project. We’ve been in production for about 8 years, producing roughly 15-16,000 Oz/year and for 2018 we’ll pull out around 18,000 Oz. We have full scale infrastructure there, a 1300-1400 tonne/day mill and tailings capacity for around 15 years with the construction of our new tailing facility.
We operate over around 1500 hectares at Point Rousse and we’re already mining our second major deposit there, which is around 3.5km from the mill. There’s a lot of prospective ground and we keep up continuous exploration around the local area. We plan to keep mining the area around Point Rousse
We’ve recently constructed an operating port that can accommodate panamax size vessels as part of our construction materials side project. We ‘re selling our higher quality waste rock as an aggregate product to the construction industry from this port.
LH – Do you have any other interests in Newfoundland?
DA – We have more property on the Baie Verte peninsular around Tilt Cove, in an area called the Nugget Pond Horizon, where the original 11g/t producing Nugget Pond Mine used to be. Its an area that’s hosted high grade resources and we’re looking for another Nugget Pond. At that grade, we’d be able to easily truck the ore back to our mills and utilise the facility further.
LH – Do you have more interests outside of Newfoundland?
DA – Last May 2017 we acquired a company called Orex Exploration and their Goldboro Project, a high grade project down in Nova Scotia, where we acquired 870,000Oz between measured, indicated and inferred, and it looks like it’ll expand, we were drilling on it last year, we’ve drilled 12000m in our first campaign and kicked off a second campaign this year, which is another 10km, and has proven the deposit is open in all directions. We continue to add mineralised zones, we’re hoping to update the resource soon, but, nothing has been formally added since 2017.
We published a PEA, showing the mine has robust economic potential, with low cash operating costs (per ounce) including all sustaining cash costs per ounce. We’ve submitted our environmental permitting registrations, so the process has been kicked of, we’re also in the middle of trialing bulk samples for our feasibility studies. We’re planning to get the site into production by 2012.
We’re aiming for around 50,000-60,000 Oz/year of gold production, across our projects, once Goldboro is online.
We’re looking to gain some value from other exploration areas that aren’t core to our plans right now too.
LH – You’ve brought this project all the way through from exploration to production in Newfoundland, how have you found the jurisdiction for operating?
DA – Most of our history is in Newfoundland, we’ve got very good government relations and its a very friendly mining area. When you look at the province as a whole, its got a lot of things in place to promote mining and in our local area on the Baie Verte, it’s a historic mining area so the people are accustomed to it and they like the economic activity.
I think overall as a jurisdiction its a good place to do business and they’re continuously looking at ways to be more competitive in the global market, to attract more mining investment, so, I think they’ve got the right ideas. We’re certainly moving in the right direction, which is why we’ve seen a surge of interest, new companies staking and researching and coming to Newfoundland. …Nova Scotia is newer to us, but we do see similar characteristics in the rural parts, they’re looking to support economic activities as well.
LH – You’ve been on Baie Verte for a long time now, I’ve seen you’re hosting a lot of interesting swimming competitions and other activities for the people there. Do you feel like a big part of the community?
DA – Yeah, certainly in Newfoundland, we’re a huge part of the community and we’re proud of that. We take being a responsible member of the community seriously. We have around 70 employees around Point Rousse and they’re people who live right in the small towns there, the furthest anybody commutes is around an hours drive. Giving back to the community is part of who we want to be and a big part of doing business.
On a regional scale, we try to take part in fundraising initiatives and charity projects, we’ve donated gold and time for regional development programs and we’re starting to do this in Nova Scotia too, giving back as much as we can.
There’s a much bigger First Nations community in Nova Scotia when compared to Newfoundland, so, we’re trying to be as involved as possible there. Its one of our core values.
LH – Looking at the listed mining industry on the whole, lots of Juniors are losing out, what should investors be looking out for in the markets right now?
DA – If you’re an investor, the key thing I think is to find companies, that have competent management, management that makes good use of its capital and delivers on what it says it’ll do… I think this is something we bring to the table. I think we’ve been able to execute a lot of what we set out to do, We’re generating cash-flow, launching our second project and building on our projects across the regions.
First and foremost, you need a strong management team, they’re the stewards of your capital and they need to really drive the company forward to build the value you’re expecting. I think that should always be the first stop.
…Then you need to look at good projects that have the ability to scale, their access to capital and a good tailwind comeback for gold. We think all is going to come good again.
LH – Nicely leading onto our next question about gold itself, there’s a lot of talk about it bottoming out around $USD1200, do you see it heading up or down?
DA – Obviously its a hard thing to predict, if I could I’d be sitting on a beach enjoying free drinks with umbrellas in them, if I had that kind of crystal ball! For anaconda, the gold price in CAD is in a good spot, its been higher and we’ve made more, but we’re still making money now. Being in the CAD$1500-1700 region is good for us over time, we have no complaints from that standpoint.
There’s a lot of factors around the world that impact gold pricing and as a junior company there’s not much we can do to influence that, so what we try to focus on is our costs, capital allocation and driving down of costs. So we can sustain a long term down dip in gold if we need to.
LH – Its an all round company, prepared for anything! Where’s the best place to find more about the company?
DA – We keep our website up to date and we’re all over social media, Facebook, Twitter (@Anaconda_Mining), LinkedIn. You’ll hear a lot from us, were active in the public awareness venue, regular press releases and we try to be in front of the market so nobody wonders where we’ve gone!
We’re also doing a lot of conferences this year: The Precious Metals summit in Beaver Creek, Mines & Money in Toronto, Silver & Gold summit in San Francisco, As well as PDAC & Cambridge early next year, I’m sure more will come up too.
LH – Thanks for your time Dustin, We look forward to crossing paths at one of those events.
Interview transcription was edited by Liam Hardy for ease of reading, the original is available via our SoundCloud Channel. Due to the ‘live’ nature of this recording, small errors may have been made regarding figures and production statistics, consult the Anaconda Mining WEBSITE for official news releases and data.
MiningIR.com hosts a variety of articles from a range of sources, our content, while interesting, should not be considered as formal financial advice. Always seek professional guidance and consult a range of sources before investing. This article was written at the request of MiningIR and no money changed hands for it’s publication.
