Gold Mining with Alastair Still

george grombacher 0:00
Come on one level this is George G and the time is right welcome. Today’s guest is a powerful Alister, still Alister, are you ready to do this?

Alastair Still 0:18
You bet. Let’s go. Great to be here today.

george grombacher 0:21
Let’s go excited to have you on. Alastair is a CEO of gold mining Inc. He’s had over 25 years experience working with major gold miners all over the world such as Newmont Gold Corp, plaster dome, King cross gold, and Ignacio Silver Eagle. Alister excited to have you on tell us a little about your personal life’s more about your work and why you do what you do.

Alastair Still 0:45
Well, yeah, first of all, thanks very much for having me on today. Pleasure to be here. My background is as a geologist I started going to school for Geology then led me into a career in the mining business. And I was fortunate enough to take on a career that was really my my passion to be outdoors and exploring for new things, going to different parts of the world and your love for rocks and minerals. And it led me to a great a great career. So that was my passion, which I followed into my career. And now I’m working for a junior my explorer and development company called gold mining Inc, it’s an exciting time to be in that industry. And I’m hopefully able to use the experience I’ve gained working in operations and project development and in corporate development, and to develop a an extensive portfolio that gold mining has into some very significant value for our shareholders.

george grombacher 1:43
Nice. How does one how how does one discover that you have a passion for geology? Was it just as a kid, you’re always picking up rocks in the ground? Is it that simple?

Alastair Still 1:56
Well, it could be. In my case, actually, it was a family friend, both my brother and myself that we charmed with as kids, their father or his father was a geologist. And he would be off traveling to wild and exciting parts of the world and would come back with you cool rocks and souvenirs and Tales from these far off lands. And I always thought, hey, what a cool thing to do. That would be and I think that was one of my first interest in the profession. And that that that geologists, actually, who was quite a well known geologist, who would become inducted into the Canadian mining Hall of Fame. And, you know, the he sort of, I guess, inspired me early on to into that career path. Nice. Well, I

george grombacher 2:41
appreciate that. So we’re having this conversation on March the seventh, and obviously, going through a really, really tough time in the world. And a byproduct of that, is the commodity prices spiking. And you’ve obviously been a fan of gold for a long time. How are you looking at? How were you looking at gold? A month ago? And how are you thinking about it now?

Alastair Still 3:06
Well, I think, obviously, there’s been some very specific impacts on the price of gold recently. And as much as you know, the situation Ukraine has caused a dramatic rise in various commodity prices for precious metals, oil, etc. I guess first and foremost, we have to recognize that, you know, that’s a, that’s a tragedy that’s being a part of upon a part of the globe, which is impacting people globally, in a variety of different ways. And so, you know, we manage that. And we work in a world where, you know, it is a global environment. But fundamentally, I don’t think it has changed our view on precious metals, which is that we think there’s a strong demand for them, we see that demand increasing, we’ve, we’ve seen over the last 10 years that major mining companies have not been able to replace their reserves. But by their annual production rates, their their drill bit has not been able to replace that. So they’re out looking for new projects. We have a company that’s very rich and projects, we’re developing those and advancing those. So we think it’s a great situation. By having a portfolio of strong assets in a market where we think the gold price can continue to rise, even independent of the situation Ukraine, the fundamentals are there for a stronger metal price. And so I think it’s a good time to be investing in in the metals, space in particularly precious metals, which have historically been a great safe haven and protection against inflation and a go to as a as something to help, you know, steady the ship and have as a security measure and diversification in the portfolio when there are some choppier times in the markets.

george grombacher 4:49
Can I appreciate that? Why have these major miners been unable to or it’s not that they maybe have been banned unable to it’s just that They haven’t been a, they just haven’t replaced their their the the the resources, for lack of a better term.

Alastair Still 5:10
I think it really attributes to two factors. The first one was that, you know, in the last five or 10 years of a cycle, the major mining companies were really striving to be better stewards of capital and showing better financial metrics and better economic performance to their shareholders. So they could generate profits and pay out dividends. And in some cases, in many cases, actually, that came at the expense of the future. So they would cut back on exploration, focus on the near term profits, or short term gains at the expense of the long term. Future in some cases, and exploration really is a bit of a long term game. So if you’ve taken a pause or a gap, or you’ve, you’ve scaled back on expiration, it’s not something you can turn on instantly and have instant results, it can take years to catch up again. And I think that’s exactly what we’ve seen is an underfunding of exploration that’s caught up to the mining industry. And the second thing I think that’s sort of combined with that is that as resources are mined throughout the world, there’s becoming, becoming harder and harder to find. You know, it’s, you know, it’s cliche, but many of the easy deposits have been found, you know, the historical deposits for outcropping at surface, and literally, people would stumble across them, or prospectors or geologists would find them right at surface. Now, people are going to further places around the globe, deposits are getting deeper. And that really means that now people need to get smarter. There’s new technology coming into exploration, which is great in the mining industry really is adapting to the current climate conditions. They’re adapting to new standards and regulations and ESG. So that’s important to see that our industry is adapting to that. And I think technology will really be a focus going forward and finding the next major deposits.

george grombacher 7:03
How long has there been a relationship between great big mining companies that actually do the mining and junior miners, like yourself who are out looking for these new opportunities? Is that has that always been the case? Or is that?

Alastair Still 7:21
I think, yes, I think that largely has been the case where the juniors always had a role to play. And that is, you know, they were able to raise money. And really, it was a risk reward game. And they would take earlier stage projects. And you know, the potential for a higher return was there but also greater risk that they may not find anything. I would also say that more in the past, though, that some of the bigger mining companies such as you know, Placer dome was a classic Canadian and global mining company, but it was really a institutional setup where it had geologists in all corners of the globe, regional offices, exploration, geophysicist, do chemists, scattered everywhere. And again, as as things started to scale back, and people tried to focus in what were tough margins, some of the exploration got scaled back, and they got pushed down to some of the juniors, who really by almost by way of practice, they do do some of the exploration for some of the major mining companies. And I think in the last five years or so, that has started to come back, you know, the majors are in reinvesting into exploration and reinvesting into the future. So it’s, it’s really a symbiotic relationship, that it’s been there, really for, since the markets and mining really became entwined, and it’s an important part of making discoveries to go forward.

george grombacher 8:45
How important is it? where the gold is found? It seems to me that it would be really, really important and ideal to have it in a place where there’s infrastructure where there’s stability, but it could be that it’s just so valuable that if you find the right deposit, that you’ll do it anywhere.

Alastair Still 9:05
It’s a great question. And certainly, for our company, as an example, at gold mining Inc, we have focused our portfolio entirely within the Americas. It’s jurisdictions that we feel we know best we have experience working in, there’s geopolitical stability there. And we think that that counts for a lot and for our shareholders, having that comfort in those areas where we’re operating in. It doesn’t mean it’s always going to be easy, but there’s a certain familiarity or, or a rhythm to work in those regions or jurisdictions which you can have stability and, and, and continuity. However, I mean, as we know it is a global industry companies are looking further afield into different jurisdictions, where there is certainly potential for finding new discoveries and making new mines. It may be slightly higher risk, but it also comes with Some cases, you know, significant reward. So it’s a balance, our company’s chosen the more stable route focus in the Americas. But there are a number of companies who are either truly global or will focus in some higher risk jurisdictions, which, least for the time being our company’s more comfortable staying in the Americas Damn.

george grombacher 10:19
Well, that certainly intellectually may make sense. Obviously, as a company, they need to responsible the shareholders. So they’re looking at the near term, and as we were talking about earlier, but then also needing to replace those deposits. And so that that makes sense. I’ve been reading about how new technology is coming online, that we’ll be able to, I guess, do help us or help folks like you to do a better job of actually looking into the earth and in in a new way, tell me a little bit about how you how you utilize technology?

Alastair Still 10:59
Well, I think one of the the key changes that’s happened in the mining exploration space in the last couple of years has really been the introduction. And now the more prevalent use in some cases of artificial intelligence, which can be used to generate new targets and generate new discoveries. The one thing I would point towards some of that technology, though, is that it’s largely still dependent on geologists, or engineers, who are inputting the data into a system so that it can be interpreted and, and targets generated. And one might argue that the, you know, the real benefit of some of the major data collection, efforts to come up with targeting has really been the collection of data itself. And there’s an historic, you know, trove of data out there that’s been collected over decades or century plus, in some mining camps of information, many of it is still on paper drawn sections, or handwritten drill logs and making that information digitally compatible for interpretation and new modeling techniques. Not just artificial intelligence, but 3d modeling tools and techniques, really gives the geologists an extra ability to, to interpret and seek targets, which may have been overlooked in the past. You can you can look at so much more data, and consider so many new variables, where in the past you were, you’re limited to what you had available at your fingertips. It’s a it’s really a data driven world and much of the exploration work ongoing these days.

george grombacher 12:32
Yeah, well, that certainly doesn’t make sense. And, you know, take for granted a lot of the technology that that most people who are not in the mining business utilize on a daily basis, but certainly, there are just vast territories of land that I imagine, folks like you have been looking at and poring over for for generations and generations looking for gold. And so how do you take all that wonderful information, it’s probably on a piece of paper, like you’re talking about, and then actually turn it into something you can use.

Alastair Still 13:04
Exactly. And I give one example in in a past job where I was working in a mining town in northern Ontario, there was a historical mind, which was at 1.1 of the largest mines. And in the whole Western Hemisphere, the Hollander mine and Timmons, gold camp, and we found a historic trove of data there. And there were drill holes on the property that were quite literally handwritten in paper logbooks, and there was 100,000 drill logs, handwritten into logbooks, wow, oh, yeah, it’s a tremendous amount of data. So at that time, we assembled a team of data entry personnel to, to comb through that data, put it into a digital world, and then we could interpret it and put a new resource in a new new mining shape on it, because technology has changed from, you know, the turn of the previous century, where, you know, it was, you know, classic, you know, underground tunnel and, and drill and blast mining into, you know, many of the large scale mining methods that exist today. So, it was, you know, an effort where you could mined the data, as was the first step before you could mine the goal just to mine the data. So,

george grombacher 14:18
your competition, I imagine that there are are quite a few gold miners out there. What is it that that’s that’s differentiate differentiating you from from the others?

Alastair Still 14:30
It’s a great question and one that we do get asked frequently. And I think there’s there’s, there’s two key parts of our company that really I think, do set us apart from some of our, some of our peers. And that is the first of all is the is the assets and the assets to me are your physical assets and your people. I think we have a strong and experienced team that have been with the company in some cases, our chairman and founder since day one. He stuck with the company. He created it, he hasn’t sold a single share. So he’s a long term holder. That’s a mere nania, a tremendous entrepreneur, who has also created several other mining companies. So we have a great team of people that we work with. And then it’s the the assets that we have. We have, you know, 11 projects throughout the Americas with mineral resources on them, some 16 million gold equivalent ounces and the measured in indicated category and a further 16 million gold equivalent ounces in inferred category. And even without knowing all the differences between measured indicated inferred and different categories, that’s an awful lot of gold resource. 32 million ounces is way above the limits most junior miners would have in our in our book. So that’s a tremendous resource. And the other thing that’s important within that is that it’s not a single entity company. So we have diversity in the portfolio, we’re not sole source on one project, which can be you know, boom or bust we have different projects will advance that spreads the risk and gives us greater opportunity for success. And as well, it’s not just gold, we have significant copper resources as well. And the copper occurs with our gold deposits, we have some 2.7 billion pounds of copper and our resources, there’s a little silver as well and 27 million ounces of silver. So So diversification, the portfolio diversification the metals. And to top it all off, we have a tremendous balance sheet. And many junior mining companies for kind of be a hand to mouth process of you know, they raise a bit of money spend it raise a bit of money, I think our company has shown that we were taking a different approach more of a long term approach. The last time we did a major public raise was in 2016. So we’ve been very efficient with our capital and not having to dilute our shareholders. And one great example of how we were able to do that. Last year, we created a new company called Gold royalty Corp. And that was created by writing royalties on our existing portfolio, putting that into a new vehicle and launching it as an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. And today our company holds 20 million shares in that company, it’s worth approximately $100 million Canadian dollars anyway, but 80 million US dollars as of today’s date. And that’s that’s a real boost that many companies don’t have is to have such a strong balance sheet, combined with such strong assets as well.

george grombacher 17:20
Yeah, I know from what mild experience I have with mine and junior miners is the majority are as you described, sort of hand to mouth and run out of money and need to go sell or sell shares or give shares away for for more capital. And then they spend that and it’s sort of like a dog chasing its tail. So that’s, that’s, that’s excellent. And certainly good foresight on your part to be able to be able to go with that gold royalty Corp. I love it. Well, Alster, people are ready for that difference making tip, what do you have for them?

Alastair Still 17:56
Well, I guess it started with how you you asked, the first question today is, you know, why do you do what you do? And for me, it was all about your passion of wanting to do something. And I think if you have the passion to do something, do it well, you know, commit yourself to it and go all in. I think that’s, you know, kind of a key key lesson for me. And I think that’s key for our company, we’ve we’ve been committed to acquiring assets, now we’re going to advance those projects we’re in for the long term, it’s not a short term flip. For us, it’s a long term game, we’re showing real growth over time. And I think that’s the same thing people need to approach their careers with, get a passion for something go all in. And at the same time, you’re doing that don’t be afraid to try new things. You know, for me, I had, you know, very stable job in a classic mining town in northern Ontario, I’d had my kids born and raised there. And, you know, I probably could have stayed my career there. But I wanted to try new things I, I ventured out to a role on the corporate side of things to try and look at the corporate development side. And that led to an opportunity to go to to build a mine in southern Argentina, in Patagonia, and that that turned into an a three and a half year adventure, into a boat as far away as I could travel from my house, learn a new language. See some amazing people learn a new culture. And I think it’s those kind of experiences that you add to your passion, you add to your not just your resume, but your life experiences that make you better adapted, stronger person, and more experienced and that much more adept to to recognize people’s talent, and also the talent of opportunities within assets that may present themselves to them. So take something on with a passion, you know, go all in with it. And don’t be afraid to step outside the comfort zone to learn new things as you advance yourself.

george grombacher 19:52
Well, I think that is great stuff that definitely gets a come. How’s that? Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you and How can they engage with you and gold mining Inc?

Alastair Still 20:03
Well we currently trade on the New York Stock Exchange American under the symbol G LDG. We’re also on the Toronto Stock Exchange very easy ticker symbol G O LD gold, and people can find a lot of information or sign up for newsletters on our website www.goldmining.com

george grombacher 20:25
Excellent. If you enjoyed this much as I did show Allaster your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to gold mining calm. That is quite a website address right there, Alastair? And you can find them on the New York Stock Exchange under g L. D. G, and the Toronto TSX. Stock Exchange under g o l. D. Pretty easy to find. excon Allister.

Alastair Still 20:52
Yeah. Thanks for having me on. I look forward to speaking again in the future. George,

george grombacher 20:56
likewise. And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai