Victor Cantore and Kelly Malcolm, VC: President and CEO, KM: VP Exploration, AMEX
Can you give an update on Amex Exploration’s activities and milestones achieved over the past year?
KM: 2022 was a great year for Amex and we did the company's biggest-ever financing raise of C$49.6 million in February 2022, utilizing Québec’s charity flow-through structure. We did significant drilling and made the Team Zone discovery at our Perron project, something we believe will be a significant part of the future of Amex.
Can you elaborate on Amex’s flagship Perron project and the key catalysts ahead for this project?
KM: Our goal is to get a resource out as soon as possible. We have been extremely lucky in that we have been continually finding new gold and base metal deposits on the project, but we are at the point now where we would like to quantify what is in the ground.
Are you seeing investors jumping on the current lithium frenzy to the detriment of the gold industry?
VC: Amex experienced a great financing round in 2022, when the lithium frenzy had already started, and we were fortunate enough to have closed our financing early on in the year.
What makes Québec an ideal place for gold exploration?
VC: Québec is a great jurisdiction, it is geologically well endowed, there is access to capital, and the government tax incentives, such as the charity flow-through structures, which are advantageous for junior explorers.
What is going to make Amex a great story for investors in the coming months?
VC: Amex is still one of the most active gold explorers in the industry, and we will continue delivering great results from our drilling and most likely make new discoveries. We will soon deliver a resource calculation along with an economic study, and the ounces at Perron should come in extremely favorable for this economic study.
Philippe Cloutier, President and CEO, CARTIER RESOURCES
Can you give an update on Cartier Resources’ activities over the past year?
Cartier Resources is a gold exploration company focused exclusively on the Québec Abitibi Greenstone belt, and specifically around Val d'Or. We have other assets in the Windfall project area, but we are currently focused on the Chimo Mine project, which is a past-producing gold mine that we bought from a bankruptcy sale in 2013. One of the recent successes for Cartier is the consolidation of the O3 Mining East Cadillac project with our Chimo Mine project.
Can you speak to some highlights of the recent PEA?
We are looking at an underground operation on a standalone basis with a production profile of approximately 120,000 oz/y over an approximate 10-year mine life. The Capex is CAD$341 million with a post-tax NPV of CAD$388 million and IRR of 20.8 %, at a long-term conservative gold price of US$1,750/oz.
We have built a mine plan in and around the currently existing infrastructures, which biases our exploration plan, yet there is drill indicated exploration potential up to 15 kilometers from the project east and west, and thus there are upside optionality and alternatives for Cartier moving forward. Our project being sub shovel ready, with underground infrastructure, having access to infrastructure, having a qualified workforce, in a proactive fiscal environment such as Québec, if the gold price continues to increase, the impact is much more beneficial than if we had a gold project in a remote jurisdiction in a country that is politically unstable.
What will be key catalysts for Cartier in 2023?
In June due to region-wide forest fires we shut our drills down, but by that time, we had drilled 24,739 m of the 25,000 m drill program. We would have preferred to continue drilling as the project continues to show an extension of the mineralized zones east and west and at depth, but with still CAD$3 million in the bank, the forest fires raging, and the markets not paying attention, the situation is perfect for us right now as we get to take the next month or two to reengineer our corporate development and expansion strategy on the project to continue building value and reward our shareholders.