 All right. Well, here we are at PDAC. I'm Stephen Lawdance. I'm Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Investor Intel and I'm really lucky today to have a distinguished panel of gold companies where we're going to talk a little bit about gold, the future of gold and how the markets are looking at these days. So I introduce my panel from my right, your left. First we have Simon Ridgway, who is the President and CEO of Volcanic Gold Mines, next to him, next to me, John Contact, who is the President of West Red Lake Gold Mines as well. And on my other side we have Jim Indall, CEO of Mass Gold, and last but not least, on the end, Joe Freudman, who is the CEO of True Precious Metals. Welcome everyone, thank you very much. And maybe you can just take a very brief second just to introduce yourselves and your projects and then we'll start talking about some gold. Okay, Simon Ridgway, so our projects are being Guatemala, company's Volcanic Gold Mines. We are from the properties from Radius Gold, so we've been active in, I have been active in Guatemala for some up and on for some 15-20 years. We got some very high-grade gold, silver results over the last six months. Website VG. Hello, my name is John Contact. I'm the President of West Red Lake Gold Mines. I'm part of an experienced management team. This will be the third time that we've monetized gold exploration and development assets in Ontario. Our last project was in Timmins, Ontario, and we sold a two million ounce resource to the Q and Mining for $250 million, or $125 an ounce. Now we have the West Red Lake Project. It's in Red Lake, Ontario. There's three former mines on the property. At the Rowan Mines site we have a 1.1 million ounce inferred resource. It's 7.57 grams per ton. It was within 500 meters of surface and it's open to depth. We also are developing a second resource deposit on the property and wanting to get the property from the 1.1 million resource we're at right now to the 2 million ounce resource we had in Timmins. I'm looking for capital flows into the gold sector to revalue gold in the ground in Ontario upwards to more the level of $125 an ounce that it was at the end of the last cycle. Thank you, John. You've done this before, I can tell. Jim. I'm Jim Engdahl, CEO of Mass Gold Corp and our projects are in Saskatchewan in the LaRange Greenstone Belt area and that really is an area that's been developed over the before the turn of the century. Many deposits found several mines put into production. A lot of them didn't make it because the price of gold at that time was $300 or less but all of those gold deposits are still there and we're a company that's consolidating that and right to this point in time we have 1.1 million ounces. Our target is to be at one and a half to 2 million ounces this year by the end of the year once our drill programs are finished and results all in. With hopefully a second round going the next winter with a target of 3 million for 2023 but there's still lots of opportunity there. It's projects that have been shut in and the price of gold has only gone up about six or seven times since since they was originally attempted to be put into production and the cost hasn't gone up that much so as we talk a little bit more about the gold I think the opportunity will really show what what we have there and and what we're doing with that whole orange belt where we control half of it at this point in time right now. Thanks and Joel how's it going? How's it going at true? Joel Freudman co-founder and CEO of True Precious Metals. We have a Golden Rose project in Central Newfoundland which is our flagship project. It's sandwiched between the two largest gold deposits in Atlanta Canada. So on one side is Marathon Gold, 5 million ounces of gold. On the other side of us is a company called Matador with 840,000 ounces and we control almost all the land between those two companies. So best place to look for a gold mine right beside other gold mines. We have about 40 kilometers of strike length between the two of them. We are financed we recently did a raise and we're setting up to drill in Q3 of this year to target a new new part of the property which has never been drilled before showing very strong indications not only of gold and silver also high-grade copper based on surface samples. So certainly excited about the drilling on our property. We're earlier stage than my colleagues here. Well it's great and so we have a lot of experience here on the panel about gold. So the big question of course is end of 2015 gold was around $1,100 an ounce. Today it's upwards of $1,800. Are the juniors benefiting from that at all? We were. I mean the last couple of years have been stagnated a little bit. I think we're seeing everybody wanting to cash right now on all the markets whether it be the big Dow or the Bitcoin market or the junior gold markets. We're getting sold off. But I do think that there's a pretty good upside over the next five months for gold when the big markets fail as they are right now and people usually turn to gold to save haven after some months of selling. I think that will happen again later this year or next year. Time will tell. I can't agree with that point of view because when you look at the price of gold where it is today if it stays there for a long time I think we all know that there ain't too many deposits right now that you can't make economical at this price and the risk is I don't believe in it going down a whole lot further. I think the opportunity for that to grow and as you referred to the the cryptocurrency world collapse will is not too far around the corner I believe and that should bring back a lot of those junior millennial investors that kind of disappeared from the markets for a while but that's what we're suffering from is some things like that that we had no control on but as long as the price stays where it's at I think all of our companies will have great shots at getting to the right level. The problem that it creates though is is the financing for the projects and if you got a good shareholder base that works that still can work for you and we have that so that's that's how we're approaching life these days and we're just closing the financing to actually I think today or tomorrow. Anyone's a good one. You bet. If you look at March 2020 gold got liquidated along with everything else but it subsequently gold and precious metals like from silver really took off following the crash so you know to your point I think a similar pattern wouldn't be unexpected and we're we're talking in Canada where we're at anyway and I think sounds like everybody else here we're talking in Canadian dollars that's north of 2400 an ounce and so that that's significant when you talk about and I don't believe our dollars going to gain a whole lot of strength over the next while but you never know with the world the way it is affecting all kinds of markets that nobody can really forecast these days it's really a scramble bag of trying to figure out what is really affecting it is it the Russian Ukrainian war is it some some other factors but all of those things are certainly playing. Increasingly turning anti-mining and a number of other jurisdictions and so certainly being in a safe jurisdiction or one that's favorable to mining is a big leg up. Very much so. We've taken the approach to we're not we don't consider ourselves an explorer junior explorer we're acquiring historical resources and then upgrading them or bringing them back in and our cost of adding ounces to our balance sheet right now is in the six dollar an ounce range which is a whole lot cheaper than exploring for it but it does take a little time and the points you made on the ESG those are really critical factors and and you really got to pay attention to them but you also got to look at new technologies that that are out there these days that are starting to really show up and some are getting more tested and I think you're going to see a lot of that opportunity come into play that although it might take a little longer maybe the efficiencies also with technology might be a little better too so sometimes when I speak to you know in potential investors what I mention is to be when you're in the in the goal of business to some extent you have to be an amateur macroeconomist so some people are of course professional macroeconomist I'm an amateur macroeconomist but I think it's important if you're in the precious metal sector including the gold sector that you have that outlook because it's so the price of gold say in US dollar terms is so relative to large macroeconomic forces and I think that but I may have offer a scenario in which there may be some relief in sight for us in the gold sector and especially the exploration and development side like ourselves and that is that you know the macroeconomic story has become inflation on a global basis and I think any talk of it being transitory I don't I don't even hear the word anymore so I shouldn't say it myself but the it's here it's baked into the system it would appear and what is most important for us in the gold sector I think is what's traditionally used to fight inflation is increasing interest rates but now with an economy that's become so used to free money whether it's interest free money I should say whether it's the real estate sector or or equity markets they are very sensitive and I read this morning there's a 93% chance that the Federal Reserve Bank in the US is going to increase the federal funds rate by 75 basis points this afternoon that's essentially doubling the federal funds rate and then there's a meeting in August and one in September and anything I read from your professional economists or business people bankers executives is that there's only so much of this the economy can take so what really does happen in the bull sector historically speaking not me speaking but in prior cycles is if you have negative real interest rates nothing's more positive for the goal sector than negative real interest rate just simply taking the consumer inflation number and subtracting the the bank rate from that so we're we're in historical we're going to be in a period and we're going to be in a period of negative real interest rates and I think the real game comes on for the goal sector when central bankers around the world realized that they cannot fight inflation by the traditional method of increasing central bank interest rates and when that policy pauses or gets reversed I think it's going to take for the most of 22 for that to happen but when that happens you know I think there's going to be a people are going to realize that gold is going to provide its professional its traditional role in the financial system and and we could see a price of gold in the US dollar terms that goes back to $2,000 and looks like it's going higher and that would really be something where the not the gold companies producing companies and certainly in Canada with an 80 cent dollar more or less you know 2,000 gold runs $2,400 gold $2,500 gold becomes over $3,000 gold in Canadian dollar terms the companies get very very profitable every companies like ourselves that are exploration of development stories and don't bring blinds into production but turn them over the gold miners this bodes very well for our shareholders because eventually the gold producing companies become cash rich and asset poor and and that's when they start paying rather than $10 an ounce in the ground or 15 or 20 which is what companies are getting right now exploration development stories just historically speaking we did a deal in the last cycle in Timmins we had 2,000 ounces we sold for $250 million the property in Timmins for $250 million value transaction to McEwen mining that was a hundred twenty five dollars an ounce what stage was that? no just in a resource exploration stage only so what we've been do what we want to what we've been doing is we have a resource at Rowan it's 1.1 million ounces it's 7.57 grams per ton and it's open within 500 meters of meters of surface and it's open to depth and what we've been doing is is doing surface channel sampling to show how this could be a near producing asset on a surface mining basis and a bulk sample basis because I think what's going to be important for this cycle from an exploration development point of view is that you truly do have an economic deposit that's close to production so in the last cycle some of these and the producing companies got and you know kind of had to write down assets over this because they overpaid for assets that they said they're going to be producing in two or three years and ten years later they're not producing so you want to show it's a near producing asset no it's not there we go there you go and so that's why we're doing this sort of the not not there hasn't not been the focus not has not been the focus so I think you know whether large companies medium-sized produces all these gold companies you know when gold when gold went to two thousand dollars at the top of the last cycle and people were some people were talking three thousand four thousand five five instead of went to eleven hundred and a lot of assets had to be written down so I think the company gold co-producing companies have learned that they're well managed now they're focused on cost and if we get positive macroeconomics that has an increasing price of gold with an eighty cent Canadian dollar with the whole thing structure he sets up for positive very positive environment you know it's a long time coming with few exceptions 2016 and and 2020 it's been a gold bear market for a decade but you know for the first ten years of this century it was a positive market for six out of ten years or so so I mean it's hard to believe but there are things as gold bull markets and macroeconomics tends to lead the way and hopefully that's going to come to our side I wouldn't you know given where we are right now with the inflation story and central bankers being in a bit of a box and now they're trying to increase the bank rates but you know there's going to be an outcry relatively soon you know politicians get involved midterms election midterm elections in the US etc and I just see these policies of tightening you know being reversed and I think that becomes a green light for the gold business yeah so and that kind of leads me into the next question Jim Joel is there is there an appetite for gold right now I mean it's a double barrel question because we're actually got a lot of barrels because you've got the you've got the acquirers you've got the retail investors you've got the institutional investors you've got the people who are backing the projects it's gold for a long time cannabis was the flavor of the week sucked all the air out of the room we just saw crypto yesterday they know they reported lost 200 billion dollars of crypto value in one day yesterday and it was the flavor of the of the week for a long time is it's gold popular especially you know millennials is gold an old man investment or is it is it becoming popular again with a whole new generation talk talk fully answer this question forget about the politics just go for it the themes that would appeal to an older crowd should also appeal to a younger crowd people are looking for a hedge against you know governments kind of running money printing endlessly and making the currency worth less that's why you know people were turning to crypto as well I think gold fulfills a very similar function just has a much longer history with a more durable track record is a store of value and as you get inflation I think there's still a good case for it you know for retail investors I guess that interest seems to wax and Wayne kind of just like the gold price pumping up and down between a range but certainly on I think on an industry level yeah companies are increasingly running out of good projects and so you know that's a good longer-term value driver for you know exploration stage company like us and even other companies that are close to do resource stage or production the majors are going to run out of resources they need to replenish their resources they're obviously playing the long game and they just look to go down the chain and pick off you know whoever else is able to bring out since yeah and the and the the cryptocurrency thing was one of the factors for sure that but I think the millennials will start thinking because gold now does not have the excitement that crypto and marijuana had several months ago that kind of I think is worn off and so will they return to something that still is pretty exciting but less adrenaline rush than than a crypto currency I think they're going to understand that that's just a fuzzy scheme for the most part yeah so the bit that they probably weren't but they're going to look at they're gonna yeah they're gonna understand there's nothing behind the cryptocurrency and gold is behind currencies of the world mainly the US but and that gives it some stability and some reason for being but there's also strong demand increasing for the physical gold as well and that's going to keep I think things in balance for the most part the central banks a number of central banks have been stockpiling gold rushes increasingly using gold to back it's falling rubble that's now increasing central banks are large buyers forget people going buying little amounts of jewelry I mean there's still significant central bank demand for gold tells me that you know people in charge of monetary policy still think it has a significant value in a decade ago China was stockpiling gold yeah the biggest gold holders of the world we haven't heard a lot from them lately on the gold front so maybe they've got enough gold at this point if you could ever have enough or they're or you're just not disclosing what it is they're doing for some sort of yes they're not selling any they're consuming it all domestically but I can just speak to them on the millennial thing because it comes up so often at you know cleaning their conferences and the I think the millennials for one could say for example that for the last 10 years they've been doing the right thing in the sense that they've been buying their home of the place where they live in an increased in real estate market environment that makes a lot of sense they've been buying large tech this is tech they know and they use and they know the companies and they know the executives and they like what they're doing and they've done well in the market Apple Google Facebook and so what's wrong with the plan well the wrong that what you know there's nothing wrong with that plan for the last 10 years and the other thing on the total the goal sector in terms of return on capital basis really hasn't performed at that level so but this is rolling over I think you know we're right in the middle of it rolling over what can see how large equity markets how jittery they are the big tech is rolling over sort of real it nothing's more sensitive a real interest rates in real estate so you know so when when gold and commodities in general start to show a return on capital and appreciating equities I think the millennials a lot of which took undergraduate degrees in finance and obviously works spreadsheets very well and know how to study markets and sectors etc when they see commodities including precious metals out before me I don't think they're going to be saying well that's daddy's dirty mining project no they're going to say I can make money there and and I'm going to start out you know rotating into it here we are B-deck and just to sort of finish up and this has been incredibly unscientific but it's maybe as good a gauge as anything you've been walking the floors you've been talking people were back for the first time in a couple of years what's the sentiment on the floor about gold it's pretty optimistic I think I mean I think that's quite a usually when they're when the markets take I mean they always take a different feedback it seems okay we had one lose yesterday yeah but the the attitude that all the people I'm talking to it seems everybody's like the panel here pretty optimistic on the price going forward likewise that's what I've been hearing and again there's no reason that the prices are going to go down if they haven't gone down yet or gold price so I think the thought is positive on the upward swing and maybe significant upward swing so I think and that's what most people believe here and I think it's generally the right attitude and I've been seeing some financing as well that's always a good sign that people are prepared for some money there's some very good buys in the market today and the juniors and if you believe in it and if you're a good got some capital behind you it's a great opportunity I think right now yeah we just managed to close the financing despite the markets about a month ago we got that participation from the Sprott flow-through fund another flow-through fund as well some high net worth there are still people cutting checks in this environment into gold and they wanted to diversify their assets so it does happen greater the merit of the project more money can raise well great well thank you all for participating in the panel been very enlightening and it's great catching up with everyone so enjoy the rest of PDAC and look forward to hearing more about y'all thank you very much pleasure okay thank you very much