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Antioquia Gold Inc. (AGD-TSXV) |
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December 18, 2009 Issue |
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A Huge Land Position And A Management Team With Experience In Colombia Shows That Antioquia Gold Inc. Is Focused On Being A Colombian Company That Uses The Capital That Comes Through Being On The Toronto Stock Exchange Venture To Push Their Projects Forward |
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Richard Thibault, is a registered mining engineer with over 30 years of experience in engineering, operations, management and consulting experience in North and South America and is currently the President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Antioquia Gold Inc. a publicly traded company with mining interests in Colombia.
From 1996 to 2006, Mr. Thibault was based in South America where he worked in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. While based in Buenos Aires, Argentina he held the position of President of High American Gold Inc., a publicly traded junior mining company, and Managing Director of Procesadora de Boratos Argentinos S.A. (PBA), a private industrial mineral company. In Santiago, Chile he was the General Manager of the consulting firm BGC-AVOT Engineering Inc. In 2006/07, he held the position of Vice President, Minerals of Daleco Resources Corp., a United States based publicly traded company. Before moving to South America, he worked for the Canadian company, Fording Coal Ltd., in progressively responsible positions.
He is also the President and Chief Operating
Officer for the private company La Camera Inc. that is currently exploring
in Mexico. He also serves as a director of the publicly traded company
Argentex Mining Corporation. Mr. Thibault has a B.Sc. (Mining Engineering)
from Queen's University and is fluent in English, Spanish and French. Company Profile:
Antioquia Gold Inc. is a Canadian public
company which previously operated under the name High American Gold Inc.
The name change was approved by shareholders on
April 15, 2008 and the actual name change was made on July 30, 2008 at which
time a share re-organization took place and the Company acquired all of the
outstanding shares of Am-Ves Resources Inc. ("Am-Ves"). The Company's shares
are now listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol AGD.V. |
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Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFOinterviews.com, Published – December 18, 2009
Mr. Thibault: Colombia is the land of opportunity. As you know, our company has ten founders of which about seven have worked in Colombia before. I have worked there the last twelve years off and on in my consulting practice that I had before. It is a safe country now. I would not have said that ten years ago, but the government of the president, Mr. Uribe has really cleaned up the country and therefore it had been under-explored compared to other Latin countries. We just felt that with our experience there was vast opportunity there. One of our founders actually is Colombian; he used to be president of Cerromatoso and BP Colombia. Therefore, we have an inside view of the country. So we knew it was time to get in.
CEOCFO: Would you tell us about your properties in Colombia? Mr. Thibault: When we went into Colombia, there were only about a dozen mining companies in there, junior mining companies. So the timing was right, we were getting in ahead of the wave. We acquired a property in 2007 that was called the Guayabito Property. Three of the founders had gone into the country scouring around for good projects, to justify doing an IPO or an RTO. We found the Guayabito Property and we really liked it, so we made a deal with the owners. From it there was an option to acquire additional property, which we did. We also talked to our neighbors and acquired other properties to go with the Cisneros Project, which is in an old artisanal mining area. There were tunnels and people still working them and we made arrangements with the artisanal miners for them to vacate the land and work for us. From that exploration we have now gone to the point where just over a month ago, we starting drilling and we have just over 2000 meters drilled, so far in a 3000 meter program. It is pretty exciting because it is a mesothermal lode-gold deposit, which is very similar to the Red Lake area. Then where the different shear zones intersect and the veins thicken up and you get high-grade gold; we have seen as much as 86 grams, so that is our jewel there that is pushing us forward.
CEOCFO: Are
you still looking for property?
CEOCFO: With so much opportunity, how do you decide where to focus? Mr. Thibault: First off, Cisneros is our focus if you want to call it the fun center. With the other ones we are going to go through the properties and we are going to do a prioritization, not just what the geology looks like, but also where they are, and what the access is. We look at those kinds of things because the further you go away from the center the more expensive it gets. So we are going to do a prioritization and then start working down the priority. If the property has potential then it will become another Cisneros, our project area that we have now.
CEOCFO: What is the financial picture like for Antioquia Gold today? Mr. Thibault: Good! We just finished a financing that took us two weeks to put together. We show just under $3 million in the kitty, and we have warrants coming out in the next couple of months that will give us another $3 million. Money for what we are doing right now does not seem to be a problem. We had no problem raising the money with institutional investors that came in this time. From where we were a year ago, we are sitting pretty good.
CEOCFO: Is it the quality of the projects, the faith and confidence in Colombia, the management; what accounts for the success? Mr. Thibault: For the people I have been talking to and the presentations we have been giving, it is actually all three. It is the quality of the properties, the geology setting, the initial findings are good and people are investing on that. They also like the management team and the fact that we have Colombian experience. We know our way around. We have contacts throughout the country, and the management team has shown that it can operate there and find opportunities. In Colombia; there have been other companies there that you have seen in the news such as Ventana, Greystar, who have had some success there and people have said ‘wow’ we forgot all about this country and it is time to get in. Therefore, all three play a part in this.
CEOCFO: What is the time table going forward; what should people be looking for? Mr. Thibault: In the short-term, say by the end of the year to the early part of next year, we will be finishing our drilling at the Cisneros Project and releasing the results. That is what they should look forward to in the short-term. In the first part of the year, we will have started the evaluation of the other seventy or so properties and at that time, we will be releasing some of our preliminary findings similar to what we did at the Cisneros Project when we started. In the longer term, I think people can be assured that we are a long-term Colombian company; we are going to be very focused on these huge opportunities that exist. It will take a while to go through everything and I am sure we are going to get more than one opportunity.
CEOCFO: Would you tell me about you social programs and environmental studies and how that fits into the whole scenario? Mr. Thibault: That is one of the things that the management team and I feel very strongly about. It is that it was a country that had some social problems, had narco traffickers, the FARC and paramilitaries, but you have to bring to people aboard; you have to let them know. We are also in an area that has a lot of artisanal miners, so from day-one as soon as we finished with what we call recognizance work, we started the social program to understand clearly what we were dealing with, who the people were and everything. From that work, we gathered quite a bit of information. We understand quite clearly, the people are on our side, we have Town Hall meetings with them on a regular basis. It is very important and that is probably your best security because those people will watch out for you and they will tell you if there is something going on and things like that. They want a better future, so we have been doing all of our studies. One of the statistics that I keep quoting from our studies is that 50% of the people are under the age of 25 and that is phenomenal. We have been focusing on the young people for education and those kinds of items because if you think about it, to get a mine in production it takes five to seven years by the time you construct, get your permits, get your first gold out some of these people will be our workforce. These kids will be the workforce, so you have to make sure they are getting an education and that they want to stay around. We put our effort into social programs right off the bat along with the environmental studies that go hand in hand.
CEOCFO: Why should potential investors choose Antioquia out of the crowd? Mr. Thibault: We worked to distinguish ourselves from the pack, especially the ones going into Colombia. We see a lot of companies going into Colombia that haven’t made the really effort to become Colombian. One of our goals in management is we want to be a Colombian company operating in Colombia and using our Canadian expertise and the capital that comes through the Toronto Stock Exchange Venture to push this forward. We wanted to have a solid base there; because a lot of companies come in that say they are in Colombia, they have a property, but they don’t have an office or people. We have firmly entrenched ourselves. We have very good connections with the government and you need that so that they understand what you are up to and everything. Therefore, what distinguishes us is our huge land position, management experience in Colombia and the fact that we want to operate in Colombia.
CEOCFO: Final thoughts?
Mr. Thibault:
I think the future for Antioquia and Colombia are wide open. A lot of us
have worked around the world, the founders of the company have worked around
the world and you don’t see opportunities like this come up very often so we
decided to focus in and make it happen. |
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In the short-term, say by the end of the year to the early part of next year, we will be finishing our drilling at the Cisneros Project and releasing the results. That is what they should look forward to in the short-term. In the first part of the year, we will have started the evaluation of the other seventy or so properties and at that time, we will be releasing some of our preliminary findings similar to what we did at the Cisneros Project when we started. In the longer term, I think people can be assured that we are a long-term Colombian company; we are going to be very focused on these huge opportunities that exist. It will take a while to go through everything and I am sure we are going to get more than one opportunity. - Richard Thibault |
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Richard
Thibault