Treasury Metals (TSE: TML) is 15 months away from being shovel ready, according to president & CEO Martin Walter.
Walter made the assurance to investors at the company's annual general meeting on Thursday. Treasury, whose flagship Goliath Gold project is located in northern Ontario 20 kilometres east of Dryden, intends on submitting its environmental impact statement to the government by October. Walter said he expects to receive permits from the government at around this time next year.
In order to meet its operational checkpoints, Treasury has set a capital expenditure budget of $92 million and plans to raise funds by means of "non-traditional methods of financing," including debt and convertibles, as priorities ahead of issuing more stock.
Walter acknowledges the challenges facing the junior mining sector, but said Treasury is "advancing towards production."
"We have dollars coming in, rather than dollars going out," Walter said. "That's a differentiator in the junior mining business."
Indeed, investors are moving money away from South America and coming back to safer jurisdictions like Ontario, which Walter said makes Treasury "placed perfectly to take advantage of that."
Incidentally, reflecting that sentiment, an acquisition announced this morning will add 4.0 million ounces of gold reserves in Ontario. Vancouver-based New Gold (TSE: NGD), which has four producing assets in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Australia, is buyingRainy River Resources (TSE: RR) in a deal worth $310 million.
Rainy River operates an advanced-stage gold project roughly 200 kilometres south of Treasury’s Goliath. Similarly to Goliath, the Rainy River Gold project is located near existing infrastructure and has year-round road access.
This latest deal, which highlights Ontario’s significance in the mining landscape, comes on the heels of several others in the past year:Argonaut Gold’s (TSE:AR) purchase of Prodigy’s Magino project last October; Trelawney Mining’s Côté Lake project arriving into the hands of Iamgold (TSE:IMG) in June; and Osisko Mining’s (TSE:OSK) claim to the Kirkland Lake project after it acquiredQueenston Mining in December.
What's also encouraging for Treasury is that one out of every four gold projects advance to the permit process in Ontario, according to Walter. So far, Goliath is showing 1.7 million ounces; of that, 760,000 oz. is indicated and 940,000 oz. is inferred.
The C-Zone, which Treasury is developing parallel to the main section, should bring "a lot of extra ounces" into Treasury's coffers at the time production begins.
Treasury unveiled drill results last week showing near-surface intersections as high as 4.18 grams per tonne (g/t) gold in the main zone. The results also include near surface intercepts of 7.5 metres at 3.82 g/t gold from 36 metres depth, and 25 metres at 1.42 g/t gold from 152 metres depth.
The C-Zone results show intercepts of 13 metres at 0.94 g/t gold from 70.5 metres, and 8.5 metres at 1.52 g/t gold from 260 metres depth.
Treasury vows not to compromise on its high-grade "two grams-plus" gold focus.
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