Galantas is on the hunt for gold at the Omagh project located in Northern Ireland. Please give our readers some background about your operations.
Omagh is unique in the junior exploration company sector in that we actually have a very large land package in what we consider to be prime exploration ground. We control 550km2, and to the north-east of us is Dalradian’s Curraghinalt gold deposit – a world-class asset. We’re in a major district here that hasn’t really seen a significant amount of exploration outside of work done by Dalradian.
Galantas has focused on getting our asset into production, re-mining around 20,000Koz of gold with an open pit. We raised another CAD$8M in 2021, and we brought in two significant new shareholders, Eric Sprott and Mike Gentile. And that’s now going to allow us to get the asset into production. We’re going to produce 9,000Koz this year, and around 18,000Koz next year. At the same time, we’re going to aggressively explore for more high-grade resources – this is our dual strategy.
The reason we’re unique is that we can use the cashflow from operations to explore the Joshua and the Kearney veins in the district. There aren’t many juniors out there that have prime exploration ground, particularly high grade, with production to generate cash flow and have a very tight capital structure.
Why is Northern Ireland a great place for gold exploration?
From the Carolinas in the U.S. to Newfoundland in Canada, to the island of Ireland, and up into Scotland, this was all one land mass brought together along major fault lines. The faults created pathways for ore-bearing fluids to rise up from the crust resulting in mineral-rich deposits, including gold and base metals. Northern Ireland hasn’t really seen a lot of exploration other than Dalradian, and now you’re seeing significant discoveries in Newfoundland. We believe we see something similar at Galantas. We’ve just got to drill. The drill bit will tell the truth at the end of the day.
You’ve had some great results recently from your 4,000mwhy drill programme at the Omagh project, including 17.4 g/t gold and 74.6 g/t silver over 13.1m. Please talk us through more about what you’re finding in the ground.
The last result we released was at the Joshua vein where we drilled 17g/t over a 13m intersection within a dilation zone. We believe we’re starting to be able to predict where these wider zones may occur. And that drill result demonstrated that we’re able to predict where it was. What’s also important is within that vein intersection, there’s almost nine meters of 25g/t gold, so very high grade.
What I think will be unique about Galantas is that our grade is going to be predictable and we’re not a nuggety deposit. Once we’re mining and getting the gold out of the ground, we should be able to predict the grades with some drilling. So we’re getting multiple hits anywhere from say two to three meters of 15 to 20g/t.
Northern Ireland hasn’t really seen a lot of exploration other than Dalradian
We’ve identified about 16 veins to date and very little drilling has occurred on these other than the Kearney and Joshua veins, amounting to approximately 24,000 meters. This is quite small for the half million ounces that we currently have identified. As we continue to drill and explore, we should continue to find additional veins in the near vicinity of the mine as well as when we go further afield. Our geophysics and work on the ground show that there’s a lot of gold potential here. We just need some more drilling.
You recently raised C$8M and have announced a loan agreement with Ocean Partners UK Ltd. for US$1.06M. What will you use the capital for?
With C$8M raised in 2021, we issued full warrants at C$0.40 cents. Our new shareholders participated in this raise, but we also already had a strong shareholder base with Melquart
Limited, for example, which owns about 30% of the company. So we actually raised another C$3M through the early exercise of warrants. I really want to create a company that has great exploration upside, great potential to expand resources, and great potential to generate cash flow from production, which I think we obviously have, but if we can do all that while keeping a very tight capital structure, I think shareholders are going to do quite well.
What are your plans for the rest of 2022?
This is really the first time Galantas has been firing on all cylinders; we’re getting ourselves ready for production while we’re drilling at the same time. So I think we’re going to be a catalyst-rich company. As we start to deliver our results, whether it’s production or good exploration results, the investors, if they want exposure to Galantas, are going to have to buy in the market. So for example, today where gold hit US$1,900/oz. I saw a significant amount of financing and I’m really hopeful that we can keep our capital structure tight so that we create additional value for our shareholders.
We expect that the more we drill here, we’re going to find a lot more gold. So for shareholders that are really looking for exposure to high-grade gold and at the same time, looking for cashflow, in a safe jurisdiction, I think Galantas will really fit their bill.
