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The following is the transcript of a moderated round table discussion on Mining in British Columbia hosted by MiningMarketWatch.com .
 

Conference Call held September 5, 2003

Reproduction and excepts from this document are permitted as long as the source of the original transcript is referred to and a link or credit is given to the entire transcript found at www.miningmarketwatch.net for purposes of checking context and completeness.

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Particpants:

Mr. Tom Schroeter - P.Eng/P.Geo Senior Regional Geologist BC Ministry of Energy and Mines
Mr. Lorne Warner - Geologist/President Navasota Resources Ltd
Mr Ron Wells - Geologist/President Kamloops Exploration Group 


MiningMarketWatch Moderator (MMW): Let us begin by each of us briefly introducing ourselves and what your affiliation is with the mining industry. 

Tom Schroteter: My name is Tom Schroeter. I’m the Senior Regional Geologist with the BC Ministry of Energy and Mines.

Ron Wells: I’m Ron Wells. An independent Senior Consulting Geologist, I’ve been consulting for 12 years on projects all through North America and overseas, and I’m also President of the Kamloops Exploration Group,( KEG) which is a group of exploration geologists in the Interior region of British Columbia. Previously I was a regional geologist both in Ontario and in British Columbia for over a decade.

Lorne Warner: I am Lorne Warner, I’m a geologist and President of Navasota Resources Ltd.. I’ve worked in the past for companies such as Noranda and Placer Dome and over 12 years working throughout Canada, the States and South America. 

MMW: Lets start our discussion with a brief history of mining in British Columbia. We all know it’s been a very lucrative industry for years. Does someone want to begin by giving us a brief history of what mining means for the province of British Columbia? Tom, you’d probably be the best to answer that.

Tom Schroeter: Well, obviously it might be commodity-related, but if we look at gold, for example, the first gold was discovered back in the 1850s, on Queen Charlotte Island in 1858. BC has produced over 30 million ounces of gold. That may not sound like a large number to some folks, but the resources of gold that have been identified to date are 80 million ounces, so a big uptake, so we’re looking forward to seeing some of that come into the production side. In terms of solid mineral production, since 1836 in BC, we’ve produced over $160 billion worth of materials. So I think it’s fair to say that we’re world known for our expertise and previous mining and our expertise with people and explorers and contractors in developing mines.

MMW: Ron, do you have anything you wish to add to that?

Ron Wells: Well, the prospective, yeah, we’ve gone through a period now where the number of mines in production in the province have been on the decline for quite a few years, and now we’re down to a, even with the tremendous potential of the province, we’re down to a handful of mines right now, and it’s not a sustainable type situation. But Tom pointed out, there are all these resources out there, all this potential that hasn’t been exploited, and a lot of us in the province are keen as hell to get out there and get at it.

MMW: The property that Navasota Resources has, and Lorne maybe you can talk briefly about this, is the Cassiore property, and that’s near Cassiar, British Columbia. I understand all 3 of you gentlemen have “ walked” that property, but Lorne perhaps you can give us a brief view of what the Navasota Resources Cassiore project is all about.

Lorne Warner: Navasota’s Resources Cassiore’ project is located in north-western British Columbia, just east of Cassiar township itself, where we actually happen to have year-round access to a paved highway going right through the Cassiore area. We’re extremely ? and have resources calculated up to 1.6 million ounces of gold. It’s a project which has huge potential to expand, and we see it as one of the larger gold resources that are still to be developed in British Columbia.

MMW: I mentioned, everyone has walked that property. Tom, what was your impression of the location that the property, the services that the provincial government would offer up there that would, could possibly assist in, if in fact it was viable to produce gold from that property? You know, what’s the government’s view on assisting, let’s say, a miner like Navasota in producing?

Tom Schroter: That’s a good question and I think the answer is fairly straightforward, that with the new government on side here they’re very much pro mining, although there hasn’t been a lot out in the press that suggests that, some may say. However, I can assure folks that mining is very upfront with most of the MLA,s and any project that gets submitted for development will get all the support it can. As you can appreciate though, the government is strapped for funds, so I don’t think you’d be looking at much monetary assistance, if any. What you’d be getting is assistance in the normal things like permitting and regulations and stuff like that.

MMW: Ron, you walked that property. As an independent geologist what’s your impression of that area and property (Cassiore)?

Ron Wells: As I made out, as I did refer to previously, I’ve been all over North America, and Central and South America to a degree, and looked at a lot of properties. The 2 things that really impress me about the Cassiore’ property being – I was on the property for about a month in June and July, and spent a lot of time looking at a lot of different things, but I was impressed, number one, by the pure concentration of gold on this particular property because there are several gold zones that are known on this property already, including one past producing miners with small but high grade, which is the Taurus Gold Mine, and there are several other zones that have had no development, no real development, on them at all, and this is in a fairly small, fairly small, a few square kilometre area – maybe 10, 15 square kilometre area – with lots of indications of gold and several gold zones that are partially tested. There’s been a fair amount of previous work but none of it has been totally definitive, so there’s a lot of blue sky, lot of potential. The style of mineralization on this property has similarities with a lot of other what we call sort of ?light-related gold deposits, things like the Mother Lode down in California, multi-million ounce producers, huge producers, and there’s quite a lot of similarities between things – and Wells-Barkerville too, and its veins, both the quartz vein and the seminated-style mineralization, including some very high sulphide concentrations, and there’s a lot of positives. There’s a lot of very, things that are similar to past producers, so there’s a lot of upside here, and a lot of questions. It’s not, it’s not, there’s nothing that’s concrete or final – this thing is, it’s mainly, I would say, open, open for exploration.

MMW: Now, all 3 of you gentlemen being scientists, the geography of northern British Columbia suggests that, and from notable past claims, that this particular area may in fact be very, very attractive to producers of gold, and geologists or exploration companies. Would you agree with that?

Ron Wells: Should ask Tom!

Tom Schroeter: Oh yes, absolutely, I’m a big promoter of particularly north-western BC. You’ll see a lot of recent company in the northwest, particularly with Porphyry and Eskay Creek, which is a large red creek deposit. It’s just gearing up for a huge project, as I’m sure most of you are aware of. You asked me earlier about the government potential involvement. You may recall when the Cassiar asbestos mine was closed in the early 90s, one of the main reasons was its lack of power, they were using a lot of diesel, but the current administration is much more bullish on looking at run of river power or green power. This might have an importance to any future developments in the Cassiar area.

MMW: So, to the economics of mining, Tom let’s say, Cassiore’ property. What kind of economic benefit to the province and how does that benefit the province of British Columbia? You’ve mentioned obviously earlier some astronomical figures in terms of past mines. How do you see this one being of benefit? Are there employment opportunities? Can you touch on that, Tom?

Tom Schroter: I think it certainly is a big positive to opening up that part of the province, and along with the other advanced exploration stage ones that I’ve mentioned earlier, that all bodes very well. Also, from the social standpoint, involving potential First Nations people – it’s all a positive aspect, so it’s not just one single project I think that is going to turn the tide but a number of them, and this is certainly in the category of one of the important ones to be promoted.

MMW: Now I’m not asking you for specifically, and I’m not trying to pinpoint anything on you, Tom, but you’ve walked the property – what’s your thoughts.

Tom Schoeter: Well I really don’t have much more to add than to say what Ron and Lorne have said. I agree this is a very important style of mineralization, orogenic or ovliallite style, and Ron alluded to the Mother Lode of California, but similar style mineralization in the province include the Brailorn  Pioneer Camp, which was our largest gold producer of over 4 million ounces of gold, and there’s several other ones in that category too. So basically, the message that Ron wanted to leave with you was the blue sky or upscale potential, and that’s what’s flying any companies back to BC, I might add.

MMW: Ron, do you have anything to add?

Ron Wells: The one thing I’d add with the property is it’s not clearly high grade or low gold grade bulk tonnage type potential – it’s both right now, it could be either, it could be both, so I mean that’s a very positive feature on a property like this. When you come onto a gold property, you see potential for - you know, high grade, high grade is still king in gold, you know, the higher grade the better, but there is that potential but there is also the bulk tonnage, lower grade, large scale type potential there too.

MMW: Lorne, do you have anything you would like to add to that?

Lorne Warner: Well, what I’d like to add is that, you know, the First Nations, the Cassiar people, are just north, they have a community about 20 kilometers away. We’ve been in contact with them several times. They would really like to see the development happen in this area. They’re very positive about wanting to get a lot of their people to work, and a lot of them do have experience from the surrounding mines in the area and further north, and other features like the property itself, but the fact that mineralization is contained within altered basalts that are, that result in the ore being more of an asset consuming rather than generating price, so environmentally, that’s very positive as well.

MMW: In closing, Tom, how might a company like Navasota Resources or many of the junior companies, exploration companies, doing business in BC, how might they, best work with the government? Is there anything that they could do to assist in moving along, you know, in a fashion that would be expedited, if you will?

Tom Schroeter: Yes, that’s a good question. A number of companies are posing that now. I’d use one word – it’s called communication.
You’re better to over-communicate, pick out the people that you think you can trust or deal with, and keep them informed. I might take the opportunity, if I could right now, just to mention that some of you may be aware but the mining industry, through the Chamber and the Government, is taking the mining investment mission to London in 2 weeks to target the financial institutions in London as well as the large major companies. This is a group of 12 junior company representatives plus the Minister of Mines, the Deputy Minister, and myself, and we’ve put a lot of time and effort into this, and we had a dry run yesterday and we’re all very confident that the recovery of exploration in BC is not about to happen – we’re in it and we’re using the slogan of ‘Catch the Wave’, and we know we’re in it because we’ve got all the majors back here snooping.

Lorne Warner: The government itself has been helping us out. The work permits in the past for joint programs would take potentially 6 weeks, 2 months sometimes, to acquire. This process is much faster now. A lot of people that are in industry are really – governments that are, you know, they’re really trying to help, and things are happening at a much faster pace than they did a few years ago.

Thank you for participating 
End of call