Freeman Gold (FMAN) - Gold Resource Q2 & Accelerated Permitting Process

Freeman Gold is a well funded mineral exploration and development company led by an experience management team with an solid track record of building mines and selling them.

Freeman is focused on the development of its 100% owned 30 square kilometres Lemhi Gold property strategically located in mining-friendly Idaho, USA.  The shallow gold mineralization appears well oxidized and potentially amenable to open pit, heap leach mining. The Company currently has 2 diamond drill rigs turning at the project and is working towards a Maiden NI 43-101 Resource estimate, ultimately targeting a 1.5Moz to 2Moz gold deposit.

We caught up again with Will Randall, President & CEO of Freeman Gold for an update on the company since we last spoke in October.

Progress Overview Since October 2020

Freeman Gold has been advancing extremely well, hitting their plans on target since October. They completed phase-1 of the drilling programme of 7,000m in December of last year and have all the core logged, sampled, and in the assay lab. They had their first drill results out earlier this year which showed some excellent grades over some fantastic intervals close to the surface, so confirming the high-grade open-pit heap-leach nature of the Lemhi Deposit, in Idaho, USA. Freeman Gold is expecting a steady flow of drill results as they go through the assay lab, culminating in their resource estimate at the end of Q2/early Q3/21.

Drill Results Meeting Expectations & Impact of Assay Lab Delays  

The turnaround at the lab is slow, now taking around 2-months following the Covid backlog. Freeman Gold managed to get a lot of the drilling done ahead of schedule and so had the assays in the lab ahead of schedule as well. The average grade seems to be what they thought it would be and there are also a few high-grade drill results announced too. 

Drill results released from hole 6 are as expected, around 200m at just over 1g/t, which puts their deposit in the higher grade portion of these types of bulk deposits around the world. The average grade of these deposits is around 0.5g/t, 0.55g/t, so anything over 1g/t is twice that grade and by comparison higher-grade. These drill results are also close to the surface, and right from the surface they're getting 40m - 50m of 3g/t, 3.5g/t which are very significant drill results and grades. At that depth, it will be an open-pit leach mine with very low opex and very high grade which is a good combination. 

Freeman Gold has a plan with the labs to get the results turned around within this quarter to give them enough time to get the estimate done. As the results come in, there is already a block model built and they're working with a resource geologist as they go along so the resource estimate can be done quickly once final assay results are out.

Money Matters: Costs & Cash Position 

Freeman Gold has raised about USD$10M and completed the first phased drill plan. Financially, the only difference from their original plan was increasing the drill programme by 2,000m as they got an understanding of the geology and the flat-line structures that control the higher grade. They added some holes to tie off and increase the mineralisation, especially these high-grade zones close to the surface. So they are still on track and on budget as well.

Update on Metallurgy 

Freeman Gold has 3 cabinets full of historical data from the 1990s and data from 2011-2012 to sort through and had a press release on this recently. The data shows that it leaches very nicely in a heap-leach scenario and depending on crush size, recoveries are from 70% to 90% which is very good. If they decide to go more into a column, they could increase the recoveries to over 95% so they have a really good base upon which to start working from the historical data. They have drilled a met hole right through the centre of the deposit to do their own met testing. There is also a lot of core leftover from 2012 which was selected for met testing, so the plan is to use the 2012 core, optimise, and then confirm with the fresh 2020 drill core.

Where are They in the Permitting Process?

As a group, Freeman Gold likes to fast-track their assets and get them production-ready within a cycle, which is typically under 3-years, hopefully around the 2-year mark. Permitting is always the timing issue. They’ve been working hard at putting a plan in place to get permitted inside 28-months which is around 3 to 5-years ahead of if it were only on forestry land. The plan is in place and they have a wealth of data, baseline studies, hydro studies, etc. to work from so anticipate being able to get permitted inside 28-months.

Business Model & Strategy; Potential Barriers & Views on Market

Freeman Gold is definitely on track and on schedule to hit their targets of a 2-2.5Moz Resource and get into production relatively quickly. The excitement of the precious metals market has come off a bit. But Freeman Gold has a very healthy build price for a deposit of this nature which makes it a cash flow machine when they get into production. Because of the permitting advantage, the company is confident that the project will be developed early on compared to other projects. They are still on track, they have the right plan, and they acknowledge that having assets that can go into production early rather than 6Moz in a poor jurisdiction that can go into production in 10-years, are a lot more valuable. They plan to get into production quickly to get the cash flow going quickly.

It was good to have an update from Freeman Gold. We always like hearing from CEOs who say what they do and do what they say. We look forward to hearing how they’re getting on with the assay results as they come out. Freeman Gold will be having a series of press releases on drill results, the resource estimate, and then they will get drilling on phase-2 resource expansion drilling so it’s going to be a busy time for the company.

To find out more, go to Freeman Gold's website.