#108: GoldMining Inc.: Investing in the Gold Sector
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Stitcher | Spotify
Want to grab the transcript of this interview? Click here!
Welcome back to another episode of the richer geek Podcast. Today. We're excited to have Alastair Still, he's the Chief Executive Officer of the mining company, which is called GoldMining Inc. He's a mining industry professional with over 25 years of experience, including working for major gold miners such as Newmont Gold Corp, place or dome and Kinross Gold. He's worked within Canada and internationally in a variety of leadership roles, including corporate project development, mine operations, and he spent over 10 years in corporate development, having served as Director of Corporate development with Newmont Corp. And recently as Executive Vice President, Chief Development Officer for GoldMining.
In this episode, we’re discussing…
[2:58] How his experience was developed originally from a love of rocks and to travel and be outdoors and all about geologists can do
[4:46] At what stage of the process they are. Are they the ones that extract?
[6:54] Two key phases that the life of a mining project goes through
[9:17] If his Company plans of making a shift in the future, due the world’s leaders and the politicians are pushing for copper
[12:59] Difference between other metals like uranium, to create atomic energy vs. geopolitical instability and having another asset like gold
[13:40] Stability with his mining industry and political movements vs. inflation and profitable of the mining assets
[16:36] How does the health crisis (COVID-19) affect the mining industry
[21:53] You can subscribe for free on the webpage and get alerts and news when you sign up
[23:52] GoldMining Inc. is one of the few golds junior companies that trade on the New York Stock Exchange
[25:17] One of their shareholders is BlackRock, when gold rallies, the stock performs much better than the spot price!
Resources from Alastair
+ Read the transcript
Mike Stohler
What if you could be doing something smarter with your money that creates income. Now, if you're wanting to get ahead financially, and enjoy greater freedom of choice, if you want a comfortable retirement, and you know you'll have more choices, if you can do more with your money. Now, if you've wondered who else is creating ways to make their money work for them, and you want actionable ideas, with honest pros and cons, and no fluff. Welcome to the richer geek podcast. We're here helping people find creative ways to build wealth and financial freedom. I'm Mike Stoller, and in this podcast, you'll hear from others who are already doing these things and learn how you can too.
Alright, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the richer geek Podcast. Today. We're excited to have Alastair Still, he's the Chief Executive Officer of the mining company, which is called gold mining Inc. He's a mining industry professional with over 25 years experience, including working for major gold miners such as Newmont Gold Corp, place or dome and Kinross gold. He's worked within Canada and internationally in a variety of leadership roles, including corporate project development, mine operations, and he spent over 10 years in corporate development, having served as director corporate development with Newmont Corp. And recently as executive vice president, Chief Development Officer for gold mining. How're you doing, Alastair?
Alastair Still
I'm doing great. Thanks very much for the introduction. Happy to be here today.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, that's that's a lot of big titles, a lot of great corporations. So a little bit of background. Why mining? You know, it seems like that's you've been doing it for a long time.
Alastair Still
I haven't been doing it for a long time. And it's, it's one of those professions that really started as a passion when I was when I was a young, a young lad actually wanted to get into geology, we had a friend that my brother and I jumped around with his father was a geologist and was frequently off traveling the world, he'd come back with neat rocks to show and great tales to tell. And I thought, Hey, that sounds like a pretty cool thing to do. So I went to school to train to be a geologist and started working for a mining company, I started at the operational level and worked my way into the corporate level in corporate development, doing m&a and even a few years down in South America on the project development as project director, so a good broad experience has developed from really what was originally a love of rocks and trying to travel and be outdoors and all the fun things that geologists can do.
Mike Stohler
You know, it's, it's funny that you say love of rocks, because it's, as I've traveled, and, you know, I have a house in northern Arizona, where there's just a lot of different rocks. And you always see these people on the side of the roads, you know, are up in the hills, and they're just all looking for rocks. And I'm like, Oh, what do you guys doing? And they call themselves rock pounders here in America, and I'm like, Okay, what are you you're hounding rocks. What is that? Well, you know, each region east, Each place has all these wonderful different types of, of rock. So I can see that just going through my property, you see all all these different colors, and all these different purples and reds and, and some very interesting rocks, so I can see how fun it would be because I'm like, wow, what is that? And I take it back to someone it's like, that's called a skirt or shirt or something. Like it's nothing, you know, it's like, well look nice, you know, but it's, it was nothing. But there are some other really nice things led God up there and things like that. So I can see how it's cool just kind of look down and see all these different pretty rocks and and wonder what they are.
Alastair Still
But it's not just the rocks of the minerals themselves. Often it's you know, the fun of the hunt as well. It's like, a lot of hobbies, or people or you know, amateur collectors, they want to find something better for their collection of you know, better specimen or one for every location where these type of rocks are known from and, and tips can lead on some pretty fun adventures. Yeah, and really, those people looking to rock cut the side of the road, they're not doing it to for money, but you extrapolate that to a broader scale. It's kind of what we do as a company looking for assets that can create value and wealth.
Mike Stohler
Now, with your company, do they? It's called gold mining Inc. So our, what stage of the process do they do? Are they the ones that extract
Alastair Still
this Great question. At this stage, we're not an operator. What we do have, though, is a very extensive portfolio of assets, which are at the resort stage, we have some 16 million ounces in category of a formal classification called Measured and Indicated resources. And we have a further 16 million, these are gold equivalent ounces in an inferred category. So combined, that's more than 30 million gold equivalent ounces, as resources that we publicly report as a company, those are on 11 different projects, and they're all throughout the Americas. So we would like to stay in a nice north south jurisdiction in areas where we can certainly help minimize our geopolitical risk. So we're stable. We're in Canada, we've got projects in the US, we have Colombia, and Brazil, and one project in Peru as well. So all well known mining jurisdictions, these are resource stage projects, which really, we've accumulated over a number of years. And now we're starting to daylight devalue to do additional studies, further work to advance them to the next stages of more detailed study, eventually, to development, eventually to production.
Mike Stohler
We've had some mining companies on on the podcast before. So I'm just trying to get kind of a linear explanation of the different processes. When people think of copper mining, gold mining, uranium mining, they're thinking about these big holes in the ground, and they're just grabbing it. So you have, like in Canada, where you're at, you have these specific mining jurisdictions, right. And then some people go, there's companies out there that all they do is drill holes, bring it up, and see if there's, there's stuff.
Alastair Still
Well, exactly, and it's really a couple of key phases or stages that the life of a mining project will go through. And the first stage really is exploration. And there's different stages of exploration, that's really well you're on the hunt for finding something which you hope to define to make economic and you have the early stage explorers, those with higher risk, but they have maybe argue have a greater return because they're starting earlier, they're looking for things that are less well known and, and in areas that may be new for exploration, and we call that you know, greenfields exploration, and then you can have brownfields exploration, which may be closer to past producing mines, where you have a better indication of minerals haven't been there before. And that's more advanced exploration. And that Advanced Exploration can take place, you know, in in new projects, or Long's alongside past producing projects, then, after exploration, really, you're into a phase of development, where you're doing a series of studies, you generally start with a preliminary economic assessment advancing to pre feasibility, then feasibility, for permitting and consultation.
And then through development, and eventually sort of the end product really, after generally, many years of hard work and through each successive stage or into the production phase. And really, they're still after all these years in mining, there's still two primary types of mining, you have underground mining, and you have open pit or surface mining. And it can be for specific metals, individual metals, or deposits that can host multiple metals are, our particular company has focused on gold, over 80% of the commodity exposure we have is through those 32 million gold equivalent ounces. But but close to 20% of that exposure does come through copper. And we have copper, which occurs as a byproduct in the resources at a couple of our projects. And that's a significant byproduct these days, because the copper prices, you and your listeners will know has been steadily rising, there's a high demand for it. And as there's been a push for a greener economy, it's not just batteries that are in demand and the cars that go with them. But it's infrastructure, the power grid, the power lines that are going going to be needed to charge these vehicles. So there's been a big demand for copper, which has really kept the price high, which helps us as a as an additional source of revenue when we evaluate the gold resources that we have.
Mike Stohler
Now, do you see your company maybe making a shift? You know, I know gold is the standard. But do you see as the world's leaders and the politicians are pushing for that copper? Do you see you guys maybe making a shift or maybe sometime in the future? Are you are you going to kind of stick with gold? You know, I've always wanted to ask that question. If you're kind of seeing well. Everybody wants copper right now.
Alastair Still
Well, I mean, I think I like to stick with what we do know best and what we do know best is gold and there are companies who will chase what I would call you know the flavor of the month and all this stuff. lithium is hot or next year, it could be some other metal that comes into a new battery. And, and that's fine that can create value. But I think our, our expertise, expertise and our strength is what we know best. And that isn't gold and And fortunate for us is that several types of major gold type systems which host gold deposits also contain copper, and we have a couple of large projects that do contain copper. So I think it's an added benefit to us we, you know, as a side note to that of the of the resources we do have, there's, there's over 2.2, more than 2.5 billion pounds of copper in that resource that makes our gold equivalent resource. And there's also some significant component of silver. But because silver prices are so much lower than gold, it has a less, less significant impact on the total value of the resource.
But there's often silver occurring as a byproduct on our assets as well. I would point out one, one additional metal that we do have, which is kind of unknown. For people who don't know, our company well and wouldn't be certainly very unusual for a company like ours is that we do actually have a uranium project. And it's not a core project for us. But it's one that came from an earlier transaction. And it's a very large land package in the Athabasca basin of Alberta and Canada, which is a very well known uranium producing region across Alberta. And Saskatchewan is very well known for producing uranium, in fact, mines in that region have have up to 100 times the global global average of uranium mines across the world.
So very important source of uranium and uranium has been very, very done very well in the market. And the last couple of years, and the price has been positive. But But what we like to point out is that the current uranium prices are still only about 1/3 of their all time high. So there's still room for uranium to grow. And that project that we have, which is 125,000 hectares, which is a huge land package, very prospective ground that would make, you know, a nice standalone uranium company all by itself. So for me, it's kind of like a free option for our shareholders. So you know, that may be something we turn into a new CO or spin CO we see other companies exploring in that region with 50 or $100 million market caps with much smaller land packages, much less perspective ground. And here we have a project sitting in our portfolio waiting to be advanced.
Mike Stohler
This fascinating it's last night, I was actually watching a documentary on it was on atomic energy. And they were talking about uranium. And I didn't know that there's all these different grades of uranium. And they're like, Well, you can only use this type and this purity levels, if you want to create, you know, atomic energy. But then there's all these different other different grades that you can use for different things. It was just something was fascinating to me that I thought uranium is uranium.
Alastair Still
Yeah, no. And it's interesting metal because, you know, there's, there's, there's been a lot of talk and you're certainly your, your listeners will know about some of the geopolitical instability we see in the world these days. And having assets like that, whether they be in gold, or copper, or even uranium, having them in jurisdictions like Canada, in the US and throughout the Americas. And that's a real strength to have these days, it takes away some of that uncertainty that companies who may be operating in further places in the world, which may be in the news for the wrong reasons. These days, you're having a bit more, a little more stress because of that lately. It's great to have that stability and knowing where our projects are
Mike Stohler
now talking about stability with your mining industry. And again, it's gold mining, Inc. When we talk about the different living political movements, and inflation, how does you know I always know like when when the dollar goes down, gold goes up. And are you seeing this now? It is a two part question is, as you're seeing, is it true as inflation goes up as the dollars decrease? Do your mining assets are the more profitable? And then the second one is something that happened like during COVID-19 era as far as profits, budgets? How did that specifically gold How did that fare? So you have the other thing, which is more political and the other thing is as a health crisis? How does that affect the mining industry?
Alastair Still
Well, I think in general, particularly look at sort of the global economy, and how inflation is very much real and like myself or yourself or any of your listeners, go to the grocery store or go to the gasoline pumps. I mean, inflation is realized It's significant right now. And we're feeling the pinch on that. And there's, you know, pretty solid evidence to show that, you know, when inflation is high, and we have times of uncertainty in the economy, people want to, you know, safety or assurity, something that's performed well, in those troubling times. And historically, precious metals, and gold in particular has done very well. So I think, fundamentally, if we take those lessons from the past, and gold has been a source of hedge against inflation and a store of value, for millennia, it has stood the test of time, you can't create it, you can't destroy it, there's only an infinite or finite amount, excuse me, it's been ever been placed on this planet, and it's getting harder and harder to find. So that does now create value, when you find it, it's a great store of value. So I think in these uncertain times, that we're seeing with inflation and interest rates, I think people are turning back to gold. And I think the fundamentals are sound, that that's going to keep the price of metal at current levels, or even driving higher. I mean, we're, we're seeing prices that we haven't seen in quite some time, which is very positive, but I think there's lots of room to grow there. And we've seen prices today, the gold price is over 1900 US dollars per ounce, most of r&d economics are run at $1,600 per ounce. So there's already you know, extra margin and profit built in there. And because we have such a large resource base, we have an incredible leverage the price of gold. So that's that's solid, a company like ours, the big resource, that's, that's a great foundation to build upon, I think its strength in these uncertain times.
As for the second part of the question related to COVID, it's another situation where the mining companies like the rest of the world have had to adapt, and, and, you know, to, to be thriving in these times. And to survive, you know, we have to assess every situation a little differently. But I would say in general, the mining industry, particularly those who operate in, you know, first world countries by major operating companies, have actually survived quite well. And I think one of the reasons they have been able to manage through uncertain times is that they have made tremendous steps in the last generation or so of improving health and safety measures and methods that keep the worker safe. They've been able to keep people working and not spread it amongst the workforces. So the last thing we want is someone coming to work and picking up COVID and taking home to their families. And particularly when some of these mining camps are in remote areas, and in sensitive areas where there's indigenous communities who don't have the same access to health care.
So people have been very diligent and very thorough in their attention to managing through the crisis and actually have survived quite well. And I think that's a testimony to the operators. But I think what it also shows is that as those major mining companies have, have worked through those times, they're actually showing that their reserves have been declining. So they haven't been replacing their reserves, even without the COVID. The COVID. On top of that, when there have been shortages of workers, it's it's it's magnifying situation showing there's a sort of shortage of resources, and that makes companies like ours, which have a large inventory of projects that much more attractive to major mining companies who may be looking for new projects to put into their pipeline to advance quicker through the development into production. So it's it's a, it's a big, big cycle we're part of, but I think the mining company has been showing that it's, you know, it's well established and set for, you know, there's some historical stereotypes people have about mining, but it's really quite a modern and efficient business these days.
Mike Stohler
You know, well, the stereotype leads into one of the other questions is, what kind of pushback, if any, did you get locally or regionally from those that are against mining? You know, are you seeing that how are you handling it? There's, there's, it's kind of funny, it's, there's a certain group of people that love green. But oh, my God, how do you mind that? Well, you can't have you can't have your cake and your ice, you know, you can't have you need both. You can't have one or the other. And I think that's just one of the big things is like, Look, if you want a more green economy, green world, you still have to have these minerals in these assets. And you can't have one without the other. Are you seeing any pushback from from type of people or I think in you're probably creating so many jobs locally that people in these mining jurisdictions that people love it, but you get any pushback?
Alastair Still
Well, I think it's it's certainly one of the key issues for any either an exploration company developed an operating company, it's really the, the social issues that surround projects. And I think, you know, what we've clearly learned is that the sort of the past approach, though, we're creating jobs, so it must be good for the local people, that really just doesn't cut it. I mean, there's so many more angles to, to investigate and protecting the environment and the local culture and the indigenous people who are, who are have been living there for for millennia. So I think it's a much more complicated process, these days, there's a lot more diligence, put it into the efforts to engage your stakeholders. And you have to realize that, you know, at the end of the day, you're not going to get everybody on board, but you have to get enough people that you can have support, then it's really the local support that will make a project succeed or fail, you know, the mining company can be the catalyst and introduce the project and introduce it well, but it has to be accepted by the communities, or they simply won't, won't move forward.
And what we have seen is that we run into and not specifically our group, but in general mining will run to groups where people are anti mining and, and I think that's a it's a tough position to take. Because, as you point out, there's so many facets that we we require on for our daily lives, you know, from our cell phones, to our cars, or the bus or our television, our homes. You know, it all comes from a product of mining and even the future of green energy, whether it'd be batteries, or wind turbines, it's all coming from products that are mined. And my view has always been I would rather see mining done at a responsible level with companies who are engaged in doing it responsibly and with the strictest adherence to engaging the local stakeholders, then, you know, trying just to say no, and pushing it to someplace where you may not know where it's occurring anymore, and who knows what's happening and what damage is being done. So I think it has to be the right balance and certainly the right engagement with local stakeholders to to find a balance that works for for all parties.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, very well said. And you know, for anyone that wants more news on specifically gold mining Inc, but also the the industry, gold mining Inc has a website which is gL DG news.com. And if I get this right, they can you can subscribe for free, get alerts, you know what kind of alerts or what kind of news? What's some of the information that our listeners can get when they sign up for that?
Alastair Still
Yeah, we update regularly with our project status. Various, you know, we engage in exploration programs and in general news flow. We have also a general website, www dot goldmining. Calm, easy to reference, we're listed on the US NYSC, the ticker symbol G L. DG. We're also on the Toronto Stock Exchange, very easy ticker symbol here, GE o LD gold. So that's an easy one to remember. But, you know, our news alerts are very important. And, you know, even this week, we had two important news out the beginning of the week, we launched a new subsidiary, called us gold mining Inc. and the prime focus of that vehicle will be to advance our Whistler project, which is in Alaska. It's over, it's almost nine 9.5 million gold equivalent ounces, which copper and gold in. But 100 miles from Anchorage and Alaska, gold and copper exciting resource base project that has not seen any expiration and almost seven years now. We've developed some new ideas, we have a new team, we have a camp that we can be resurrecting there. And we're pretty excited about going back and, you know, starting some work to to define that value in a project which has largely been dormant and been underappreciated for a number of years and can be can be surfaced with a with some work we have planned.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, it's very cool. And you know, gold mining Inc is one of the few gold Junior companies that actually trade on the New York Stock Exchange, which is very nice.
Alastair Still
We also have the added advantage. We're one of the few juniors where we have a incredibly strong balance sheet, we spun out a project last year a new company called Gold royalty Corp. Yeah, we have now 20 million shares in that company and that contributes to a balance sheet which has over $100 million on it. Cash and securities it's over $100 million for a company that's trading at less than $300 million market cap so strong balance sheet and actually those shares in gold royalty or even generating dividend income this year be almost a million dollars in dividend income. Oh wow. So that'll help us with our own project work and starting to explore these properties yourself. So strong balance sheet with dividend income with a tremendous resource base of 32 million gold equivalent ounces is really quite a quite a you know, story that sets us apart from most of our peers.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, cuz I mean, I, if I get this right then that means like if you if you have that many Shares of the royalty company. And that's what you said, like almost half your current market cap, then that actually brings down the gold resource as the per ounce is lowered.
Alastair Still
Exactly, if you look at an enterprise value, which is basically our market cash, or market cap less cash and securities. So an enterprise value per resource ounce is not far off $5 per ounce, which is it's unheard of most of our peers would trade at 20 30 40 $50 per ounce. So, you know, it doesn't take much to see a little leverage there, in as we advance our stories and the gold price, and moving from $5 to 2030 40 50 EV per ounce. There's a tremendous upside for our shareholders there.
Mike Stohler
And ladies and gentlemen, one of the shareholders is BlackRock, I know all of you have heard of them. So if they believe in this company, then I think you should too. Now, here's question when I think historically, when gold rallies, the stock performs much better than the spot price. And that's what us as investors, that means amazing leverage.
Alastair Still
Exactly, yes.
Mike Stohler
What do you attribute? Why is that? Do you think?
Alastair Still
Well, I think it's it just goes back to the fundamentals of having a very large resource base, small change in the price of gold can be magnified and amplified, the margins will create on the projects and the development of those assets. And we've seen that in the past, when gold has rallied, gold mining has done extremely well. We're seeing that again. Now. This year, year to date, we're up over 50% of the time, we recorded this and year to date. So we've been performing very well year to date. That's in combination to a little bit in the rally in the metals. But also, as we're advancing our projects, we had a new preliminary economic assessment out on one of our projects in Colombia earlier this year, a short very short, very strong, positive economics. You know, the recent announcement of creating gold mining our US gold mine, excuse me, that's strong advancement of another one of our core projects. And we're currently advancing a PGA study on our son George project in Brazil as well. So some very positive news, combined with a strong gold price has really started to add torque to our price. And as you say, it's great leverage to our investors who've benefited very well this year.
Mike Stohler
Do you think that's the most exciting catalyst for gold mining? Inc? You know, in your opinion, is it?
Alastair Still
Well, I would, I would say, you know, as catalysts, the metal price is nice, but Yeah, unfortunately, I can't control what I can control is what we do with our assets and how we advance them. So that's what I get excited about. The gold price moving is a bonus. It's kind of like the starter fuel to this, you know, you know, high performance engine, we have just, you know, starting to take shape here. And as we, you know, spark up each cylinder in this engine and add a little extra with octane with the price of gold. It's really starting to take off here. And it's, you know, it's an exciting story. And when I came to the project and or to the company just over a year ago now, the company had really focused in its first 10 years of existence as being an acquirer of Mira Nani, our chairman and founder, incredible entrepreneur had set the company up had made some tremendous acquisitions effectively for 10 cents in the dollar. He'd been buying assets in downturns in the market when the price of gold was $1,000 per ounce. Things could be bought at more affordable rates. Now you move forward and bring in me and my team I've built around me now which has an operation and exploring and development background. We can take those assets start to surface the value, combine that with a high gold price, and it really makes for a very compelling story.
Mike Stohler
Yeah. Well, Allister, I appreciate you coming on. And everybody again, it is gold mining, Inc. Aster, still the CEO. It was a pleasure talking to you today. And I hope you have a great
Alastair Still
pleasure being on the future.
Mike Stohler
Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the richer geek podcast, where we're helping others find creative ways to build wealth, and financial freedom. For today's show notes, including all the links and resources from our show, and more information about our guests, visit us at www.thericher geek.com/podcast. And don't forget to jump over to Apple podcasts, Google Play Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts and hit the subscribe button. Share with others who could benefit from listening and leave a rating and review to get the podcast in front of your eyes. I appreciate you and thanks for listening
The information, statements, comments, views, and opinions (collectively, “Information”) provided in this podcast are not intended to be and should not be construed as financial, economic, legal, accounting, tax or other advice. For our full disclosure, click here.
ABOUT ALASTAIR STILL
Mr. Still is an experienced mining industry professional with over 25 years of experience including working for major gold miners such as Newmont, Goldcorp, Placer Dome, Kinross Gold, and Agnico Eagle. He has worked within Canada and internationally in a variety of leadership roles including corporate and project development, and mine operations. Mr. Still has spent over ten years in corporate development having formerly served as Director, Corporate Development with Newmont Corporation (formerly Goldcorp), and most recently as Executive Vice President, Chief Development Officer for GoldMining. Mr. Still graduated with a Bachelor of Science (First Class, Honors) from the University of New Brunswick and a Master of Science (structural geology) from Queen’s University.