'Simple, Straightforward': Bravada Gold's Paul West-Sells on Advancing Wind Mountain after Updated PEA

0:14This week, Bravada Gold released a preliminary economic assessment for its Wind Mountain project in Nevada. The headline number was$415 million US after-tax net present value at$3 ,600 ounce gold, a 60 % after-tax IRR, and an 11.2-year mine life. Paul Wassels, former CEO of Western Copper and Gold, became CEO of Bravada Gold this spring. In our last conversation, Paul framed Wind Mountain as a straightforward brownfield, low environmental risk project that he intends to advance relatively quickly. Paul, welcome to Mining Stock Daily. Very happy to be here. Now, Paul, let's talk about these improvements in the Wind Mountain TEA.

1:05There's a lot to look at this differently with these improved metal prices from when you looked at this in 2021. one. Yeah. And, you know, it's, I mean, really, and I think last time we talked, uh, talked a bit about how, you know, this was a undiscovered gem that we found. And, and so what's changed since, you know, this, the, the, the old PA made it look sort of small and not that exciting to now where, as you said,$415 US, which is close to$600 Canadian at$3 ,600 gold. If you look at closer to spot$4 ,500 gold, you're getting close to a billion dollar NPV Canadian dollar. This is a great project.

1:54And so a couple of things really have driven that. So first of all is commodity price. And so commodity price here does two things. One is that, you know, you get more money for the gold and silver that you produce. So that's quite simple. But the other thing that it does is it changes the resource. You know, this is a large, relatively low-grade deposit, but pretty much everything is mineralized. So the other thing that happened is that we went from a strip ratio that in the prior PEA was 0.4, we have that down to 0.2. So that, you know, significantly impacts mining, you know, overall mining costs in terms of the amount of material that you need to mine.

2:40And then the last, and this is sort of the subtle one, and it doesn't really show up in the news release, but if you compare the two studies side by side, you'll see this is that and we staked a bunch of claims to the west of the deposit which allows us to put down the heap leach on this perfectly flat lots of land so it's now a simple straightforward classic Nevada heap leach pad and and construction site and so that also has and that allowed us really to bring the mine layer up from 4.2 to 11 plus years, which was absolutely key. So those are the things that drove this updated PEA. But yeah, I mean, it's such an exciting project.

3:37I mean, significant net present value, significant cash flow, and it's just a great investment opportunity right now, considering that we're just sort of breaking out into the market. Can you talk about the silver value and how you're looking at that right now? Is that a real value driver or is it a byproduct credit? Yeah, I mean, it's a byproduct credit. And so it's not a real value driver. I mean, you know, if you look at the percentage of revenue that comes from it, I mean, And a way to look at this is how many gold equivalent ounces do we produce? So we produce 44 ,000 ounces of gold equivalent per year.

4:21And if you look at just gold, it's 40 ,000. So it adds 10 %-ish to the overall revenue. But I'm really excited about the silver because there's a lot of silver there. And right now the recovery is 15%. and none of the prior network has looked really significantly at silver. And we'll talk a bit more about why this is a great story, this is a great PEA. We're working towards a pre-feasibility study. That pre-feasibility study is going to look very, very good or even better, I think, because we're going to look at optimizing things like the silver recovery. I mean, 15%, we can do better than that.

5:08uh talk about um uh talk a little bit about it more about the classic heat bleach because i believe that you said that uh it was a nice uh compact uh size uh operation on the on the other one yeah i mean and it's still compact i mean it's still i mean so what is what does that mean why why is that important why is it important to have a compact site it's very simple it's called haul truck distances, hauling distances. You don't want to be hauling, you know, it costs significant money to haul things kilometers or miles away. Here we have an instance where we've got the pit and we've got a nice short haul distance to the heap leach site.

5:54So, you know, we still have this classic Nevada flat as a pancake area that we're building up the heap leach, but we maintain that short haul distance. What's been the major changes to the inputs for the PA between what you sent out now and then what was, I guess, was about 2022 when you had the original PA? Yeah, I mean, so, I mean, obviously commodity prices, you know, we've talked about. The resource itself, I mean, there hasn't actually been any significant, I mean, there was a satellite deposit that was tested, three holes were put in it, but it's not part of the overall resource. So, you know, the drill hole database that was used for the resource from 2022 now hasn't changed.

6:48The key thing really has been that extended mine life with that full heat leach pad. And again, I can't emphasize that enough. that along with commodity prices has been the key change and the key driver. So looking forward at this point right now, I assume then it's a drilling program. You did announce that earlier in the month, and we're in September now, Paul, but you did announce that in August. What is the drill program going to be looking at, and what are you flagging right now? So you have the three deposits at Wind Mountain. You have Wind Breeze and Deep Min, and then Deep Min was flagged in the last PA, something that needed some work.

7:33And then you also talk about some of the extensions that you have on the project as well. Yeah, so the drill program is almost done. I think we're, let's say, 75 % through. Our VPX is down there right now. You know, with the launch of the PA, I've been to various questions and now I've been going back and forth and he's sitting in a truck on the side of the deposit.

8:07So he's looking at a couple of things. So one of the big things that we're looking at is the waste piles from the historical mining, which run a pretty good grade, we think, have one drill hole in them. And so there's, I think, a million tons in that ballpark that is in the current PEA. However, the waste piles represent about 10 million tons based upon the historical mining data. So those have all been drilled out. That's number one. And then number two is looking at a couple of sort of areas where we think we can extend the known mineralization. So a number of those are actually underneath those waste piles.

8:53So, you know, the waste piles were put on, you know, mineralization, but, you know, lower grade mineralization back in 1999 that now, you know, might add significantly to the overall deposit. And then we're also looking south and the south target, we've got a number of drill holes that we're putting in there as well. So back to your, you know, you're talking about those three, you know, the wind, the breeze, the deep mid, you know, the other resource that's going to come in will be, you know, the historical waste piles now. So that will again, something that will roll into the PFS. And then whatever additional we find in terms of expanding those wind and breeze pits.

9:39Because the waste piles are right next to the wind and breeze pits. What's it like right now securing drillers and also kind of getting your assays right now? I mean, resource companies have been flagging this as an issue. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no. And, you know, my hat's off to Joe. He lined up drillers a while ago, so they've been able to go in. The other advantage is, you know, we are doing RC drilling, which is pretty common in Nevada, works well for this deposit. So it's a little bit easier to get RC. Like you said, it's actually been, I mean, it's easier to get RC rigs. getting actually people to man them has been a certain challenge.

10:24But Joe, our VPX, he lives in Reno. He's been there for, well, not his whole life, but a number of years. So he's pretty good at rounding people up and getting things moving. Talk about the metallurgy, Paul. So the past PA did flag some issues just regarding clay in terms of being able to process that? What are you seeing generally regarding metallurgy and when are you expecting more studies on that? Yeah, I mean that, you know, of course, my background, I've got a doctorate in metallurgy, so I'm always keen to do more metallurgy. Like I said earlier, I think the silver, you know, so we used 62 % gold recovery and we used 15 % silver recovery on the oxide.

11:16And then, you know, keep in mind the oxide represents 98 % of the overall resource. So there's a little bit of mix, there's a little bit of sulfide, but, you know, it's essentially a rounding error. So with looking at the metallurgy, well, I mean, first of all, looking at the historical metallurgy, historically, they got 69 % overall gold recovery. so i mean already i'm like you know we should be able to do some test work that shows we can at least get to what they actually got in the past uh on gold recoveries and then as i said silver really no one really looked at that in a lot of detail um so we're very keen to look at that as well and then yeah the clay i mean you know the great news about a brownfield site is that you can see you know what did they do how were they successful and so you know they were successful uh historically in terms of being able to selectively mine the clay material and set it aside so what are we going to do well you know there's there's a couple of options actually i mean you know the the primary and the classic one is to look to agglomerate that material but that's one of the things that we'll look at as part of the metallurgical test work is just doing some agglomeration tests and looking at the strength of those agglomerates.

12:39The other thing that's done, and I started my career down in Nevada. Well, sorry, I started my career in Nevada, but I also spent a chunk of it at the Cortez Gold Mine. and then you know these Nevada and has been looking at all these tricks for for gold heap bleaches for a number of years but one of the things that's done and I haven't seen this but you know a couple of people told me about this and I guess the I think the pan mine does it and a couple other places do it as well is what they they take the the the clay material which has too too much fines. They put down a thin layer of that. Then they, you know, cover it in a, in like a, like a coarse material, a coarse gravel, and then they just rip that material together.

13:32And so now you have, you know, a material that doesn't have too many fines and you see, and you get good percolation through it. So that's, you know, there's a bunch of different ways to skin the cat. And, you know, that's going to be part of the MET program that we'll look at. Where are you with outreach now to Gurlach? So Gurlach is a city that is nearby or the community that's nearby where you're operating. In the 2022 PA, it was flagged that there were, how would you say, it noted that Gurlach is famous at the Burning Man Festival. The organization has affiliates that have been buying property around Gurlach as well.

14:16were you with community outreach? Yeah, I mean, it's literally next on the list. I mean, number one was keeping in mind that it's not quite three months that I've been with the company here. So number one was to get this updated PEA out and that's now done. So that one's checked off the list. And the next thing to do is to put together the, you know, I call the whole permitting package, but it's regulatory processes, permitting, baseline, and then outreach to communities and the indigenous groups. And in this case, it's the Pyramid Lake tribe. So in terms of Gerlach, the thing to remember is that Gerlach is 20 miles away.

15:09So, I mean, it's not, I mean, we're, you know, it's the closest town. Um, and, you know, but it's not all that close. And the other thing that's important to note is that, you know, this mine is, it's, it's in this sort of, um, the valley that's, that's, you know, between, um, you know, two mountain ranges. And so if this mine was fully operating as we've envisioned it in the PA and you were driving up from, you know, San Francisco going up to Burning Man, you would never know that there was a mine there. So it's not impacting. And so it's not that close to where Burning Man is. It's not that close to Gerlach.

15:51It's not anything that's going to be visually impacting anything. So, you know, we'll have to go talk to the community and, you know, make sure that any of their concerns are addressed. But I don't really see it have a big impact. And I don't really expect a lot of pushback. Talk about timelines then, Paul, at this point as well, too. You did say you want to move quite quickly. You're now looking at the PFS, I guess, at the second half of 2027? Yeah. I mean, so, you know, we sort of covered what we're going to need to do for the PFS. You know, MET program, the drilling program is underway right now.

16:31My guess is that we'll be darn close to, that should cover off most of the drilling. I don't know if I'm looking at my crystal ball, there might be a small drilling program to hit a couple of infills that that we may have missed um and um you know there's going to be there's going to have to be some geotech work etc etc so um i i'm pretty confident that we can get all that done over the next essentially over the next year right and we're talking the second half of 2027. But the other thing that did, the other advantage of doing this PEA is that now we've got, you know, we're pretty confident that this is where things are going to be cited.

17:17So we can use this document to kick off the discussion with the regulators. And so we're just putting that program together. But, you know, as you said, on the kickoff, you know, as in my former life, running a billion ton copper porphyry project through the regulatory process up in the Yukon. I mean, this is very, very simple. I mean, the first estimates I'm seeing are a couple million dollars to get this through the regulatory and fermenting process, which my jaw dropped on the ground when I first heard that. I mean, we'll have to dot some I's and cross some T's, but it's in that order of magnitude.

18:00And the additional technical work you know we're obviously we a news release came out yesterday that technical report that comes with that is due in 45 days but you know we've been talking about what the recommended to work program looks like and it's not going to be too different than what was in the prior technical report and I think that ran I think it was 1.7 million dollars so it's sort of the same stuff geotech, metallurgy, a few other bits and pieces that we need to get to the PFS. Okay. Lastly, Paul, budget right now as well too. What are you looking at in terms of funding? How are you looking at that right now in terms of this market right now in terms of getting to that PFS?

18:50Yeah, I mean, we're sitting pretty good. I mean, we don't have a lot of overhead. The drilling program is almost done. And we've got, you know, sort of one and a half million in the bank. We've got warrants and options that are going to add in, you know, another 1.1 or so. So, you know, that brings us up to, you know, somewhere between two and a half and three. You know, that covers a lot of work in terms of what we need to do. And so, yeah, I mean, we're just keeping on marching forward. I mean, we don't have any plans to finance right now, but yeah, I mean, it's, you know, step one was to get this PEA out.

19:35That's done. Step two is to finish off this drilling program, get those results out. That'll be great. As I said, sort of kick off community engagement and some of the baseline environmental work, you know, geotech programs. I mean, that'll roll in as we move into 2027. Paul Wissells, thank you for speaking with Mining Stock Daily.

19:57Paul West-Sells: It's always a pleasure. The information presented should not be considered investment advice. Mining Stock Daily and its affiliates are not responsible for any loss arising from any investment decision in connection with the material presented herein. Please do your own research or speak with a licensed financial representative before making any investment decisions.

20:24Thank you.