Talisker Resources Prepares for 2027 Production Growth Following High-Grade Bralorne Drill Results

0:15Terry Harbort: Welcome back to Mining Stock Daily. Ian Wagner here with a corporate update from our friends at Talisker Resources. Talisker is an emerging gold producer and developer in the Braylorne District of British Columbia. They trade on the TSX under the symbol TSK and on the OTCQX under the symbol TSKFF. We last spoke with Talisker in early October, shortly after the release of their preliminary economic assessment at the Braylorne project. And since then, Talisker has reported some very high-grade drill results from Braylorne West, announced an acquisition to its portfolio of gold projects, and filed that 43-101 PEA.

0:56Terry Harbort: So we've, and on top of that, we've had a lot of volatility in the gold market. So with us today to talk about all of that is the CEO of Talisker Resources, Mr. Terry Harbert. Terry, good to see you. Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks very much, Ian. Always a pleasure to be on, even as we ride the roller coaster that seems to be the gold market at the moment. Yeah, a lot of volatility. That's the word, I think. Where I'm at in the States, obviously, huge election last week. Everyone's kind of digesting that and figuring out what that means for policy, both minerals policy as well as fiscal policy, and everybody's trying to figure that.

1:35Terry Harbort: So there's volatility across the board. But yeah, look, starting with you guys, you have had some recent news. Obviously, we talked about the PEA earlier, and I know you guys just filed that. So that's got to feel good to get that kind of officially on the books there. Anyone not familiar with that, I'd encourage them to go back and listen to past episodes or find it on the company's site. But you are still drilling, still developing, right? Obviously a Mustang and Braylor and West. You just announced results from 15 holes. They're all at Braylor and West. Headline results probably came from that 276 vein, right?

2:12Terry Harbort: Where you're seeing just eye-popping sort of numbers there. And I'll read a couple and then I'll give you a chance to kind of fill in some context and tell us what they mean to you. But, you know, that 276 vein, 301 grams per ton gold over 0.55 meters, but that's within 79 grams per ton gold over 2.1 meters. You know, other numbers and other veins, 55 vein is showing, you know, 38.6 grams per ton gold over 0.85 meters. But that's, again, within a larger, you know, a larger stretch. So talk to us about this, what you guys drilled, how it stands out as you kind of just start to sink your teeth in there to Braylon West.

2:56Yeah, Ian, look, all this drilling we're doing here at Braylon West is resource conversion work. And it's really supporting what we're going to be mining in 27, 28, and 29. so you know we always love the flashy numbers uh that that come up front but i think the real take-home message here is consistency and particularly consistency over mineable widths um so we we're seeing that that first number um the the two ounce three ounce, four ounce, up to 10 ounces is really on the core of the vein system. But what's really important to us is that second width, that two and a half, three meter sort of width, which is what we're going to be developing and mining these at.

3:52So really, the key takeaway is consistency in these results. So hole after hole are hitting these veins at good mineable grades, good mineable widths. What we're really encouraged by is the consistency in the veins. You know, you mentioned the 275 vein, but also the 55 vein, 55 hanging wall vein, and in some cases also the 101 vein. So that's really encouraging for us as we're developing and preparing to start stoping there in first quarter of 27, is that what we're seeing is a lot of consistency, which is the bread and butter for mining, knowing what you have and that being really good in those areas.

4:53Terry Harbort: Yeah, you mentioned previously, I think, that you were expecting to see core or gold over there. And now you're getting some high grades and you're getting those consistent intercepts across different widths. Yeah, I mean, I guess just, you know, just expand on that a little bit because you had made the point too that economics are more important than grade, right? And that just kind of, as you kind of think about that Q1 next year, what else is going to come between now and then in terms of, you know, more drilling there? and how you're sequencing it, I guess, and how you're kind of preparing to mine it.

5:33So we're well underway. We're almost completing now our resource conversion work for what we're going to mine in 2027. So really the drilling that's ongoing now is targeting stopes that we'll be hitting in 28 and 29, following a long continuity of those veins. the more we can continue mining on the same vein the cheaper that is for full production we're also having some step out work that we're doing at Mustang so Mustang we've already done a lot of development we've got five or six active levels there so the more we can extend those veins beyond what we know the more we can utilize that existing sunk capital sunk infrastructure to extend out and mine.

6:27So we've had some exciting holes coming out there, but really over at Braylawn West here, it's about expanding these out,

6:40building confidence in that midterm mine plan as to what we're going to be mining. Much of that prior to these holes, Ian was in inferred category. so that's always a cautionary it's always a risk that we get too far out in front of our mine development based on inferred drilling so the sooner we can get things into indicated and lengthen that timeline that we have between when we drill and when we plan and mine the more robust our mine plan is the more more more risk we move out of the way so really that's what this drilling here is in Braylawn West. It's showing that Braylawn is delivering what we expect, and that is continuous veins along strike, continuity across multiple levels, and high-grade veins.

7:40Here at Braylawn West, what we are seeing is higher grade, and you mentioned the coarse gold. We don't really know why the centre of the system has got coarse gold and high grade. Perhaps it's a fluid flow thing. That's one thing that we will be looking at, doing some studies on with University of British Columbia to try and understand really why the distribution of gold's like it is. From the engineer's perspective, it doesn't really matter. They're just happy to mine that high gold. uh that that the the coarse gold when we're milling you know a lot of that's going to come out in the gravity uh but what's key here is braylon's delivering what it always has for the last hundred plus years and that is these high grade shoots good continuity uh and good consistency

8:37Terry Harbort: of the grades stepping kind of back i guess to mustang just because um you know obviously these 15 holes were part of a broader bigger drilling program right i think 92 holes over 25 000 meters for calendar year so far and a lot of that too was at mustang and drilling conversion but you're also mining there right now um obviously different you know alhambra bk talk to us about how that's just you know going the producing side of things and what's what what you're uh what you're seeing like? Well, our focus, as you know, this year has been working on a lot of development. So most of the ore, if you like, that we've produced, probably about 70 % of that has been that development ore, about 30 % has been some stoping ore.

9:32What we've seen from our drilling and also our underground channel sampling is that there's good down plunge continuity of these ore shoots and some of these ore shoots um you know alhambra and the bk bk 9870 um we can see some of these high grade ore shoots in our underground channel sampling that can be anywhere between 60 to 130 meters wide so So very wide areas. So we're certainly encouraged as we start to stope or take out those levels. So our focus this year is on developing below where we'd started. So we sort of started the bottom of the mine at the 1060 and we're developing 15-metre space levels and we've got through 1045, 1030, 1015.

10:25I think we're probably 50 metres away in our decline development down to the 1 ,000 level. So really building up these levels, these access levels, so we can develop these working faces and then start to extract these veins. We've had some interesting wins on our third order structures and these aren't the big long strike length things that we generally focus with our mining. they sit in between these structures and they form from the movement on the longer structures. We don't target them with our drilling because they're oriented almost parallel to our drilling and they generally are smaller, shorter, fatter, lower angle so at times can be a bit challenging to mine.

11:14But what we've certainly seen in the upper levels, there's a lot of this material still remaining and the M structures there have sown some very good ore shoots that we can come in and extract. Because of the lower angle of these, Ian, we don't target these with our long hole, our long hole, longitude and restraint. It's all about production rate. A lot of these a bit more manual mining base. So we will be going back and extracting some of those high-grade chutes that don't really sit in our mine plan because we don't drill target them. We're chasing the longer, more consistent all-bodies.

11:56Terry Harbort: Okay. Well, maybe let's zoom out a little bit, I guess, because, you know, obviously a pretty granular update on the drills and how you guys are doing, but maybe for someone who is a little newer, you guys are kind of in an interesting spot because you have the Mustang, obviously Braylorne District, historical mine, Mustang, you guys are developing and sort of mining there. You have ore offtakes or you're developing the ore sorting technology and you have this agreement with Ocean Partners and then you're developing Braylorne West and eventually Olympus. How would you explain kind of where you guys are at in your story right now?

12:37Terry Harbort: Because there's a lot of milestones stones coming up. You guys have checked a lot of them off this year and last year, but where are you guys at if you were to sort of give a snapshot of where you're at in time in terms of this story? Yeah, so we're in an early phase ramp up here is really the best picture to paint. We made the decision, we went into production that we'd partner with other millers, to be able to fast track our production. So we haven't gone the usual path of doing a feasibility, building a mill, getting all that in. That's still to come and that'll be along the pathway. What we look for first is pathway to building a good business, a good and profitable business with cash flow.

13:28So we've gone into production and we're steadily ramping that up. We have a pending permit amendment coming in in January. that we're expecting. It'll be for 750 ton per day out the gate. And that's a big jump, right?

13:46Terry Harbort: I mean, that's, and I know that's one step along to a larger one, but towards that 1500 ton, but that is a significant jump. Cause I, what are you at 200, 250 right now? Permitted rates are 175 at the moment. So we're jumping that up to 750 and then using ore sorting technology to basically remove our waste, so remove that tonnage. So we've partnered here with Ocean Partners, a global metal trader. We've got a direct shipping ore or DSO strategy with them. So it's minimal processing. We basically just crush that and load it on trucks. What the ore sorting technology, and it'll be XRT or X-ray transmission, similar to what they use in hospitals for defining massive density.

14:37That'll allow us to greatly reduce the material that we're moving. So remove a lot of that waste and then it has an incremental increase in the grade that we're shipping as well. So we think that's a very good strategy to be able to build up a cash pool and utilize that when it comes to building a mill and expanding our mine. And our longer-term plan here is to be mining at a rate of just under 3 ,000 tonne a day, so about 2 ,700, 2 ,750 tonnes per day. So we're in the beginning of that pathway, and we're starting to ramp that up into 2027 to 500, then 750 tonnes per day rate through 27, then on into 28.

15:25So really exciting time for us as we take the handbrake off and really start to ramp up our operations.

15:34Terry Harbort: Yeah, and obviously that Braylon West access decline is a big step and a big accomplishment allows you to do some stuff. And then further, the story doesn't sort of end there. I know we won't get into Olympus much, but you guys have district ambitions, but also, you know, you recently acquired a company out of Ontario, Midex, and want to ask you about that. You know, that includes a past producing barons project as well as some separate land with a sturgeon lake and dark water projects. What was the thought there? How did that come on your radar? What did you see that made you want to jump at that?

16:16Terry Harbort: And what are you going to do with it, I guess? Yeah, look, it's a really interesting package. We've always been involved in identifying and unlocking potential brownfields areas. So there's the old adage that the best place to find a gold deposit is in the shadow of the head frame. and you know there's actually a lot of science behind that and it has to do with fluid flow, has to do with depositional mechanisms on a regional scale. So a lot of these orogenic or mesothermal deposits such as Braylawn here have a lot of these similar characteristics from a structural architecture. So myself as you know Ian that's my background and structural geology and tectonics.

17:12So we're often looking at that and the team's often bringing things in and that's how we came across Braylawn in the first place to ask the questions, well, can we apply our science skill to unlock value that previously hasn't been identified in this area? So this is really one of the things that led us towards Midex. Midex was a private company. I was invited to invest and originally to be on the board I was quite excited by it it was again historic production in that in that golden period if you like of of gold production in Canada 30s 40s and 50s as well a lot of mines came online and a lot of them didn't go too far They were underneath the gold standard, so a fixed gold price for a long time, often areas that were subsidized by the Canadian government.

18:14So a whole lot of reasons, very different to now why these things didn't become very big deposits. There it's very interesting. It's in what's called a greenstone belt, which are basically the hosts of most of these big orogenic deposits. there was quite significant high-grade polymetallic production that only on one vein, on one of the veins it was developed. A second vein was developed on and drilled. It was almost a carbon copy when you see it in 3D, so quite fascinating. But the reality is there's been another 20 veins that have been identified in this district that never had any drilling.

18:55and the structural architecture of this is quite similar to Braylawn. So a lot of Braylawn analogies. The other projects, Sturgeon and the others had some very good targets developed there. The private company, Midex, had had a joint venture with Barrick and their targeting team had done a lot of work there, defined a lot of drill targets, but then pulled out of the joint venture before any of these could be drilled. So when the opportunity came up to acquire it, it was a very easy decision for me. It was an inexpensive acquisition. We've done a lot of great acquisitions in BC to build out Braylawn and this was one that the Midex team had done a great job of consolidating these really sizable regional plays.

19:46so it was an excellent asset you know they aren't making too many new gold deposits the ones that are being made get made very slowly so it's very important I believe to lock in what we see as quality assets we mightn't have the time or the personnel or financial resources to immediately take these projects forward but projects in a portfolio either you know, always have value, whether it's directly with us as Talisker or whether we move that out into an associated vehicle that we can fund and take these projects forward. But it's all about quality assets.

20:30Terry Harbort: Yeah, I would note, you know, just I think as part of that, the price, right, you're going to issue 3 million shares to acquire 100 % of Midex. Yeah, I mean, big package, 45 ,000 hectares at Barron's, 50 ,000 hectares at First Sturgeon Lake and Darkwater. So big perspective land packages. Yeah, we'll look to, looks like you said that was going to close in Q4 here this year. So we'll touch base with you next year in terms of how you want to, you know, allocate resources and thoughts and time and all that kind of thing to it. But exciting to see. Um, congratulations there. And, um, yeah, I guess just, you know, Terry switching gears a little bit just to the sort of macro or overall thoughts.

21:16Terry Harbort: I mean, boy, it is like we talked touched on in the beginning, you know, gold has been quite volatile. The whole junior sector has come off quite a bit. Um, obviously just what, what are you thinking or hearing from other operators or just people or, you know, on the, on the investor side? I mean, what's kind of the chatter on the street, if you will, or what's going through your mind as you watch these moves? Oh, Ian, look, I think the majority of the market, both seasoned mining investors and also general investors, has the same long-term view. And that is that we're in a bit of a blip or a negative blip perhaps, particularly since geopolitical activity started here in February, March.

22:07Not just the juniors, even the majors. You know, there's been billions of dollars wiped off the mining industry. But the fundamentals are still the same. The fundamentals are still very strong. and we're still seeing a lot of central bank buying. The debt problem hasn't gone away. We're starting to see a lot of quaking here in the AI bubble or run-up, if you like, and there's a lot of variation here from guys like Google going well. AI is taking people away from our search engine. to some fear of regulation in that. And, you know, I expect that that'll calm down. You know, bubbles bursting are never good for anybody, never good for global markets.

23:03So hopefully that's a softer exit and we start to see some of this capital coming back into mining where we're really starting to see good quality long-term projects starting to be developed. But what we really need is more money coming back into exploration. because that's the big hole that we have. That's been the ugly duckling of the mining industry, no money going into exploration. And we need that to feed the next generation of miners. But fundamentally, there's still massive amounts of sovereign debt. They're increasing as time goes on. I think people will continue to look into gold as a protector of personal wealth.

23:54We've seen a lot of distinct volatility on the crypto space. It's probably lost its crown as a replacement of gold. And people are coming back to say, well, gold's been the basis, the foundation of wealth for 10 ,000 years. It doesn't corrode. It doesn't decay. it's something that can be there forever that doesn't burst as a bubble.

24:19Terry Harbort: Yeah, it'd be interesting to see how we develop and I think good points on all fronts there by you. Well, listen, I appreciate you coming by today, Terry, and giving everybody an update. We'll look to catch up with you here at least one more time here before the end of the year. But yeah, last little thing, what should people look for, investors look for from you guys from kind of between now and the end of the year? Oh, and there'll be a ton more good results coming out from our drilling, both at where we're operating at Mustang and our new operational center across at Braylawn West. So following on from these ones, of course, we'll be having our second shipment across the Ocean Partners, There's another 10 or 11 ,000 tonnes.

25:07Early in the new year, we'll be seeing our permit amendment up to 750 tonnes per day. That's on track. As far as we know, we've had several meetings with the government and that's all on track to come out then. A lot of construction work's underway right now with our oil sorter. We've had some of our key equipment already arrive on site. some engineering packages going out for our pre-pour construction, our concrete coming in, earthwork starting there. So a lot of activity going on, a lot of activity at site as well as we've increased our camp that can support our new teams that'll be coming for that ramp up.

25:56New dry, new office facilities going in. So a lot of activities and a lot of infrastructure activities that have been going out that all need to be in place to support that ramp up. So a lot more electricity upgrades, ventilation upgrades, a lot of stuff happening across the board as we come into the end of this year and into Q1, Q2 next year. That's exciting.

26:19Terry Harbort: Good to hear it. And we'll look to catch up with you as you move along on all those things. Appreciate you coming by, Terry. Thank you. Thanks very much, Ian. That's Terry Harbert, CEO of Talisker Resources. They trade on the TSX under the symbol TSK and on the OTCQX under the symbol TSKFF. 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.