Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals / Gold Stocks

Banyan Gold (TSX-V: BYN)(OTC: BYAGF) CEO Tara Christie on Being Cashed-Up and Primed for Next-Stage Drilling at Flagship 7 Moz AurMac Gold Project in Canada’s Yukon

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president, CEO, and largest shareholder of Banyan Gold Corp. — Ms. Tara Christie. Tara, how are you today?

Tara Christie: I'm doing really well, thank you. And yourself?

Gerardo Del Real: I am fantastic. Thank you for asking. Look, it has been a historic start to the month, right? We have gold closer to US$2,900 per ounce than it is to US$2,800 per ounce. Gold definitely has momentum. I'm of the belief that we'll see US$3,000/oz before we see US$2,500 again. And that puts Banyan Gold in a really enviable position. 

You already had millions and millions of ounces of gold but now you're hitting into some high-grade zones. You had a release here recently of 39.7 meters of 1.92 grams per tonne gold. And it wasn't a one-off. You had another hit of 40.5 meters of 1.43 g/t Au. It's shallow, it’s high grade, and it complements what you already have. 

I would love for you to provide the context of the recent release.

Tara Christie: Thank you, and that's exactly what we had planned to do this year was to show that there's a really significant high-grade component of this resource right near surface that will really drive the economics of this project. 

We're really excited about the results because, as you said, we think we have achieved what we said we were going to do. And now that we have an even better understanding of our geological model, we're able to demonstrate that, and it'll show in our resource update as well as in our PEA that we're planning for the fourth quarter of this year. 

We're pretty excited that these results have come out the way they have.

Gerardo Del Real: You have to be satisfied that you planned the PEA for the fourth quarter because I think you're walking into a phenomenal gold price environment. Can you speak to the work that's being done on that front?

Tara Christie: Sure, we've been thinking about our PEA for the last couple of years. We started doing some initial scoping study work and preliminary engineering and using that to guide the metallurgical work that we're doing. And now, we're going to have the resource update and then be able to run that PEA. 

So lots of behind the scenes work being done so that we can be strategic in the work we’re doing onsite. And one of the key things is really demonstrating these high-grade areas that’ll form the starter pits that really drive your payback and your IRR. 

And like you said, this gold price, around C$4,100 per ounce versus a three-year trailing average of around C$2,100 per ounce. That's a pretty exciting gold environment to be even thinking about what the economics and the sensitivities of your projects are. You get people talking about much higher gold prices than even what we have right now, which is a pretty fabulous gold price.

And then, you look at some of these projects, and they're very, very big. And that's going to be compelling to lots of these major companies out here that haven't replaced their resources and reserves and are now very significantly cash flowing. 

I think M&A is going to start to rear its head in this industry, and it's been a while since that's happened. We're seeing generalist investors actually calling in wanting to learn about gold stocks. And that's the first time in a lot of years where it hasn't been us talking to just the more seasoned mining people that we see at all of the same conferences. So things are changing for sure.

Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree with you more. I had the pleasure of chatting with you briefly at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. And I couldn't help but notice that the Banyan booth stayed rather busy, right? You had people there every time I walked by, and it was absolutely packed. 

That speaks, I think, to the visibility of the company and also to the quality of the resource and the leverage that the company and its assets provide here in this gold price environment. 

For those that may be newer or newish to the story, can you give us just a brief overview of the resource profile and why a major would want to come in and have a Banyan in its portfolio?

Tara Christie: Sure, our global resource is a 7 million ounce Inferred resource. And we are on the cusp of updating that in the second quarter where you'll see some Indicated resources, which is important because it’s a higher category of resource. It represents more confidence geologically in those ounces. We’ll also be adding new ounces while showing that there are some higher-grade zones within this. 

Why is a major interested? Well, when I started my career, people used to be interested in 1 Moz deposits. Now, that threshold of being considered tier-one is more like a 5 Moz threshold for some of the larger companies to even think about investing capital. 

Here we are with 7 million ounces, and you can see that our deposits are open. So I arm wave and say the potential for 10 million ounces is there. And then, it's really, ‘What's the valuation?’ We're currently trading at US$5 an ounce, maybe a little bit more than that as the market changes. 

But compared to some of our peers in the Yukon who are trading at US$100 per ounce or more, we're still pretty undervalued. And why is that? Well, we had those external factors in the Yukon last year, which weren't about us but created a little bit of uncertainty. 

That's starting to resolve, and I think you look at which companies are going to have the opportunity to rerate the fastest: those that are undervalued and that have solid assets in safe jurisdictions. And ours has the benefit of having infrastructure, roads, and hydropower already on the property. 

Those are huge advantages. And that's what majors are looking for. Properties with infrastructure and big enough resources where they're making generational investments in capital is what you're going to see move first as M&A starts to pick up in this exciting gold cycle.

Gerardo Del Real: There are not a lot of companies out there in a great jurisdiction that are on the march towards a 10 Moz or more resource. It's a great story. You eat your own cooking. You are still the largest shareholder, I believe. Is that accurate?

Tara Christie: I'm the largest individual shareholder. I have two funds, Fidelity and Franklin, which are larger. But that's a real testament to the quality of this asset because they did significant due diligence before making that investment. And they don't generally invest in sub-C$100M market cap companies. So I think that's a very strong endorsement of Banyan. 

I put my money where my mouth is. I've got over 2 million in cash invested; I wasn’t given my shares. And when you're looking at juniors, it's really important to understand how management acquired their shares; did they actually have real cash invested or were they part of the founding and received early shares. 

I'm the third CEO of Banyan so I didn't receive any founding shares. I really believe in this project. And that’s something I look for as an investor is, ‘How much skin in the game does management have?’ I think that is something that's important to talk about.

Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree with you more. It was great having you on. I’m looking forward to chatting more. What comes next, Tara?

Tara Christie: We are in the throes of our exploration planning, which is really exciting. I love it when you get your results. And we have this ‘problem’ of having lots of options. Do we grow the resource? Do we get more Indicated resources? Do we drill some deeper holes? Do we look at some of these geophysical anomalies? Do we do some greenfields exploration? Do we take some big step-outs? 

All of that is part of the conversation we're having with our geological team. And I always find that really exciting in the spring where we go through and decide what’s going to give us the most torque for our shareholders. We've got money in the bank to execute our drill program. We're on-track for that resource update in Q2 and then the PEA in Q4.

We'll even have news flow into 2026. We're working hard to make sure people get the message that our project is a mill project. It's a little bit different. That overhang that was really holding us back last year is clearing up pretty quickly. We have so many targets to look at, and we’ll be announcing our plans a bit closer to when we start drilling. 

I really love the exercise of getting our team together and debating how we're going to spend that money; refining drill holes, looking at targets. It always gets me really excited, and I’m looking forward to informing people once we've gone through that process.

Gerardo Del Real: Champagne problems, indeed! It's going to be a fun 2025. Thank you so much for your time today, Tara.

Tara Christie: Thank you, Gerardo.

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