Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Riverside Resources (TSX-V: RRI) Kicks off Exploration Program at Cecilia Project with Rock Sampling of 113 g/t Au and 310 g/t Ag

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is Riverside Resources President and CEO, Mr. John-Mark Staude. John-Mark, how are you?

John-Mark Staude: Very well today.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, you're also very busy. You had news at your Thor Project about a week ago. You also have drilling going on at your Glor Project. And just this morning you had some pretty exciting news out of the Cecilia Project and I want to lead with that. The headline reads, "Riverside Resources samples up to 113 grams per tonne gold and 310 grams per tonne silver at the Cecilia Project in Sonora, Mexico." Pretty exciting start to that exploration program. Can you share the details for us?

John-Mark Staude: Exactly, we're very excited. Riverside picked up the property earlier this year, and as promised we've gotten into the field and now getting back high-grade, four ounces of gold in rock sampling, nine ounces of silver in rock sampling. That's excellent. Right at the surface, following up historic work. We see big potential here. We're delighted, excited, and so happy to have the Cecilia Project 100% for Riverside. So, yeah, this news released today is right on track. We're excited to be doing this and moving it ahead.

Gerardo Del Real: Now, one of the main takeaways from the news release, there's a line that reads, "The silver to gold ratio of the epithermal mineralization appears to increase as mineralized structures are sampled at progressively lower elevations, which is characteristic of some of the major epithermal silver-gold dome complexes of Mexico." Can you please elaborate on that a bit?

John-Mark Staude: Exactly. Well, it's a mouthful, and really what it is is that these are like the shape of a mushroom. They're dome settings, and so right on the top we have gold, and then we go down into gold and silver. Mexico is a silver country and it has been the world leading silver producer for 500 years. Some of the silver deposits in Mexico projects, such as the Pitarrilla Silver Project in Durango, Mexico that Silver Standard discovered, had the geologist, our Vice President of Riverside Resources, Ron Burk, work on for discovery as the Silver Standard, Vice President of Exploration when they made that discovery.

So, when Ron came out and visited the Cecilia Project, visited this big hill, he said, "You know, this looks similar." He's in the field today, he's at the project right now going out there because he's so excited. Riverside's so excited. As we go down deeper, if we follow this ratio, we're going in the right direction to potentially make a giant discovery. So, Riverside's on track and super excited. This is a forward looking statement and we are excited to see we are going in the right direction for a drill target.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Now, as far as developing those drill targets, what's the next step? I imagine there's going to be some field sampling and some trenching. Is that correct?

John-Mark Staude: What we did initially is we checked the historic work. We're delighted to report we've found similar values. In fact, we're getting higher values than we thought we would get from some the historic work. Now we'll do trenching, so we're getting the permitting to do trenching and drilling. We'll go ahead and get all the permits for drilling so we're ready to keep moving ahead. Right now in June, we'll be pushing ahead with that, and then July and August in the field with more mapping and sampling with continued results at the Cecilia Project.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, excellent. Now let's switch gears a bit and talk about the Thor Copper Project, because you had news on that project, which is also located in Sonora, Mexico. Could you share the details of that news and the status of that project?

John-Mark Staude: You bet. We work in Sonora, because Sonora is a mining state. In fact, it's a copper mining state and this is a very interesting copper project. Riverside had developed the project with Antofagasta. Antofagasta has cut back in their spending and had to focus, and it's given us 100% of the project back after they have already spent over a million dollars with us in Mexico. Riverside's so excited to move ahead on the Thor Project. It's a large system, over 100 square kilometers, with good potential, good drill targets. So, for Riverside, the news that we have moved that ahead, now on our website, and moving ahead on the Thor Copper asset fits with Riverside having a whole portfolio of copper. Riverside as a prospect generator is diverse. Many different commodities - gold, silver, copper. And we're so delighted to have high quality projects that the majors had put substantial money into developing and forwarding, and Riverside, in this case, having 100% ownership now.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. I imagine that project is available for option or joint venture if somebody was interested.

John-Mark Staude: Yes. That's what we do as a business model. By myself being based in Vancouver, but traveling often into different places, including to Mexico, we meet with potential joint venture partners and get those joint ventures done. In fact, we're drilling on a joint venture now.

Gerardo Del Real: John-Mark. Let's talk about Glor, because that's got a major partner in Centerra, and obviously there's drilling there following up some very exciting sampling results in the past. Can you talk about the status of that?

John-Mark Staude: That's where we do have an option from Centerra Gold mining company, which is a mid-tier gold producer. They're looking for something large, and so what we're doing is we're doing initial drilling into one of the six target areas. The Glor property has six different targets. We have now drilled one, the Pitaya target. We have five other targets to go. So, we're so excited. We've gotten in  nine holes at Pitaya, and currently we're working those up and we'll have a news release probably in the next week or two now, once we get through the  review with the partner, Centerra, then we can put it out to the public. We're very excited to see us moving ahead at that project, 100% funding of Centerra Gold, on our very large district gold system adjacent to an operation mine, the mining operations of Alamos Gold at the Chanate mine. Glor is a great place to be doing exploration in Sonora, Mexico.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Well, it sounds like a very, very busy month of June. One of the benefits of that prospect generator model is you limit dilution, you have a very tight share structure. What's the cash position look like right now, John-Mark?

John-Mark Staude: The cash position is over six million dollars cash. The share structure is tight with 44 million shares out. So, we're very excited to be in a great position to keep growing the company as Riverside.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Well, a lot of news, a lot of catalysts. I hope to be able to have you back on as we get some of those assays back in, and I want to thank you very much for your time today, John-Mark. Is there anything that you'd like to add?

John-Mark Staude: We really like your show and we're delighted to have the shareholders following Riverside.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, thank you for your time. We look forward to talking with you soon.

John-Mark Staude: Take care. Have a good day.