West Red Lake Gold Mines

Primary tickers: TSXV: WRLG, OTCQB: WRLGF
Stage of development: Exploration, Development
Primary mineral: Gold
Projects to promote: Madsen Gold Mine, Rowan Project
Project location: Red Lake District, Ontario
Website: westredlakegold.com
Corporate presentation: Click here
Corporate video: Click here

West Red Lake Gold Mines is a publicly traded gold company that is focused on developing its flagship Madsen Mine and exploring the associated 47 sq-Km highly prospective land package in the Red Lake Gold District of Ontario. The Madsen Mine produced 2 million ounces of gold historically from high grade mineralization. A recent restart failed due to insufficient definition drilling and development and mining decisions that led to high costs. West Red Lake purchased the asset in early 2023, has been addressing those deficiencies, and plans to restart this high-grade and largely built gold mine in 2025. The highly productive Red Lake Gold District of Northwest Ontario, Canada has yielded over 30 million ounces of gold from high-grade zones and hosts some of the world’s richest gold deposits.

Cash: CAD 15M
Debt: NIL

Major shareholders:
Sprott Resource Lending – 19%
Institutions – 16%
Frank Giustra – 11%
VanEck Gold Fund – 6%
Accilent Capital Management – 5%
Management ownership- 4.3%

Financials

Management Profile

Shane Williams, President & CEO

Prior to joining West Red Lake, Mr. Shane Williams was the Chief Operating Officer for Skeena Resources where he was involved in advancing the past producing Eskay Creek Gold project towards a restart. Between 2013-2019 he was Vice President of Operations and Capital Projects at Eldorado Gold where under his leadership the Lamaque Gold project was brought from Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) to commercial operation in just 18-months. He also served as Project Director for Eldorado Gold for their Greek assets and was responsible for the development of both the Skouries and Olympias projects which together had a capex of over US$1B. Mr. Williams has extensive open-pit development experience from his time working with Rio Tinto at the Iron Ore Company of Canada and at Kaunis Iron in Northern Sweden where he, as Project Director, was responsible for the successful staged development of this large, open-pit iron ore operation from early exploration into commercial operation over a rapid 3.5 year period.

Mr. Williams has a B.Eng. in Electrical Engineering from the Dublin Institute of Technology Ireland and an M.Sc. in Project Management from the University of Limerick Ireland.

What is your rationale for taking part in 121 Mining Investment?

West Red Lake Gold just announced a C$68-million financing package to fund the restart of the Madsen Mine, including working capital through ramp up. By the time of the 121 event, we expect to have issued our pre feasibility study. Those major accomplishments set the stage for WRLG to transition from developer to gold producer over the next 12-18 months. We want investors to understand the investment thesis in re-rating to production, because it production re-rates are a compelling thesis, especially in a strong gold environment with few new mines entering production.

What recent news would you like to highlight to investors attending?

17 October: West Red Lake Announces Financing Package to Fund Madsen Mine Restart. C$68 million comprised of US$35M in debt with Nebari and C$25M from a bought deal financing with Raymond James.

8 October: West Red Lake Gold Intersects 37.09 g/t Au over 3.12m and 18.11 g/t Au over 2.76m at South Austin – Madsen Mine. Another set of strong results from the ongoing definition drill program that is adding accuracy and confidence to the Madsen resource to enable build of a 24-month stope book.

2 October: West Red Lake Gold Intercepts 44.17 g/t Au over 1.3m and 20.63 g/t Au over 0.5m at Upper 8 Target – Madsen Property. Upper 8 is the first exploration target tested in the H2 2024 exploration program aimed at making new discoveries on the property. Upper 8 is a geologic analogue to the deep 8 Zone, which is geologically district from and 2.5 times the grade of the Madsen resource. Two of the first three holes drilled into Upper 8 returned significant gold intercepts.

19 September: West Red Lake Gold Starts Test Mining and Bulk Sample Program at Madsen Mine. The test mining program is designed to (1) determine the best mining methods for safe and efficient mining across the range of underground environments at Madsen and (2) increase the resource by adding mineralization within the 2-metre buffers around each historic stope if test mining shows stope-adjacent mineralization can be mined. Bulk samples will be batch stockpiled and processed upon mill restart, enabling reconciliation calculations.

What are your key goals in 3 months, 6 months, 12 months?

3 Months:
Complete Connection Drift, progress Test Mining program, continue definition drilling and build out of stope book, prepare mill for restart.

6 Months:
Restart Madsen Mill, process bulk samples, transition from test mining to production mining, start processing mined material, operate according to restart budget and schedule, continue exploration program.

12 Months:
Push towards commercial production, operate on budget and schedule, continue dewatering to unlock deeper mine potential, drive lateral drift to enable drilling of 8 Zone, add third underground drill rig focused on resource growth.

What do you see as the key risks and challenges facing your company at the moment and how are you overcoming these?

Gold mineralization at Madsen – and across most of the Red Lake Gold District – is high grade but sits in narrow veins. The biggest risk for a narrow vein, high grade gold mine is knowing exactly where the gold is. The way to manage this risk is through intensive definition drilling – we are reducing the average spacing between drill holes in the resource from 20 metres (when we purchased Madsen) to 6-8 metres.

What do you think makes your company such a compelling investment?

Projects and companies are usually worth significantly more when in production versus exploration or development. West Red Lake Gold intends to make that transition in 2025, from a development company spending significant capital to a producing miner selling gold into a strong gold environment. The history of the project also means Madsen will start production with relatively little debt burden, potentially boosting returns.

What are the top 3 key investor takeaways?

West Red Lake Gold intends to put the Madsen Mine back into production in 2025. There are very few new gold mines starting production in the next while; investors generally like new or significantly rising production for the leverage such stocks provide in a rising gold market. West Red Lake Gold’s team has deep mine building experience, which enables this Madsen Mine turnaround story.