- Vancouver-based ESGold recently announced a leadership transition, as new CEO Gordon Robb comes aboard and former CEO Paul Mastantuono moves into COO position
- The new CEO talked about how the company’s near-term cash flow strategy, moving right to production from processing historic tailings, funding future exploration, is a more attractive opportunity to a risk-off investor market
- ESGold expects to begin mill circuit production on a tailings cleanup project later this year at an abandoned mine in Quebec
- The company holds 265 mining claims on the historic Montauban mine site and expects the tailings cleanup to both improve the environment and generate revenue for new gold exploration
Using a clean mining model that expects to deliver returns through both production and discovery, ESGold (CSE: ESAU) (OTCQB: ESAUF) is building the machinery that will drive the company toward that goal.
On July 2 ESGold announced a change in its leadership to help refine the company’s buildup to production in the first phase of its revenue-generating plan, which will entail tailings cleanup and sale of a resulting mineral concentrate at an abandoned mine in Quebec, 80 kilometers (49.7 miles) west of the province’s capital city. Former investment banker and emerging resource finance leader Gordon Robb has succeeded Paul Mastantuono as the company’s CEO, while Mastantuono transitions to COO, according to the July 2 news release.
“We’re entering a transformational phase in ESGold’s evolution, and I could not be more excited to welcome Gordon as our new CEO,” Mastantuono stated (https://ibn.fm/1xLBB). “His global capital markets background, investor acumen, and proven track record in scaling resource companies make him the ideal person to lead ESGold into production and far beyond. He has the energy, vision, and credibility to execute our bold strategy and take ESGold to the next level.”
ESGold’s toxic tailings cleanup operation at the historic Montauban mine site will begin extracting mica as well as any remaining gold and silver later this year. The mica will be used in a concentrate harder than concrete that can be sold for building materials such as bricks, cinder blocks, paving stones, patio tiles, parking columns, and highway Jersey barriers. Those sales will help to generate funding for later exploration of the mine’s untapped gold and silver potential.
The company is doubling the size of its 2,000-square-foot project building in anticipation of further gold and silver production, adding dedicated crew accommodations, including change rooms and showers, secure lab space for ongoing gold and silver concentrate testing, and expanded storage for secure handling of gold and silver doré bars.
“We’re not just exploring first and going down the same path that most exploration companies do,” Robb said during a recent interview with the Exploring Mining Podcast (https://ibn.fm/HE4Vk). “The last four years that I’ve been doing this, the consistent theme of raising money, drilling holes, hoping the market recognizes it for an increased market cap, to continue to do it again, has seemed very repetitive, so this new approach has been very exciting.”
Robb said instability around the globe that has resulted in higher prices for gold is creating a space where ESGold can thrive.
“What investors are looking for is risk-off,” he said. “That is why ESGold is so exciting to me. We are fully permitted. We are very close to production — we have a mill onsite, we have tailings piles that are ready to be processed, and we just have a few more steps to get there to start producing, be cash-flow positive and then funnel that money into exploration, where we don’t need to go to the market with our hand out.”
The company expects a Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) to update project economics to be released soon, as well as a final imaging and 3D model’s Ambient Noise Tomography (“ANT”) results.
For more information, visit the company’s website at https://esgold.com.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to ESAUF are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/ESAUF
