gold news

 [Music] welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn dezman with investing news.com I'm speaking with Charles Funk CEO and president of Helio star medals hi Charles nice to having me yeah good to have you so let's talk about your uh Flagship Anna Paula project you've significantly expanded the high-grade gold zones um how did these new results impact your overall mind development plan and and what is your strategy to accelerate the development yeah so Ana Paul is a spectacular deposit you know

we can consistently drill 50 to 100 meter intercepts at 5 to 10 gram per ton gold it's you know very few or bodies in the world you can deliver those kind of intercepts um we're continuing to add answers we're continue to increase the confidence of those answers that will go into a feasibility study that we complete mid next year and we plan to have anapola built by the beginning of 2028 so the drill holes ultimately mean more profitability and demonstrate the potential for a very high margin gold M

and at the same time you have the laada mine which is a producing mine but you're also doing some exploration work at the same time could you uh maybe share your overall strategy for for that project and how it impacts your overall business goals yeah it's we bought anapola mid last year we closed a transaction in November and it's it's in surprised us how quickly it's grown you know an asset that was was on care of Maintenance we've now demonstrated a six-year M life we see a lot of

potential so we've got expansions to the existing pits we're drilling some pretty solid drill results in areas considered to be waste we think that's going to materially improve the economics in the expansion Fs in the middle of the year and then ultimately we think we can go underground at the Colorado we've draw deeper holes like 15 at 18 5 at 10 m I think beyond the six-year mind life that we've already demonstrated the Colorado can exist beyond that is potentially a high ground underground gold mine it's

it's a great little asset it built Eldorado in the '90s it built Argonaut in the 2010s and I think it's going to build a third company over the next decade um a great little project that we're very happy to have right so with these two uh assets of your Flagship and the producing La Colorado how uh how are you sort of allocating capital and resources between these two projects and and you know while ensuring you continue to uh uh create shareholder value yeah we always said that we'd use the capital

the the cash flow that we're generating from the Colorado and St Augustine to grow the business and so in the quarterly we just put out we put 9 a half million cash on the balance sheet in in about 50 days um after the transaction closed last year and we're deploying that in we just talked about the expansion of the Colorado and building anapola so where whatever brings production on the quickest is getting our Capital at the moment and we're moving from sort of sustainable production at La Colorado to high

quality production when we bring anapol on and they are the two main uses of our Capital today you you probably get this question a lot so with the gold um you know Market continuing to you know perform really well in the market how is that impacting your your um development plans is it accelerating taking advantage of of of this uh bull market like what's your take on the current bull market for gold like we're a pretty aggressive company for for people who have watched us or people who look at

our history we've moved very quickly and decisively over the last couple of years so I don't think it affects the speed at which we move it that's part of our DNA um it Dr risks that move you know in Period of time where you know right now should have been our highest risk period in the restart of La Colorado um before we have the expansion before we have the funding for anapola mid next year this should be our highest risk phase instead we're seeing $500 above budget we're out

producing what we expected in the budget it dris the company mat to have this kind of you know we're we're adding about 2 million a month to the balance sheet while still advancing our projects and that's not what you would have expected um if the gold price wasn't where it's at today it's it's an incredibly strong environment to be building a gold business in yeah agree um any other upcoming Catalyst that you want to talk to talk about the third that we think we have coming along line

is at St Augustine we expect to get the permit to restart production in late this year um we think that's going to be in a major change in Mexico is an increasing confidence in the ability to get permits and we're seeing that firsthand and we also think the sulfides at s Augustine have a lot of potential so there's sort of a a free lottery ticket for a home run in sometime in Lake Q2 at St Augustine all all of the resources are open um we can get to 200,000 oun a year of production in 2028

give or take with very little dilution and we have these sort of growth opportunities at all our projects sitting beyond that where we are in a strong position onwards and upwards thanks Charles for taking the time to speak with me and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another edition of CEO insa