Rua Gold (TSX:RUA) - Eyes 2027 Fast-Track Permit Decision for Gold-Antimony Project in New Zealand

Robert Eckford (0:00)

How are you doing? Good to see you, Matt. I'm Robert Eckford. I'm the CEO of Rua Gold. I'm a bit of a mining nerd from background. I've done nothing but mining through my career. I'm a finance guy by background. I've moved deeply into the commercial space in mining, from building mines to building companies.

And here at Rua Gold, we're really at the opening point there, where we're in the first couple of years of being listed, and we're at that development precipice right now. So really excited to be here talking with you.

Matt (0:29)

And also you better, well, better explain to folks where you're mining as well. I think it's an interesting bit.

Robert Eckford (0:35)

Sure. Rua Gold is solely focused on developing mines down in New Zealand.

Matt (0:40)

There we go. Other side of the world, folks. Other side of the world. Right.

A bit of all good stuff. Why don't we kind of kick off a little bit and try and understand about you, Robert. Where have you been? What have you done? I guess, how is that relevant to what you're trying to do now?

Robert Eckford (0:54)

Yeah, I mean, I was born in New Zealand, so I have a natural sort of homage to go back to my homeland. But I must say, I left when I was six years old. So my Kiwi accent isn't as strong as it could be. And my formative years were spent in Perth, Australia, which is why I ended up in mining from the get-go. And so I started my career there. I worked with Ernst & Young on the Chartered Accounting route, and then did a Masters of Science in Kalgoorlie with a mineral securities and mineral economics background. So I really got into the 101s of engineering and metallurgy and geology, just to understand the actual industry a bit more.

That then led me to work up in the Pilbara for a while with BHP, and then actually move over to the DRC, which is everyone's first preference of creo relocations and gap years and things like that. But the DRC was an incredible work experience. You're essentially isolated on a mine site. You share a camp with all these technical guys that you go to the bar with every night. The learning curve of my time there was incredible, and we're building out a copper project and expanding it, and it was a really exciting time.

The wife didn't like it so much, and so about 10 years ago, I then moved to Canada and have been here ever since, building companies more focused down in the Americas.

Matt (2:21)

The brains of the family, right. Smart move by her.

Right, let's talk about the opportunity for investors, because that's what we're here to talk about. In terms of for investors who perhaps haven't come across Rua Gold before, what have you assembled down in New Zealand, and exactly what is the strategy for turning these expiration assets into producing mine?

Robert Eckford (2:44)

The number one question I probably get is, why the hell we're in New Zealand, where all the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbits and the Mountains are? So, I mean, that's always a good starting point, because New Zealand does have a long history of gold mining. It's really beautiful high-grade mines down there. Oceana Gold, now a $12 billion company, has their footprints that started in New Zealand. So, it's got a long history of gold mining. We're focused down there because being a finance guy and coming out of some of my recent ventures, I really love high-grade. I love the grades that we've got down in our tenements down there. We're following up with previous historic workings that showed grades of up to 50 grams of gold. Anywhere from 10 to 50 grams of gold is coming out of these historic workings. So, we've got footprints of old workings around us. We've got headframes right next to us being built from another mine next door to us that's going to be producing gold in December.

The average grade of that mine is 23 grams a tonne. So, we've got beautiful high grades. So, that's the one aspect of New Zealand that's important. The second piece and what's also really important is the permitting regime there.

That's key because that's not on everyone's radar and that creates the alpha when you're going in and looking at a project. But New Zealand right now have legislated fast track permitting for mines where you can actually get a mine fully permitted in six months. That's not just politicians jumping on the speaker board and waffling on about bringing back mining. That's actually now passed into legislation. It's active. OceanaGold actually just recently permitted a mine. It took 112 days and that's now fully under construction.