Company Interviews

Interview with Peter Secker, CEO of Canyon Resources
Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/canyon-resources-asxcay-premium-cameroon-bauxite-mine-ships-first-ore-mid-2026-8719
Recording date: 2nd April 2026
Canyon Resources (ASX:CAY) is rapidly advancing the Minim Martap bauxite deposit in Cameroon toward first production, targeting initial shipments in late September 2026. The project features 51% alumina and 2% silica content, which Chief Executive Officer Peter Secker believes represents the highest-grade undeveloped bauxite deposit globally. With over 1.1 billion tons of resource located 800 kilometers from the coast, the asset combines exceptional quality with significant scale.
The superior grade profile translates directly into economic advantage. Canyon expects to receive $76 to $78 per ton for its bauxite, representing a $10 to $12 premium above the Guinea standard GBIX price of $65 per ton. This premium reflects the reduced caustic soda consumption and lower energy requirements in alumina refining that the high-grade material enables. Against production costs of $36 per ton to port and $20 per ton freight, the company projects $200 million in annual free cash flow at 10 million tons per year production.
The project is 50% complete and fully funded through first production, with $40 million in cash and a $95 million undrawn debt facility covering the remaining sub-$100 million in development costs. Critical infrastructure components are progressing on schedule: road construction is 80% complete, the first seven locomotives are en route to Cameroon for May-June arrival, and trial mining commences within weeks.
Canyon has adopted a strategic approach to commercial negotiations, postponing offtake agreements until after demonstrating actual product quality with its first 50,000-ton trial shipment. This positions the company to negotiate stronger terms with North American, European, Middle Eastern, and Asian customers while seeking prepayment facilities to fund expansion.
The company is increasing its ownership stake in Camrail, the rail operator, from the current 9.1% to enhance logistics control. An $820 million World Bank-funded rail upgrade will enable production to scale from 2 million to over 10 million tons annually by decade's end, with expansion funded through operating cash flow rather than equity dilution.
View Canyon Resources' company profile: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/canyon-resources
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Interview with Steven Sirbovan, President & CEO of ICG Silver & Gold
Recording date: 1st April 2026
ICG Silver and Gold Corp. is a newly listed exploration company that began trading on the CSE on March 31, 2026, after spinning out from American Pacific Mining. The company holds a single flagship asset, the Tuscarora District, a 10,000-acre contiguous land package in northeastern Nevada positioned at the intersection of the Independence and Carlin Trends. For investors evaluating the junior exploration space, ICG presents a clearly defined near-term catalyst, a funded treasury, and a geological thesis that differentiates it from prior operators at the same project.
The Tuscarora District is not a greenfield exploration play. Historical operators Novo Resources and American Pacific Mining conducted 25,000 metres of drilling, collected 5,000 samples, and completed 130 line-kilometres of geophysics across the property. Those programs generated high-grade results, including an intersection of just over 4 metres grading 127 g/t gold at the South Navajo target. Despite this work, the project was consistently treated as a gold-only system. ICG's management believes that interpretation left a significant dimension of the project unexplored: a spatially overlapping, silver-dominant epithermal system, supported by surface rock samples returning up to approximately 38,000 g/t silver at certain targets and near-surface geophysical anomalies.
The former Dexter open-pit mine, located just off the property boundary on trend with the South Navajo and Modoc targets, produced approximately 50,000 ounces of gold and 250,000 ounces of silver in the early 1990s and serves as a direct analogue for the style of mineralisation management is targeting.
The company enters the market with approximately C$6.2 million in the treasury and a Phase 1 RC drill program of 3,000 to 6,000 metres scheduled to commence in June 2026. RC costs in the region are currently estimated at approximately US$250 per metre, providing ICG with sufficient capital to complete the program without near-term financing pressure. Assay results are expected in August 2026, giving investors a defined newsflow window within the current calendar year.
The Phase 1 program targets two categories of drill holes. The first group focuses on South Navajo and Modoc to build toward an eventual mineral resource. The second and more exploration-oriented group targets East Pediment, Grand Prize, King's Vein, and North Navajo areas which are identified through sampling and geophysics but not yet systematically drilled. Hole depths are planned at 200 to 300 metres, consistent with the shallow, open-pittable mineralisation model the company is evaluating.
The management team brings relevant capital markets and technical depth. CEO Steven Sirbovan has 13 years of capital markets experience including work at Waterton Global Resource Management with a Nevada focus. The board includes Jeff Swinoga, formerly of Barrick Gold, and Gary Baschuk, who spent significant time at Barrick's Goldstrike operation in Nevada. VP of Exploration Korbon McCall provides direct technical continuity with the project through his prior work with American Pacific.
For investors, the near-term thesis is straightforward: a funded drill program, an August 2026 assay window, and a geological interpretation that has not previously been tested at district scale. The key risk, as with any early-stage exploration company, is that drilling results may not confirm the dual-system thesis. Investors should size positions accordingly and monitor Phase 1 results as the primary near-term value inflection point.
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Interview with Chris Beer, Interim President & CEO of Atex Resources
Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/atex-resources-tsxvatx-chile-copper-giant-hits-2b-ton-target-secures-strategic-land-rights-8108
Recording date: 2nd April 2026
Atex Resources finds itself at a strategic inflection point as interim CEO Chris Beer steers the company through a leadership transition while maintaining aggressive exploration momentum at its Valeriano copper-gold project in Chile. Following the January departure of founding CEO Ben Pullinger for personal reasons, the board is conducting a comprehensive executive search targeting candidates with exploration expertise, engineering background, and proven ability to engage with major mining companies.
The company operates from a position of financial strength, holding $150 million in cash that funds approximately 2.5 to 3 years of drilling at current activity levels. This runway allows Atex to pursue an ambitious exploration strategy without near-term financing pressure, a significant advantage in the current market environment.
The Valeriano project has delineated 2 billion tons of copper mineralization at 0.8% copper equivalent, comprising 1.5 billion tons in the inferred category and 500 million tons in the indicated category. What distinguishes this discovery is the high-grade B2B breccia zone sitting above the massive porphyry system. This breccia currently measures 30 to 40 million tons, with the company targeting expansion to at least 50 million tons at grades exceeding 1.5% copper equivalent.
Recent Phase 6 drilling has exceeded expectations, extending beyond the original 25,000-meter target to more than 30,000 meters. A particularly significant intercept in Hole 34 discovered nearly one kilometer of continuous mineralization in rhyolite rather than the expected breccia, potentially expanding the B2B tonnage by 70% in a single hole. This finding opens new geological dimensions and questions whether the system represents discrete breccia clusters or a more continuous mineralized envelope.
The dual nature of the deposit creates unusual development optionality. The high-grade breccia presents a near-term development target accessible to mid-tier producers, while the underlying porphyry system compares favorably to world-class block cave operations like Red Chris in Canada and Carrapateena in Australia. Strategic backing from Agnico Eagle, which holds over 15% of outstanding shares, validates the district-scale potential that includes three to four additional Valeriano-like targets within six kilometers awaiting systematic testing.
View Atex Resources' company profile: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/atex-resources-inc
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Interview with Colin Padget, President & CEO of Founders Metals
Recording date: 1st April 2026
Founders Metals is a gold exploration company operating in Suriname with a straightforward but high-conviction proposition: a district-scale land package in one of the world's most geologically prospective and underexplored orogenic gold terrains, backed by strong institutional capital, company-owned drilling infrastructure, and a growing portfolio of discoveries.
The flagship Antino project now covers over 100,000 hectares of Guyana Shield greenstone belt, a fivefold expansion from just 20,000 hectares less than a year ago. That land growth reflects both the company's operational effectiveness in Suriname and the geological rationale for holding as much ground as possible in a terrain that draws consistent comparisons to West Africa's Birimian gold belt, the source of some of the world's most significant orogenic gold discoveries over the past three decades.
The project is not a single-target story. Upper Antino, the most advanced zone, has returned exceptional drill results including 50.5 metres at 31 g/t gold, and infill drilling has confirmed mineralisation continuity across sub-parallel shear structures and down-plunge gold shoots. Lower Antino, 3.5 kilometres away, offers a contrasting but complementary bulk tonnage profile with 80-90 metres averaging approximately 1 g/t from surface that points toward open-pit development potential. Having both styles on the same land package gives Founders Metals a level of future mine-design flexibility that is genuinely uncommon among companies at this stage of development.
Beyond those two advanced zones, five additional discoveries have been made in the past 18 months. The most significant new target is Antino North, approximately 100 square kilometres of undrilled ground, has now received its first drill rig. Management has flagged this as a top priority on the grassroots side, driven by structural indicators and geochemical results consistent with the broader camp-scale thesis.
The 2026 programme consists of up to 70,000 metres across four of the company's six owned drill rigs, split roughly equally between advancing known targets and testing new ones. The company holds approximately $50 million in cash and has indicated that both the technical capacity and the financial capacity exist to drill beyond the planned meterage if results justify it.
The shareholder register reflects the project's credibility among sophisticated capital allocators. BlackRock and Franklin Templeton are on the register, having been attracted by the project's scale potential and the technical depth of the team. Management retains approximately 7.5% ownership. Chris Taylor, the architect of the Great Bear Resources exit, widely regarded as one of the most successful resource-free acquisitions in recent Canadian mining history, sits on the board and brings a well-validated strategic perspective on exploration-stage value creation.
For investors, Founders Metals offers a rare combination in the junior gold space: genuine district-scale potential, a multi-discovery track record, institutional validation, full operational control, and a management team with both the geological credibility and the capital discipline to execute over a multi-year discovery cycle. The key catalysts to watch in 2026 are results from Antino North, ongoing infill drilling at Upper Antino, and any further additions to the concession package.
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Interview with Ruyi Deysel, Managing Director & CEO of West Wits Mining
Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/west-wits-mining-asxwwi-first-gold-production-achieved-as-south-african-project-goes-live-8410
Recording date: 2nd April 2026
West Wits Mining has crossed a pivotal threshold, delivering its first gold pour at the Qala Shallows project in South Africa's Witwatersrand Basin and beginning the operational ramp-up toward steady-state production of 70,000 ounces per annum. For investors tracking the company's progress, the milestone is meaningful not only symbolically but structurally: it confirms that West Wits has successfully built and commissioned an underground gold mine on schedule, within a disciplined capital framework, and with early performance metrics running ahead of the Definitive Feasibility Study.
The production model is built around toll treatment of ore at a Sibanye-Stillwater facility nearby, avoiding the capital burden of a standalone processing plant in the early stage and compressing the timeline to first revenue. Ore grades and gold recoveries from bottle roll tests are both tracking above DFS assumptions which is a positive early indicator for the unit economics that will define the ramp-up. The all-in sustaining cost target of approximately US$1,300/oz positions the operation with a material margin against current gold prices, and management has been explicit that cost control is central to the company's operating philosophy.
Funding is not a near-term concern. The company completed an unsolicited A$27.5 million equity raise in January, entered production fully funded, and is now preparing its first drawdown under the lending facility. Approximately 25% of total project funding is expected to come from early gold revenue, which means maintaining the production ramp-up profile is both an operational and financial imperative. Contingency has been built into both the equity and lending structures to absorb short-term variability.
Energy management is an area of active focus. Diesel currently accounts for around 8% of operating costs, already low relative to comparable operations, partly due to the closed-loop hydropower system that uses purified local groundwater. Grid power connection, expected in Q4 2026, will reduce diesel dependency further and improve operating margins without any requirement for additional production volume. This represents a near-term, largely de-risked cost improvement that investors can monitor against a defined timeline.
On the growth side, the company has launched a scoping study targeting an expansion pathway to 200,000 oz per annum, nearly three times the current steady-state target. The study commenced in February 2025 and is expected to conclude by June, at which point management will have defined the direction for a full feasibility study. This provides investors with a clear, time-bound catalyst to assess the long-term scale of the asset.
What distinguishes West Wits Mining's investment case from many of its junior gold peers is the board's stated philosophy: demonstrate profitability first, grow selectively second. In a sector where capital is frequently deployed in pursuit of market capitalisation rather than margin, that orientation carries weight. The coming twelve months will test whether the operational execution matches the framework management has built. The early signals are encouraging, the funding is in place, and the catalysts are defined.
View West Wits Mining's company profile: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/west-wits-mining
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