Company Interviews

Interview with Robert Eckford, CEO of Rua Gold
Recording date: 16th September 2026
Rua Gold (TSX:RUA, NZX:RGI) is a New Zealand-focused gold explorer attempting one of the fastest explorer-to-developer transitions in the junior sector. Its strategy is built around New Zealand's Fast-Track Approvals regime, which sets a six-month decision window for listed projects. OceanaGold's Wharekirauponga project has already been approved through this process in under four months.
The company controls more than 120,000 hectares in the Reefton Goldfield, around 95% of a district that historically produced over 2 million ounces of gold at 9-50 g/t. Its focus is Auld Creek, a gold-antimony deposit that early miners avoided because of its antimony content. Mineralisation begins at surface. The February 2026 MRE outlined about 200,000 AuEq ounces, split between 54,000 ounces Indicated at 5.7 g/t AuEq and 148,000 ounces Inferred at 3.7 g/t AuEq.
Rather than drill for years to build scale, management has taken this starter resource straight into permitting. Auld Creek was accepted as a Fast-Track listed project in July 2026. The substantive application is due in October 2026. CEO Robert Eckford expects the six-month clock to start in November, with a decision targeted for Q2 2027.
The April 2026 PEA supports a compact underground operation. It models 5.5 years of production at about 26,665 AuEq ounces a year, with initial capital of $132.6 million and AISC of $1,850/oz. At $3,300/oz gold, the after-tax NPV5% is $42.4 million, with a 17% IRR and 3.3-year payback. At $4,700/oz, the NPV rises to US$113.0 million and the IRR to 36%. Eckford is clear that this starter case exists to secure a permit. The plant is being designed to expand from 250,000 to 500,000 tonnes a year under a hub-and-spoke model, with a second Reefton deposit expected to emerge by Q1 2027.
Drilling continues to strengthen the resource. Rua Gold has completed 19,600 metres at Auld Creek. Recent results include 0.6 metres at 82.9 g/t gold and 24.8% antimony, and the company has reported its first visible gold at the project. The deposit extends over 1,000 metres along strike and more than 500 metres down dip, and remains open in all directions. An updated MRE and PFS are due in Q4 2026.
Antimony is central to the financing plan rather than the valuation. Eckford said metal traders are drawn to the by-product in a way they would not be to a gold-only project. The company is in offtake discussions with around four groups and expects traders to take part in project financing from mid-2027.
The balance sheet is in good shape. A C$33 million raise in January 2026 was heavily oversubscribed. Cash stood at about C$25 million at the time of the interview. That funds the PFS, permitting and a 9,000-metre maiden drill programme at the Glamorgan epithermal project on the North Island, which begins in Q4 2026. Key risks are permitting timing, modest starter-case economics at long-term prices, project financing terms and antimony price volatility.
Learn more: https://cruxinvestor.com
Sign up for Crux Investor: https://cruxinvestor.com/subscribe

Interview with Caitlin Jeffs, President & CEO of Red Metal Resources
Recording date: 16th September 2026
Red Metal Resources Ltd. (CSE:RMES) is a Vancouver-based explorer focused on the Carrizal copper-gold-silver-cobalt property in the coastal cordillera of Chile's Atacama region, near Vallenar. President and CEO Caitlin Jeffs is a geologist who began her career with Placer Dome and later co-founded Fladgate Exploration Consulting. With fellow Red Metal director Michael Thompson, she took Kesselrun Resources from its 2012 founding to a sale to Gold X2 in December 2025.
The company's distinguishing feature is its funding model. Chile allows small operators to mine up to 5,000 tonnes per month on individual concessions and sell ore to state-run ENAMI processing plants. Red Metal rents selected claims to experienced artisanal miners and takes a 10% net sales royalty paid directly by the plant. At the Farellon 1/8 concession, a 1.5% vendor royalty reduces Red Metal's net share to 8.5% until the vendor has received $600,000. The arrangement also gives Red Metal underground access to observe the mineralisation. It has the option to buy bulk samples at the plant price and keeps its exploration rights.
The first operator, Minera KMT SpA, signed in May 2026 with a seven-month development period and a minimum rate of 2,500 tonnes per month thereafter. It delivered about 592 tonnes of copper sulphide ore to ENAMI last August, roughly four months early. Red Metal can cancel the lease if the minimum is missed for three consecutive months. Earlier small-scale mining on the ground averaged 1.87% copper. Jeffs expects similar grades that could produce a royalty of $35,000 to $50,000 a month. Final ENAMI assays and settlement for the first deliveries are pending. A second lease over the Irene and Margarita claims, with operator Catalina, targets the same monthly rate within about six months.
The larger prize is exploration. About 9,000 metres of drilling has tested roughly 1.5 km of a 5 km vein system. It showed continuous mineralisation with better grades and widths towards 200 metres depth. Mapping has traced about 15 km of veining towards the historic Carrizal Alto mine, which flooded in 1891 at around 500 metres depth. A LiDAR survey and a 3D IP survey have followed. The southern IP block produced chargeability anomalies over the drilled zone and over veins mapped at surface. Northern-block results are still to be released. Jeffs is targeting an underground operation grading 1% copper or better across three parallel veins, with a long-term goal of 50 to 100 million tonnes. Drilling is planned for late 2026 at about US$350 per metre. The full path could require 50,000 to 100,000 metres.
Red Metal has 61 million shares outstanding and about 80 million fully diluted, with options and warrants priced between 6 and 15 cents. Cash was about $300,000 at the time of the interview, so new funding is needed before drilling. The key watch items are the first ENAMI settlement, KMT's progress towards 2,500 tonnes per month, northern-block IP results and the first holes of the late 2026 programme.
Learn more: https://cruxinvestor.com
Sign up for Crux Investor: https://cruxinvestor.com/subscribe

Interview with Thomas Lamb, CEO of Myriad Uranium Corp.
Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/made-in-america-myriad-uranium-csem-americas-uranium-gap-the-wyoming-project-closing-it-10614
Recording date: 16th September 2026
Myriad Uranium Corp. (CSE:M) is a US-focused uranium exploration company whose flagship asset, the Copper Mountain Uranium Project in Fremont County, Wyoming, carries one of the largest historical uranium resource bases in the country. The project was extensively drilled in the 1970s by Union Pacific which delineated seven deposits and designed a conventional six-pit mine plan before uranium prices collapsed following the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. Those historical efforts left behind a resource estimate of 26.63 Mlbs eU₃O₈ in 48.95 Mt at 269 ppm, and a separate 1982 U.S. Department of Energy-commissioned study (Bendix Field Engineering) identified an exploration target of up to 655 Mlbs across a wider assessment area. Neither figure is a current, NI 43-101-compliant mineral resource, and Myriad is careful to flag both as historical and, in the case of the exploration target, conceptual.
Myriad has spent the past two years re-testing that legacy. A 34-hole Phase I programme at the Canning deposit, completed in November 2025, found that modern laboratory assays consistently outperformed the historical gamma-probe grades - by 20% at a 200 ppm cut-off, rising to 60% at 1,000 ppm - a pattern the company attributes to radiometric disequilibrium not captured by 1970s-era probe technology alone. That result underpins the current Phase II programme, a roughly 5,000-metre, two-stage effort launched in July 2026 and funded from the company's own cash position (approximately $10 million against a budgeted $6 million spend). Stage 1 is retesting the historic deposits - Gem, Hesitation, Arrowhead, Mint and continued work at Canning - while Stage 2 is testing new ground identified through district-wide radiometric and magnetic surveying, including the Lucky Cliff prospect, where four holes returned 50 mineralised intervals above 100 ppm eU₃O₈ entirely outside the historic resource footprint.
Corporately, Myriad consolidated 100% ownership of Copper Mountain in August 2026 via merger with Rush Rare Metals Corp - the first time the district has had a single owner in nearly 50 years - and is preparing a NASDAQ or NYSE American listing application, described as roughly 80% complete. The company also holds a 23-target breccia pipe exploration portfolio on the Arizona Strip near Energy Fuels' high-grade Pinyon Plain Mine, optioned to Wedgemount Resources on a partner-funded earn-in structure, and retains a 10% free carried interest plus a strategic alliance in the Red Basin Project in New Mexico, sold in May 2026 to technology-investor-backed Subatomic for a better-than-6x cash-on-cash return.
As of September 2026, Myriad had approximately 140.1 million shares outstanding (195.0 million fully diluted) and a market capitalisation near C$67.3 million, with no reported short interest. CEO Thomas Lamb has framed the company's capital approach around avoiding the fate of peers that funded large resource-confirmation drilling programmes without a corresponding re-rating, positioning Copper Mountain's next drill results due through the remainder of Phase II as the key near-term catalyst for the stock.
Learn more: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/myriad-uranium
Sign up for Crux Investor: https://cruxinvestor.com/subscribe

Interview with Ron Heeks, Managing Director of Larvotto Resources
Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/larvotto-resources-asxlrv-australias-largest-antimony-mine-enters-construction-phase-8209
Recording date: 3rd September 2026
Larvotto Resources has officially transitioned from developer to producer, commissioning the processing plant at its Hillgrove Antimony-Gold Project in New South Wales on August 31st 2026. The milestone met management’s targeted timeline, positioning the operation to ramp toward full production of 500,000 tonnes of ore annually. Once steady-state operations are reached, Hillgrove is projected to deliver 40,500 ounces of gold and 4,900 tonnes of antimony per year, the latter representing roughly 7% of global antimony supply.
Operational efficiency has exceeded initial projections, with plant operating hours tracking ahead of schedule. By establishing a residential workforce in nearby Armidale instead of a fly-in, fly-out model, Larvotto reduced required personnel from 250 to approximately 180. The project also benefits from locked-in offtake agreements exceeding 12 months, sending gold concentrate to Glencore and antimony concentrate to Wogen Resources.
Substantial exploration and metallurgical upside have further bolstered the asset. Larvotto recently identified the Midas zone, a new gold lode located just 50 metres from current underground workings. Midas holds a conceptual exploration target of 223,000 to 2.95 million ounces of gold equivalent, offering low-capital near-term integration into the mine plan. Concurrently, metallurgical testing has demonstrated 90% recovery of tungsten into the rougher float. With global tungsten prices climbing sharply, Larvotto plans to commercialize the metal as an unmodeled third revenue stream.
Despite delivering the project on time, fully funded, and amid surging commodity prices with gold doubling price and antimony roughly tripled since acquisition, Larvotto’s share price has posted a comparatively modest 25% gain. Backed by $87.9 million in cash as of mid-2026, management remains focused on securing "Modification 5" regulatory approvals for full-scale capacity, advancing its Mt Isa copper tenure, and proving up the Midas discovery as Western demand for critical minerals intensifies.
Learn more: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/larvotto-resources-limited
Sign up for Crux Investor: https://cruxinvestor.com/subscribe

Interview with Bart Jaworski, CEO of Group Eleven Resources
Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/group-eleven-resources-tsxvzng-new-high-grade-lead-zinc-discovery-at-stonepark-11079
Recording date: 17th September 2026
Group Eleven Resources (TSXV:ZNG) has added a fresh dimension to its Ballywire discovery in Ireland: materially higher germanium grades, confirmed through a more accurate assay method. The company re-analysed 220 previously submitted samples from five drill holes, switching from lithium borate fusion to sodium peroxide fusion - a technique that better retains germanium during sample digestion. The result was a 68% average increase in reported germanium grades across the re-tested samples, with the strongest individual interval reaching 94 g/t Ge, well above typical grades of 20-40 g/t seen across the batch.
This matters because germanium is not an incidental addition. CEO Bart Jaworski explained that the metal tracks closely with sphalerite, the zinc-bearing mineral already central to Ballywire's zinc-lead-silver-copper discovery: "Whenever we see high zinc numbers, we tend to have the highest germanium numbers along with it." In practice, this means Group Eleven is capturing a scarce, high-value byproduct metal within intervals it would already be reporting for zinc, lead, silver and copper - without additional exploration cost.
The timing is notable. Germanium, used in AI infrastructure and fibre optics, trades at roughly US$200 per ounce outside China, up about 25% over the past year, as Chinese export restrictions imposed in 2023 continue to limit Western supply. Very little of the world's germanium comes from dedicated mines; it is recovered almost entirely as a byproduct of a small number of zinc smelters, making new supply additions structurally scarce. Jaworski described the dynamic bluntly: "There's not enough in the Western world coming that we need to backfill for China."
Operationally, Group Eleven remains well-funded. A C$12 million financing closed in March 2026 is supporting a 67,000-metre drill campaign for 2026, with four rigs currently active at Ballywire and roughly 15 additional holes in the pipeline. A further 110 samples from those 15 holes are still to be reassayed for germanium, suggesting more grade revisions could follow. Ballywire itself remains substantially untested: of four gravity anomalies spanning a 6-kilometre trend, drilling to date has concentrated almost entirely on one.
Investors should treat today's news as an enhancement to an existing thesis rather than a new one. The core investment case at Group Eleven still rests on the scale and grade of the underlying zinc-lead-silver-copper system at Ballywire, and on the path toward a maiden resource estimate. Germanium adds a genuine, if still unquantified, economic sweetener - genuine because the metal is present in meaningful, high-grade concentrations; unquantified because metallurgical test work establishing recoveries and payability has not yet been carried out for any metal at Ballywire, germanium included. With a small, tightly balanced global germanium market, a discovery of this scale could carry a strategic premium once those metallurgical questions are answered - but that remains a forward catalyst rather than a settled fact today.