Silver Investing: Canada Cobalt Works CEO Frank Basa: Hitting New Silver Structures at Castle East
Canada Cobalt Works CEO Frank Basa: Hitting New Silver Structures at Castle East
Canada Cobalt Works CEO Frank Basa joined the Investing News Network at the 2020 Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada conference to discuss his company’s progress exploring for silver on the company’s Castle East silver-cobalt project.
Canada Cobalt Works (TSXV:CCW,OTCQB:CCWOF) originally targeted the project for its cobalt potential, however, after additional exploration revealed significant amounts of silver, the company adjusted its exploration plan to target new zones of mineralization.
Based on the recommendation of one of the company’s geologists, Basa invested in new equipment to help improve the efficiency of the company’s exploration work. “We got a special camera from China and $26,000 later, it gave us the orientation of the silver structure,” said Basa. “We did a few wedges and the first came in at 50,000 g/t silver and the second one came in at 70,000 g/t silver, so we’re expanding on that.”
The town of Cobalt, where the project is located, was named for its wealth of the blue metal. Original work in the area focused on silver production, with the excess cobalt thrown away into waste pilings, however, market dynamics and the emergence of the electric vehicle has changed the resource economics of the area. “The old-timers threw the cobalt away and only focused on the silver. So we thought okay, we’ll go after the cobalt because lithium-ion batteries require cobalt,” said Basa. “But sure enough, we pulled up the hole we did in 2011 and we found an exceedingly large amount of silver to the point that we’re finishing downhill geophysics to see if we can increase our ability to hit the silver structure. We originally thought there was only one structure, now I think we have three.”
Moving forward, Basa and his team intend to continue to explore the silver mineralization on the property. “After the geophysics is done we will drill a little more, then we’ll put a ramp down,” said Basa. “We have about 1.2 million ounces of silver, so it’s about $20 million. The ramp is $6 million, so the ramp will pay for itself.”
https://www.canadacobaltworks.com/