North Bay Resources Inc. (OTC:NBRI) CEO Jared Lazerson joined Proactive to talk about a significant operational milestone for the company: generating the its first gold revenue from concentrate sales.
Lazerson confirmed that approximately 10 tons of processed material were sold, generating around $4,000 per ton, netting North Bay roughly $400 per ton after costs.
Proactive: All right, welcome back inside our Proactive newsroom. And joining me now is Jared Lazerson, and he is the CEO of North Bay Resources. And Jared, it's great to see you again. How are you?
Jared Lazerson: Going well. How about yourself?
I'm doing well, thanks very much. So the company out with news today, hitting another milestone of bringing capital—money—into the company by selling this concentrate. So let’s get everyone up to date on where we’re at and the sort of key milestone here.
Sure. Well, this is the final step, really, in the monetization process. Acceptance by the refinery—it's not complicated, but there are numerous requirements, some testing and analysis that needs to get done. That’s to ensure the gold extraction and refining process proceeds.
So all that testing has been done. The protocol is we do comparative assays—we use ALS, and they do in-house assays. We compare and essentially split the difference, including silver and moisture content. That’s all been taken care of, and we received the settlement receipt last week. It’s not a huge amount, but in terms of a milestone, it’s very significant. We now have that final monetization piece in place. So we are effectively mine-to-market now in terms of gold. Now it’s just a question of ramping up production, increasing recovery, and improving the metrics. Yes, a major milestone.
The milestone, in fact, is first revenue on the board?
Exactly.
So, Jared, the sale netted about $400 per ton. Are you happy with that? Is it something that needs to change? Give me your thoughts going forward, especially as you’ll be sending more there.
Sure. The total sale was around $4,000 per ton net to us. That was about ten tons processed to get that sale. So that works out to $400 per ton net. We’re happy with that number. Right now, we’re only running gravity recovery. That represents about 50% of our total recovery. We expect to double that with flotation and continued optimization of the gravity system.
Our costs right now are around $300 per ton. So even at 50% recovery, we're more than nominally profitable. We expect to be significantly more profitable once flotation is online. Statistics show strong profit potential. As we ramp up the site, we’ll bring in greater control, monitor grade, and ensure we’re only sending good rock. With volume, mining becomes more efficient. The fact we’re profitable from day one is very encouraging. We're very happy with the initial result.
And just so everyone understands—there’s a lot of stockpile still there, right? It’s not something you need to go out and find.
Correct. Since we’ve been optimizing and ramping up, there’s some stockpile at the mill—about 75 tons of test material. At the project site, there are about 5,000 tons stockpiled. And then a very large quantity of surface material remains, which will be the target for mine development.
And the second part of the press release?
Yes, we’ve recompiled data from the last 15 years of exploration—104 drill holes, 18,000 metres, 50,000 feet. That’s led us to identify a significant discovery: high-grade veins and a mid- to high-grade oxide zone at surface trenches, and now what looks like a bulk tonnage deposit.
We’re seeing large intersections of low-grade material, not unlike two major nearby mines: Mount Milligan and Blackwater. Mount Milligan has 300 million tons at 0.5g gold and 0.2% copper. Blackwater just opened—it’s a 10 million ounce deposit at 0.8g/t gold.
So the reinterpretation makes sense. It seems to have been overlooked due to past focus on high-grade veins and perhaps lower gold prices. This bodes well for the asset value. Once we get through a resource estimate, this could significantly increase the company’s scope.
We just released a small 3D model today—it’s a very exciting time.
Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and style