U.S. Gold Corp (NASDAQ:USAU) CEO George Bee talked with Proactive about the company’s progress as it advances the CK Project in southeast Wyoming.
Bee explained that U.S. Gold Corp has almost tripled its market capitalization over the past year and was recently added to the Russell 3000 and 2000 Indexes, enhancing visibility to generalist investors.
Proactive: All right, welcome back inside our Proactive newsroom. Joining me now is George Bee. He is the CEO of U.S. Gold Corp. George, it's great to see you again. How are you?
George Bee: I'm very well. I hope you're enjoying your summer
Yes, it's very nice out, of course, and it's still a time for lots of work to be done. I know your company has been super busy. You as well. There are a couple of things I want to talk about, but I should also mention, we recently highlighted the fact that your company had made the big list—the Russell 3000 and 2000. This is a real testament to the work that has happened over the past couple of years to get to this point, George.
Well, obviously, if you look at where we were a year ago to where we are now, we've almost tripled our market capitalization. Going onto the Russell Index helps improve that visibility to the market in general and the generalist investor. I think this is a great time for the generalist investor to really understand the opportunities in gold, copper, and resource stocks in general.
That really sends us to where we are today with these announcements you've made over the last couple of days of really getting to the next phase of work. I know you've brought in two pretty big names to help with the engineering and feasibility part of things.
You know, we've kept the company pretty lean and mean. We have done everything to get us to a fully permitted copper-gold mine in a safe jurisdiction in southeast Wyoming. Now it's time to grow the team as we start looking toward development. Ken Murray from Captrics—we brought him on as project manager. Very seasoned project manager. Excellent track record. We've gone with the Micon-Halyard combination for engineering and the final steps for the feasibility and, more importantly, the execution plan. We want to be in the ground early next year. This is a run-up to that.
We've got two really well-seasoned groups that have done a lot of work. They're the right size for what we're trying to accomplish. It's time now that we build our team to move forward to development and into operations.
George, I was reading that combined, they have 762 completed projects and over 1,200 technical reports that they've written. So is most of the work for those technical reports done now? Is it more so the work that has to be done on the actual paper itself? Or are there still some things they need to do in order to get you to that certain status?
Well, look, those are the track records of Micon—been around for a long time. The Halyard combination brings in some really talented folks on the development of the concentrators and the kind of processing plant we're going to put in place. So the Micon-Halyard combination brings a lot of depth to what we hope to do. At a time when you are looking to control costs—we are seeing inflation—we want a very solid execution plan so that we come in on time and on budget and deliver the CK Project as we intend.
Lastly, George, just remind everyone a little bit about the project itself and where it lies, and the importance of that. More importantly, because of its jurisdiction, how important it's going to be for the future of really what people are looking for and what you're trying to deliver.
Well, look, when you look at the domestic agenda in the United States—having domestically produced copper and domestically produced gold—at a time when we're seeing all sorts of supply interruptions. I was just reading today about blockages on roads affecting deliveries of copper in Peru. The security of our economy in the United States is very important.
Having domestic production in Wyoming—a resource state jurisdiction where you know the rules of the game—we see a very low-risk avenue to fulfilling the agenda on critical minerals. It's a great time to be looking at producing copper and gold at a time when we all see uncertainty in the marketplace.
Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and style