Could you introduce Xtra-Gold Resources to our international audience?

We acquired the Kibi gold project property back in 2003, and received the government grants and licenses three years later. The Kibi Gold Belt where our project is located had never seen prior exploration before we came in, despite being known for having one of the richest sources of alluvial gold in West Africa, as most explorers focused on the Ashanti belt next door. Kibi has the potential to deliver significant deposits. So far, we have only drilled about 2% of our 226 km2 land tenure, and circa 20% of the known footprint of the deposit. Based on our internal models, the resource is exceeding 1 million oz, but our goal is to push it to 2 million oz in the next 18 to 24 months. We are aggressively drilling using our own equipment – we own three drill rigs that run 24/7, saving 80% of drilling costs.

Why hasn’t the Kibi Gold Belt seen more exploration along the years?

There are four major gold belts in Ghana, of which the Ashanti Gold Belt is the largest, 10 times bigger than Kibi. The British did some exploration on Kibi in the 1980s, finding high-grade, narrow veins, but the drilling was rudimentary using hand tools like pickaxes. Prolonged bear markets over the past three decades discouraged follow-up modern exploration. In the small windows of improved market sentiment when capital could be raised, explorers looked at other belts, like the Sefwi volcanic belt hosting Newmont’s Ahafo mine. Kibi is only 50 km away from Newmont’s second mine, Akyem, which also started with 1 million oz before growing into a 10 million oz + world-class deposit. I strongly believe Kibi has room to grow into a multi-million oz deposit and become the next big discovery in Ghana.

Can you elaborate on your current exploration strategy and the milestones achieved to date?

Our 2021 MRE of 800,000 oz only includes one zone (Zone 2) out of the four zones identified. Currently, we are focused on Zone 3, where we found four gold shoots layered on top of one another. In our latest release, we published intercepts of 1.35 g/t over 50 m and 1.76 g/t over 33 m. Our goal is to get 100 holes in and define another 500,000-800,000 oz from near-surface resources to about 250 m. We are currently at hole 50 and we have drilled 2 km of strike length and just over 80,000 m in this area. On the resource drilling cut-off in July 2021, we had 400 holes and about 70,000 m.

Can you tell us more about your financing strategy and the “community mining project”?

Xtra-Gold has not done any financing since our IPO in 2010. Instead, we self-financed between the founders and one other big investor. Then, we also generate cash from our alluvial contract: With the funds generated from selling the bullion from the alluvial operations, we are financing our hard rock exploration.

Despite being the number one gold producer in the continent, Ghana has failed to attract more greenfield explorers compared to its neighbors. Why is that?

As a mature mining district with some of the oldest-known greenstone belts, Ghana has already delivered all the low-hanging fruits. Kibi is the only underexplored belt, of which we own about 70%. Also, with only nine large producers, the mining sector generates the largest source of foreign reserves for the government, who takes more than 50% of every net dollar. While this may be workable for producers during a boom period, juniors cannot afford the same level of taxation. The problem is that the government treats mining and exploration in a very similar fashion. With VAT added on everything from drilling to assays and other expenses, the barrier to entry becomes insurmountable for juniors. Therefore, many Canadians and Australian explorers moved to Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso or Mali, choosing higher political risk over higher taxation. There are only three explorers left in Ghana. Every year, we hear pledges about tax cuts, but this has not happened yet. Instead, the government is more focused on lowering barriers for bauxite and lithium.

Do you have a final message?

Xtra-Gold Resources will prove a multimillion-ounce discovery. Gold is performing beautifully in every major currency except for the USD, and once the Fed stops hiking up rates, we will enter another bull market. At that point, everyone will crowd to the gold space, but to those investors that take a longer-term view, we invite them to start looking already at the current explorers who are on to significant deposits and have strategic and secure land positions in a safe jurisdiction