Shane Williams, CEO of West Red Lake Gold | Rule Symposium 2026: Rick Rule interviews

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:01]This is Rick Rule for Rule Investment Media and the Rule Classroom, sponsors of the 2026 Natural Resources Investment Symposium held July 6th through 10th in Boca Raton, Florida or much more likely for you in the comfort and convenience of your own home online via live stream.

[00:00:20]However you attend live or live stream, there's a few things that you need to know about the conference. The first is that we're going to give you more information in four days than you can absorb in four days. And to that end, we interview every exhibitor and for that matter every speaker before the conference. This allows you to be prepared at the conference to allocate your time more efficiently. But that's not enough. We're still going to give you more information than you could absorb and to that end we record the entire proceedings including all of the breakout sessions. This gives you the ability to attend every part of the conference and refresh your memory uh about parts of the conference that you think were especially valuable.

[00:00:59]Note two, that every single exhibitor at our conference has been vetted. This is unlike any other conference that you might attend. Specifically, every single exhibitor including the one I'm about to interview now are owned in accounts owned by the conference sponsors. No guarantee unfortunately that because I own a stock the share price goes up, but there is a guarantee that unlike any other investment conference on the planet, every single exhibitor has been vetted. As a matter of fact, we turn down more exhibitors than we admit.

[00:01:32]All of this preparation, all of this vetting, all of this detail allows us to make you an extraordinary offer. Whether you attend live or via live stream, your tuition comes with an absolute unconditional money back guarantee. If you think for any reason whatsoever that we haven't delivered to you, uh we'll give you your money back. Just email us. We've been making that promise for 30 years. We've had to refund about 1/10 of 1% of the tuitions that we've charged over 30 years. But that money-back guarantee, which nobody else needs or beats, uh is your assurance that we have enough confidence that our content will and can will make you money, uh that we make this commitment to you without reservation. So, let's get right into it. Right now, I have the pleasure of interviewing uh Shane Williams, CEO of West Red Lake. As disclosed earlier, I'm a shareholder there, so take that into account. Shane, uh talk to the people and tell folks what it is that your background that allows you to answer my nosey questions and allows you to be CEO of West Red Lake.

[00:02:37]>> Yeah, good to be on again, Rick. Looking forward to the conference. Yeah. So, yeah, my background is mainly in project development and operations. So, I have a long history of restarts. I love the restart game where we take a let's call it an an unloved asset and take that asset and then turn it around and make it a success. I've done that about four different times in my career.

[00:03:01]And people might know a couple of projects that I've done recently. One was the the La Mac project for Eldorado, which is a very successful operation that that I bought with Eldorado and then put a team together and turned that around. And that has become a cornerstone in the Eldorado portfolio.

[00:03:18]So, that's kind of my background, more taking these operations and bringing them forward and putting them into successful operations.

[00:03:25]>> Importantly, as we'll learn in a moment, absolutely relevant to the task at hand.

[00:03:30]So, tell us something about West Red Lake. Tell us something about how and why it was set up uh and what it is it owns and what it proposes. Well, let's leave it there for the time being.

[00:03:39]>> Yeah, so earlier in my history, Rick, you'll you'll appreciate that I worked with a group called Lundin Mining. So, one thing that the Lundin Group told me is they they love haze. In reality, when an asset or an operation or a country was something that people didn't like, they saw the opportunity. So, that's something that stayed with me a lot. And so, when West Red Lake was composed as a company, the Madsen mine, who maybe some of your viewers or some of your listeners, and I know you know quite well, it was a project that had failed twice.

[00:04:13]So, it has it has a checkered history.

[00:04:15]Let's just say it has a checkered history. And so, that's that got the intrigue between myself and obviously an early investor with myself was Frank Giustra. So, we liked the opportunity. Frank was the kind of more He saw the setup for gold.

[00:04:29]So, he was more the macro investor. He saw where gold was going, and I was more of the restart and the expertise in the restart of the mine. So, the combination of us both got us intrigued at the opportunity to to start unloved asset.

[00:04:45]Let's just say that. And we got it at a very cheap time in the cycle. And we got it at the right time, and we got it when there was blood in the streets effectively on this asset. And so, that was really the opportunity that we saw to bring this forward. And that was over two two and a half years ago now since we took that asset.

[00:05:03]>> Tell us something about what you bought, what the reserves and resources are, and talk to us particularly about the sunk capital and what you paid for that uh >> Yep.

[00:05:13]>> infrastructure.

[00:05:14]>> So, Madsen as a mine had been the spent had been over 350 million dollars Canadian dollars of money had been put into the Madsen mine. And shareholders' money had been put into the Madsen mine.

[00:05:29]Uh they had built a mine. They had put it into operation. They had put an IBA.

[00:05:33]They had actually went into commercial production.

[00:05:36]And so, that 350 million dollars of Canadian dollars of value, plus on top of that, there's 170 million dollars worth of tax losses associated with that project.

[00:05:48]So, all in about 500 million dollars worth Canadian dollars worth of value in the project with a permit in place operating and with a lot of infrastructure, tailings, everything that you would want on a mine operation.

[00:06:03]So, we negotiated with a company called Sprott Resource Lending who owned the project or ended up owning the project through that bankruptcy process and we paid 6 and 1/2 million Canadian dollars for that project. We also provided a 1% NSR and some shares. So, round numbers about 40 million Canadian dollars really for 500 million dollars worth of value.

[00:06:26]So, that that's when I say I we love hate. We love buying stuff that people didn't like.

[00:06:32]>> So, you have 500 million dollars sitting on on top of a piece of northern Ontario. What what sits underneath? What can you tell us about the mineral inventory?

[00:06:43]>> Yeah, so Red Lake is a famous area in Canada. You know, it's one of the key areas, Red Lake, the Abitibi. These are the key areas of call them elephant country. If you're looking for resources and you're looking for high-grade gold, you need to be in these jurisdictions.

[00:06:58]So, Madsen came with 1.7 million ounces of resources in the ground, a lot of them indicated at an average grade of around 7 g.

[00:07:09]High-grade underground mine.

[00:07:11]And we also have another project in Red Lake which we picked up called the Rowan project which had over 400,000 oz at around 8 g. So, very high-grade deposits sitting in a tier one location in Red Lake, Ontario.

[00:07:27]>> Uh and [clears throat] for the record, West Red Lake is in production. Rowan is at a different stage in development.

[00:07:35]Uh tell us something about the current market capitalization for West West Red Lake. How much are you paying now for this resource base and this infrastructure?

[00:07:47]>> Yeah, our market cap has come off quite a bit as you know as you know and your investors know share all gold companies have done very well as particularly in our phase which is development early exploration. And we haven't trended in that sense so we are very cheap at the moment. We are around at 320 depending on the day mark Canadian market capitalization at the moment. So very cheap relative to the value of infrastructure where we are etc. and location.

[00:08:18]>> And can you can you tell us something about where you are in the turnaround of the mine understanding that these things require a little bit of love and attention before you turn them around. How far along in that process are you?

[00:08:30]>> Yeah, so we we we have over the last number of years we've de-risked the project so we've done all the drilling, we've done all the exploration, we've done the restart, we've hired people. So we're now back in commercial production. In January of this year we brought the mine back into commercial production. So now we're just coming through we're just finished our Q1 uh numbers which we'll be putting out soon and our Q1 production. So we're now back in as an operator I would say. Ramp up will continue the rest of this year but this year is our first year of commercial production really after a two only a two-year journey really since >> So I don't want to put words in your mouth but we might we uh attain nameplate construct nameplate capacity by the end of 2026?

[00:09:16]>> Yeah, so by the end of 2026 nameplate capacity would be in that 50 to 60,000 oz uh production range. That would be the where This year we'll produce around 40 on ramp up and then next year heading into next year would be around that 50 to 60,000 oz a year production.

[00:09:34]>> Got it. So calendar 2027 for nameplate capacity.

[00:09:39]>> capacity, yeah. Got it.

[00:09:41]>> Thank you.

[00:09:43]And once you have that under your belt, not as though that wasn't enough, but where do we go from here?

[00:09:49]What do you hope to do to increase the value of my holdings in West Red Lake?

[00:09:56]>> Yeah, so West Red Lake we're in a really exciting area. There's a lot of movement in the area and we have another project called the Rowan project, which is within 60 km of our Madsen mill. And really because we have the Madsen mill, the permit, the foundation, we're creating this hub and spoke model, which some of your viewers and yourself would be open to. In that there's a lot of deposits around Red Lake, which are very high grade, probably not big enough uh rate to support a mill tailings permit, but because we have the mill, which is a good base tailings that can be expanded, we're looking at building a hub and spoke model to 150,000 oz. We can see a pathway in Red Lake basically over the next 5 years.

[00:10:45]>> Got it.

[00:10:46]So that's the story, ladies and gentlemen, a fortuitous asset acquisition during a bad market in an absolutely fabled stretch of Canadian real estate with the idea to consolidate high-quality orphan deposits around the mill.

[00:11:05]Shane, to the extent that our viewers want to learn more about West West Red Lake, who do they contact and how specifically do they contact that person?

[00:11:15]>> Yeah, so I always believe in being sort of open myself, so I'm happy to take calls from shareholders and sort of emails. So I mean, West Red Lake is open, so my email address is can be reached. Everyone can contact me correctly. It's on the website. People can reach out to me directly and have a discussion. I like to talk to people. A lot of people have a lot of history with this asset, good and bad.

[00:11:41]So, I like to have I like the idea of convincing people why now, why Mattson now, and what's that opportunity going forward.

[00:11:49]>> Shane, thank you on behalf of shareholders, of course myself specifically. Thank you, too, for your ongoing sponsorship and support of our symposium. I look forward to hosting you in Boca Raton.

[00:12:00]>> Excellent. Thank you very much, Rick.