Tag Archives: Sean Kingsley

Disciplined, Systematic Development in Newfoundland’s Untapped Gold Frontier

Gold Hunter Resources (CSE:HUNT; OTCQB:HNTRF) is not just another junior explorer with a big land package. It is a team that delivered meaningful shareholder value in 2024 and is now returning to Newfoundland with a fully consolidated district, deep technical leadership, and a strategy rooted in data, geology, and discipline.

At the heart of the company’s plan is the Great Northern Project, a 26,000-hectare district-scale land package running along the Doucers Valley Fault. While nearly 500 historical drill holes exist, they are concentrated in just four small areas. In contrast, 18 gold-bearing trends remain virtually untested. The result is a rare mix of scale, infrastructure access, and near-term upside in one of North America’s most supportive mining jurisdictions.

In 2023, Gold Hunter sold its initial Newfoundland asset to FireFly Metals in a transaction valued at over $30 million. More than $25 million worth of FireFly shares were issued directly to Gold Hunter shareholders, creating immediate and tangible value during a quiet junior market.

But the exit was not the end of the story. Just 5 kilometres from the original ground, Gold Hunter began consolidating an even larger opportunity. Through more than 10 separate transactions with private holders and small operators, the company unified a 50-kilometre trend along the Doucers Valley Fault. This marked the first time this corridor has ever been controlled by a single entity.

The company’s success in quietly acquiring these projects ahead of better-capitalized competitors has set the foundation for something bigger.

The Great Northern Project follows a proven structural template: a major regional fault with multiple mineralized splays, hosted in rocks nearly identical to those at Equinox Gold’s Valentine Project.

“Although this is structurally complex like most mineralized gold systems, our approach is systematic,” says Chief Executive Officer Sean Kingsley. “Once you understand the controls, you can start stringing deposits together. It’s a classic string-of-pearls model.”

That model has worked well at Valentine. Starting with a small initial resource, it was built into a 5-million-ounce system with clear continuity and expanding scale. Gold Hunter sees Great Northern as following that same path, with a more advanced starting point thanks to nearly 500 legacy drill holes, robust geochemical coverage, and district-scale consolidation already complete.

Rather than rush into drilling, Gold Hunter spent three months in 2024 compiling the first full district-scale dataset ever assembled in this region. The team aggregated historic work from over a dozen sources, including past operators, government surveys, and private holders, into a single coherent exploration model.

The database includes more than 36,000 soil samples, 7,700 rock samples, 500 lake and stream sediment samples, 660 till samples, 5,700 mapped outcrops, multiple smaller geophysical surveys, and over 66,000 metres of historical drilling. That effort revealed high-priority trends that had previously fallen through the cracks due to fragmented ownership and limited budgets.

“Now that we’ve compiled the data, we’re layering in geophysics to take it further,” says Kingsley. “The VTEM survey we’re flying over the entire district will help us pinpoint new structural corridors, extensions of known zones, and areas that were never tested properly.”

Gold Hunter’s project is located in one of the most mining-friendly and accessible regions of Canada. Infrastructure is already in place, including hydroelectric power on site, highway access within walking distance, a mill located just over the ridge, and a deep-sea port facility just a few kilometres away.

“These are the things that matter when you’re looking to build value fast,” Kingsley says. “We don’t need to build roads, power lines, or ship ore across the country. We’re right where we need to be.”

In addition, Newfoundland and Labrador offers supportive permitting frameworks, experienced local workers, and a government eager to promote responsible resource development. These are factors that continue to attract serious exploration and development activity across the province.

Unlocking regional-scale gold systems takes more than ground. It takes people who understand how these systems behave.

Gold Hunter’s technical lead, Rory Kutluoglu, brings both geoscience and geophysics expertise and played a key role in Kaminak’s Coffee Gold deposit, which was acquired by Goldcorp for US$520 million. He sees Great Northern as another high-potential system, this time with infrastructure and historical drilling already in place.

On the ground, veteran Newfoundland geologists Tanya Tettelaar and David Copeland offer unmatched local knowledge. Tettelaar spent six years as exploration manager at Marathon Gold, helping advance Valentine through its critical growth phases. Copeland has worked directly on parts of the Great Northern land package for over a decade and was instrumental in building the Goldboro deposit, now part of NexGold.

“This is one of the strongest technical teams I’ve worked with,” says Kingsley. “We’ve got national-level discovery experience and local geological intuition coming together. That’s how you de-risk exploration.”

Kingsley himself has been active in Newfoundland and Labrador since the early 2010s and sees the province as one of the last places in North America where major new discoveries are still possible.

With a past win under its belt, a fully consolidated district, an expansive geological and geophysics dataset, and a proven technical team, Gold Hunter is positioned to help write the next chapter of Newfoundland’s gold story.

The company has completed its initial VTEM survey and is in the midst of ground truthing drill targets for 2025. Every metre will be guided by data. Every target will build on a district-wide vision.

“We’ve done the hard work. Acquisition, compilation, modelling, and survey execution,” says Kingsley. “Now it’s time to drill. And we know exactly where to start.”

This story was featured in Canadian Securities Exchange Magazine.

Learn more about Gold Hunter Resources https://goldhunterresources.com/.

Sean Kingsley on the Current State of the Mining Industry | The CSE Podcast Ep25-S2 (Asian Heritage Month 2022)

In a special episode for Asian Heritage Month, the CSE’s Phillip Shum is joined by Enduro Metals (CSE:ENDR) Director of Communications Sean Kingsley to discuss his journey to a successful career in mining, his advice for young people, and the challenges he faces at his job. The conversation also addresses what Asian Heritage Month means to Sean and the influence of his Chinese heritage on his perspectives.

Here’s an overview of what Phillip and Sean discuss in this edition of the “Exchange for Entrepreneurs” podcast:

00:00 – Introduction and family background
03:40 – Professional background
05:15 – Getting into the mining space
07:10 – The most exciting part of the job
08:50 – Advice for anyone who wants to get into the industry
10:55 – How has your Asian heritage shaped the person you are today?
13:25 – Any traditions that you are especially proud of?
17:30 – The state of discovering new minerals/metals
20:30 – What does Asian Heritage Month mean to you?
22:30 – Final message and contact information

About Sean Kingsley
Sean Kingsley provides strategic consultation to private and publicly listed junior resource companies. He has 15 years’ experience within the mineral exploration, mining and development sector specializing in corporate development, strategic marketing, consultation, investor relations/awareness & capital raising. Mr. Kingsley has a strong grass-roots & a global investor network, a firm understanding of the financial markets and experience in utilizing diverse methods for public communications globally.

Learn more about Enduro Metals at https://endurometals.com/.

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Sean Kingsley on How to Prepare for the Roaring 20s

CSE’s Anna Serin and Sean Kingsley sat down in the Vancouver #HashtagFinance studio before this year’s PDAC to discuss Sean’s insights into the mining exploration market and his perspectives from the frontline of investor relations.

In this discussion, Sean shares what makes the Golden Triangle in BC so special (5:48), why collaboration with First Nations will be the biggest development in the mining industry over the next 10 years (10:34), and the key benchmarks for investing in a junior resource company (12:38).

Listen until the end to hear some of the best investment advice that Sean ever received and about the “30 things” project that was developed by the Mining Association of Canada.

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The new faces of mining: engaging the millennial investor in mining opportunities

Participants:

Andrew Nelson, CPA, Mining Investment Analyst, Dundee Goodman Merchant Partners

Jamie Keech, Founder & CEO, Ivaldi Venture Capital

Sean Kingsley, Vice President, Corporate Development, Cabral Gold

They’re young. They’re powerful. And that wave of power is growing – quickly.

Meet the millennial investor. Now, the catch: getting them interested in investing in the mining and metals industry. It’s a relatively untapped investor demographic, on the back of a tough half-decade in the space.

But the potential for opportunity is growing, and this group of investors is demanding more of the industry: from more connectivity to increased transparency (and beyond).

Public Entrepreneur spoke to three up-and-coming millennials who are helping push the space forward.

To register for an exclusive CSE Talks session at PDAC 2019 featuring the new faces of mining, click here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cse-talks-new-faces-of-mining-tickets-57041685216

Tell me a bit about your background. How did you get involved in the mining industry?

AN: I began my professional career as a financial auditor while simultaneously completing the Chartered Professional Accountant designation. Later, I transitioned to investment banking, joining Dundee Securities, which recently became Dundee Goodman Merchant Partners, a mining-focused merchant bank. The clientele and deals I’ve been involved with have always exclusively been mining.

JK: I’m a mining engineer. I’ve worked in a variety of places: Albania, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Baffin Island and have had a lot of different jobs on the technical side. In Vancouver, I worked primarily with a small management team that built a company that is called Equinox Gold. I left about a year ago to start my own venture: it’s called Ivaldi Venture Capital. We also run an investment research service called Resource Insider. We’re focused on deploying capital into mining and metals projects. We’ve done several deals over the last year, ranging between $1 million to $3 million.

SK: My family has lived in Vancouver for over 125 years – we are one of the oldest Chinese families here so being a part of a legacy has always driven my interests into building something long-lasting. There’s nothing more constant than the need for minerals in the world. I’ve been hooked in the industry for over 12 years and plan to be for as long as I live. I currently do corporate communications and development for two Brazilian-focused junior companies.

We’ve moved from a landscape dominated by resource exploration/development companies to one that now includes a major cannabis presence and increasing prominence of tech stories.  How do you look at this new environment and what appear to be the challenges?

JK: When it comes to mining, younger investors haven’t really had the chance to come into the space. I’m a millennial and during the last bull market, I was 24. I didn’t have any money to spend and most 24-year-olds are in that same situation. There hasn’t been much interest in mining since that time because there hasn’t been much opportunity to be interested. That money has gone to the cannabis space, the crypto space: these are industries that millennials are able to relate to very easily because people smoke cannabis and people grew up on the Internet.

AN: What’s going to get millennials interested in mining is a broad commodity bull market in the resource space. Most millennials aren’t familiar with the wealth creation the resource space can offer and have recently been attracted to high flying sectors such as cannabis, cryptocurrency, and blockchain, until the financial hangover set in.

A recent resource example were the parabolic moves in lithium and cobalt which was due to the electric vehicle trend. This was very engaging for millennials who can understand Tesla and lithium-ion batteries in their cellphones. Many of my friends who are not resource professionals would be talking about these commodities as a reaction to the rising share prices and they wanted a piece of the action.

SK: Alternative companies and sectors outside of mining have done well to get their stories and opportunities out to a new wave of investors, millennials. Ten years ago, you wouldn’t see my generation investing in stocks yet now they all have brokerage accounts.

It’s now up to us as an industry to capture their attention through avenues that they could relate to and not just the stories of how the industry titans like mining billionaires Robert Friedland and Ross Beatty got their investors and themselves very rich. We need to teach millennials that mining is the most constant sector and has tremendous upside and applications through avenues such as video, virtual reality, social campaigns, and telling stories that would resonate and engage their curiosity and understanding of the resource sector. It is time for our industry to innovate, rejuvenate and disrupt how it once was.

Gold and silver have long been a primary focus for investors in the mining space but new market segments, such as battery metals, have the potential to attract a different type of investor. What do you think about this?

JK: I think it’s happened. The energy metals sector, be it lithium, cobalt, vanadium, has done a very admirable job of piggybacking on the tech industry. Elon Musk has inadvertently become one of the most successful mining promoters in history. There’s been a demand and companies have done an impressive job of tying their product into something people care about, as compared to mining.

SK: There is money to be made in these new segments. I’ll take us back to 2006-2008 when the craze in the sector was rare earth metals. Unfortunately, China came in and flooded the market with supply and that quickly stopped the demand, but the run-up saw investors making money. Come 2011, it was all about graphite and graphene. Again, the market got flooded but investors made money. Here we are, now comes energy metals: cobalt, lithium, vanadium. Yes, these battery metals are desperately needed as we revolutionize the way we live and do things and investors will make money, but these run-ups are not constant like precious metals gold and silver.

AN: From a market observation, most battery metals such as lithium and cobalt are very small markets, each approximately sub-US$10 billion relative to gold and copper, which are around US$100 billion-plus. It doesn’t take much capital to move these smaller markets and those are trades that you need to get in and get out of within a 12 to 24 month timeframe. A lot of those companies are speculation, rather than investments. The point is, if you want to speculate in these small markets, make sure you have impeccable timing.

What is the entry point to getting a millennial investor to begin researching a mining stock? How do you get them interested in the first place and what feedback have you had from this generation of investors?

JK: I think about this a lot. In other industries there are influencers. It’s not a coincidence that Kylie Jenner’s makeup company is a billion-dollar company. It has nothing to do with the quality of the product, it has to do with her persona. There are not a lot of young influencers within the mining industry. There are a few people my age (30s) and there are a lot of people in their 60s.

There’s a gap and I think we need more public-facing influencers – letter writers, CEOs, leaders in the industry of any type that can generate interest – and that will bring them into the industry. That said, influencers have to get the timing right. If there’s not money to be made, no one is going to care.

When I think about mining, there’s an adventure aspect to it: there’s travel to exotic locations and we know millennials are the best-travelled generation yet. This is an aspect that can engage people and enable them to see the potential in the space. That’s what’s going to bring investors in. It’s a multi-step process. You need an interesting story, you need the potential to make money, and you need public facing personas that people trust.

SK: For me, it’s got to be about the tremendous upside in value creation and I often point to the discovery phase of the Lassonde Curve chart which outlines the life of mining companies beginning at exploration and ending in production, showing value that the market attributes to each stage.

Once millennials really start to understand that everything in the world is only possible with the minerals that we discover and mine and of what opportunities that creates for our generation will they realize the endless possibilities and upside potential of the sector.

AN: There’s a massive opportunity here to shift the way millennials look at investing in mining. Millennials are now the largest generation in Canada, but are the least invested in stocks, but are the most likely to participate in an online financing. Recently, I received a shell opportunity in my inbox.  I passed but another millennial I know subscribed. To partake only required 5 minutes and was a very simple process. The company raised 324% over their targeted funding and brought in 201 investors in a matter of six days. This is one of the major platforms I believe will be used to complete resource financings with millennial investors.

To register for an exclusive CSE Talks session at PDAC 2019 featuring the new faces of mining, click here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cse-talks-new-faces-of-mining-tickets-57041685216