Desert Gold Ventures CEO Jared Scharf: Allied Gold, Barrick Gold and Endeavour Mining are important neighbors

We have built one of the largest land packages of any non-producer in the belt at over 440 sq.km and have made more than 25 gold discoveries on the property to date with 5 of these discoveries totaling about 1.1 million ounces of gold resources. All of these gold zones including the 5 with resources are open geologically speaking. Meaning it is a virtual certainty our gold resource base will grow with more drilling.

Western Mali is one of the most prolific regions for gold exploration and exploitation anywhere on earth with a history going back thousands of years. We have two high-level strategic goals: 1. to grow our gold resources to the point where we can develop a tier 1 mine which in our view is a mine that can produce 200,000 per year for a minimum of 10 years and 2. to fast track into gold production by mining the multiple gold rich oxide zones on the SMSZ Project via heap leach mining. We are currently addressing these plans in our PEA.

The completion of our PEA is a major step for us. The subsequent construction of the heap leach mine and achieving commercial production will be major milestones for Desert Gold. Generating significant amounts of free cash flow would give our company tremendous operational flexibility and allow us to turbo charge our exploration efforts on other areas of the SMSZ Project. It would also eliminate our “going concern risk” as we would become a self-sustaining entity.

Allied Gold, Barrick Gold, Endeavour Mining and B2Gold are important neighbors for Desert Gold. Barrick’s commitment is a strong signal to the mining world and the investment community regarding the strength and viability of Western Mali as a gold mining jurisdiction.

I think a stronger gold price helps us in multiple ways. First, it will have a positive impact on our PEA that will be published in the second half of this year as the gold price is obviously one of the major factors regarding mine economics. Secondly, as gold continues to make new all-time highs, this in theory makes are “in-situ” gold ounces, our 1.1 million ounces of gold in the ground, more valuable. This should eventually impact our market valuation and share price in a positive way. Lastly, a surging gold price will eventually drive generalist investors to the sector which is something we haven’t really seen in over a decade. The Gold equities sector is relatively small sector and it doesn’t take much investment inflows the have a significant impact on share prices. Especially early in a new bull market. This is akin to the adage of “rising tides lift all boats”. Those who act earliest tend to do best. I personally think we are at the very early stages of a secular bull market in gold and precious metals in general like in 2001/2002. Exciting times ahead!