Read on for the transcript of my latest interview with $GER. Note that this is not sponsored content.


Peter Bell: Hello, I'm Peter Bell, and I'm here with Mr. Jean Labrecque, CEO of Glen Eagle Resources. Hello Jean.

Jean Labrecque: Hi Peter. Nice to reconvene with you again, Peter. How are you doing?

Peter Bell: Pretty well. I understand you have a winter storm in Quebec that put the power out. It's December 12th, and it sounds like a large part of Quebec impacted pretty seriously. Are you grateful to have electricity now after being out for the last 24 hours?

Jean Labrecque: Yes. We're back now, and I'm grateful to be here with you. Thank you.

Peter Bell: I gather you've been out of the country recently, too.

Jean Labrecque: Yes. I was in Honduras for a few weeks. Very happy to see what's happening at the plant. I was there with the new COO, Karl Trudeau. He was also pleased to see the operation being ramped up as we planned. It's going very well. We've also been drilling to locate better-grade ore, and we just announced excellent drill holes in the last two weeks. There's a lot of positive things happening now. Karl and I believe there is a major turn-around in the making for Glen Eagle.

Peter Bell: Well done. It's amazing to look back six months ago here to June 2021 with Cycladex as an alternative to cyanide leaching technology. What a great initiative that is for the future of GER that started up in June. And then, in July, we have Karl Trudeau come on as COO. Then in August, there's a financing. In September, a corporate update. October has some production statistics and again in October with more production statistics. Then October, the news of the drilling starting and a month later, in November, here the first sets of results. To December, already with more production information with two news releases so far in December. Nice work on all these results over the last six months. I think you may have more news in the last six months than the last I don't know six years!

Jean Labrecque: Thanks Peter. I don't know about the last six years, but we certainly have been working hard. I had a lot of news, and it's just the beginning because I can hardly write them fast enough. We have so much in the making right now. It's unbelievable. We would like to have one or two news releases every week, and I think that with everything that we have in the pipeline, this shouldn't be a problem. There's so much to say. I strongly believe that the turnaround is underway. There are major things that I cannot describe in this interview for compliance purposes, but the market will definitely be very well surprised by all the news that will be released in the next couple of weeks and months.

Peter Bell: Well, it's production right! When you're dealing with a production story like this you can generate a lot of news quickly, even a toll milling story like you have here. With the drill results that are coming from a place where people are mining -- that is bullish news flow. Is it worthwhile to publish that on an ongoing basis? Call it a grade control program? Most producers wouldn't press release the assays from grade control drilling, but it can be material information in special situations like the one you are facing: there is no resource estimate for the future production to feed the mill you have for Glen Eagle Resources. You're in a different ballpark compared to greenfield exploration because you have the production, but you don't have the same economic study like other producers. It's a bullish contrarian niche.

Jean Labrecque: There's a lot more to it, believe me. Something major happened this past week, and I cannot discuss it now, but it's going to turn Glen Eagle into a different company. It's big, and we'll be able to release it in due time. I've never been so positive about the company. It's looking very good. I think what we will release in the next month will attest to this. Perhaps tomorrow or Tuesday, we'll have another good news release. It's not like that for the rest of the month because December is quiet, but everything is building up in the pipeline of news releases.

Jean Labrecque: You just mentioned that we had more news in the last months than the last years. We may have more news in the last six months than the prior two to three years. And it's just going to continue. I think it's going to be one good news after the other.

Peter Bell: We're certainly seeing that. There's always a risk and things that can go wrong. Everybody's got to take care.

Peter Bell: A thing occurred to me the other day when I was reading your latest news. There are two kinds of optionality or convexity that are kicking in right now at the margin. You have the grade -- looking at what you've been running the last few months and then looking at what you're drilling now as a guess towards what you could be running. There is a convexity effect here. There's an optionality on the margin where you go from processing stuff that's break-even material to stuff that's profitable. Every increase in grams of gold as head grade comes through to your profit line, and that goes from a minuscule profit to something that can be significant. There's a big marginality play there. Typically that kind of production marginality is associated with price movements in the gold price rather than changes in feed grade for other junior mining stocks. But because we're dealing with such a small scale of production for GER now, it's different. Glen Eagle is more sensitive to production grade than gold price for you as a toll milling story. It's not your typical, large-scale mega mine. That's one source of "kick" that can really add a lot of firepower and upside if we stick the landing. Then there's also the fact that it's a new producer. That's another type of optionality and marginality or convexity that is important for the stock.

Peter Bell: One thing I hadn't considered when I was thinking about that stuff is what you just mentioned, Jean, about the bullish pace of the news flow. The fact that we're also seeing it in the news flow is a bullish kick. There's a kick in the moment when the news comes out and they echo back or accumulate, too.

Peter Bell: I'm glad to hear you say that's the plan to keep the hammer down going forward. I'm not surprised, but always glad to hear that. And it's the same thing in the production numbers. The news flow numbers have already started to kick, and there's room for lots more of that. I want to see as much of that as we can and continue that to start to grab the market's attention and give them enough meat to chew on.

Jean Labrecque: Yes. There's news and news. I always said that if you don't have real substance in your news release, it's better not to have any. I've always pretty much stuck to this in the past. I like where Glen Eagle is standing now. Based on what we saw in these past news releases, the new drilling on this property is improving it as we find out where better ore feeds would come from. The information is relevant to future production potential. What we are drilling now could be ore in our hands in the near future. All these news releases that I see coming forward are gonna have very sound substance, and that's what makes me so so positive. I haven't been this positive about the company in the last five years.

Jean Labrecque: What we have accomplished lately, which will be released to the public, is incredible. It really is a game-changer for the company, and the market will eventually take notice.

Peter Bell: Great. Even just looking at the drilling in October when we heard about restarting this drill program -- you'd paid for a 2,000-meter program last year and did half of it. Then you put it on pause, and we never really got much news out of it last year because there weren't any material results.

Jean Labrecque: Yes, that's right. And, as you know, the thing with drilling last year was that when we started drilling, we couldn't drill where we wanted to drill for all kinds of reasons. In fact, where we're drilling now is where I wanted to drill from the inception of this program. Last year we just couldn't get there for all kinds of reasons -- local issues, permits, and everything. When I brought the drill there, I knew that we were going to to drill something good. That's where I wanted to have the drill in the first place. Unfortunately, we had to do it elsewhere last year. I couldn't have it where I wanted last year, and that's why I put it on hold until I was able to drill where we are now.

Peter Bell: Great, thank you. To be able to put it on hold was great, I think. How many times would we see a junior just keep going, "Oh, we've got to finish this program." Why? "Well, because we told the market, we were going to drill 2,000 meters, and we have got to drill 2,000 meters." What? If you're not drilling where you want and you're not getting what you want, then stop, wait, and go back to the drawing board! Can you figure this other stuff out and then drill where you want? The exploration business is nothing if not how you deal with adversity. What if it takes a year?! We're talking about that now, and I'm saying it's bullish. Well done. Very tough choice to do in the short-term, but bold. Do you want to waste the money, or do you want to have a win? What you're talking about with regards to only having news that's really news is just great. And it's not okay to only publish good news. You've got to publish bad news, too. It's really material news we care about, and who's to say what's material? I think that a bunch of small news releases with more routine information, like you've been doing recently, can accumulate into something greater than the parts. Something may not look material in isolation, but it may complete a picture in the context of other info -- both in terms of exploration and production. We've already seen that with two sets of exploration results.

Peter Bell: There have been two sets of exploration results coming out, one on November 24th and one on December 9th. I haven't seen sections yet or plan views of where the holes are located. These are essential technical things that I will be watching for. There are pictures on your website that provide a pretty clear sense of the kind of veins and geological structures that we're looking at in this setting. There is info on the meterage and grades that you're drilling, and we can directly compare those kinds of things with the feed grade at the mill. Great! It's rough, but I see the potential for a bullish sequence of news here.

Peter Bell: I did a bunch of work to cross-reference various numbers that I could dig up from your news flow here, there, and everywhere. Everything checked out. That doesn't mean that you're making money, but it means that what you're publishing looks internally consistent to me. Good work. I'm not finding things that look like they're totally offside or incorrect. From what I'm seeing as an outsider, it looks like things are on track, and it helps to get a clear sense of where we are now so we can talk about what next when you're running that better material through the mill.

Jean Labrecque: And this is where we get to the drilling that we've done, Peter. The purpose of the drilling was not necessarily to prove-up resources because we're not at that stage yet. We're trying to acquire the property or at least cut a deal with the concession owner, and I think that's in the pipeline. The goal of the drilling was really to define an ore body that would supply ore to the plant at a decent grade. We did find the structure in drilling, and based on what we found so far. We did a quick calculation of about 2,000 tonnes with about five to six grams of gold per tonne. We've been running this mill at about a gram and a half or two grams for the last four or five months, and we're almost cash flow positive at two grams. Now, if we bring six grams and we double production, then I think we're going to see some interesting numbers -- all other things being equal. Obviously, it is possible for other things to change when you have a processing plant. We recently received a lot of parts for the plant, but there is potential for major mechanical problems there at all times. I don't think those risks are particularly elevated right now. I think that we're prepared now to face some pretty bad events with the spare parts that we have at the site. That's the main thing that could derail the positive trends we have now, and other than that or something else we cannot foresee, I'm very positive about the company.

Peter Bell: It's good to be in that position. Supply chains are stressed. Getting parts into that place in Honduras might be a little bit of a question mark at the best of times, but right now, I would imagine it's fairly chaotic and expensive. You want to be over-capitalized and want to be over-prepared to have replacement parts and people who have some idea of what they're doing. And supervision of that whole thing, too! Karl -- please can I ask about Mr. Karl Trudeau?

Jean Labrecque: Yes. He was there with me at the operation. He probably thought it was in worse shape than what he saw. I think it was in better condition than he expected because he was pleased that he didn't have to be at the plant so much of his time. What he's doing is really structuring the inventory, the people, and defining the roles. He's very good at that, and it's also essential to have it for a proper operation and an efficient operation. That's what Karl is doing, and I already see a lot of changes. I think we're a lot more efficient than we were before he came on board.

Peter Bell: Wow. We see this sometimes in exploration companies, too. I've seen situations where you have somebody who's really good in the field, but then that person gets promoted, and they're in an executive role doing stuff that takes them out of the field -- if they're distracted or they're not doing what they're best at then we have problems. For you, Jean, think of how valuable it must be to have somebody to come in and actually run this thing properly. And someone that's from Quebec who can help talk about more publicly, too. I don't know if the company's ever had a "Chief Operating Officer" quite like this before.

Jean Labrecque: No, we never had one before. Karl did this before at Nouveau Monde Graphite in Quebec where he turned the company around. And now he is in Africa with Gratomic. We are lucky to have him.

Jean Labrecque: It's an interesting comment about the new COO role for the company, Peter. One of the problems we had in Honduras before now was that we didn't always have a secure supply of ore to the plant before now, and I wanted to get that in place before we hired the operational side. It's a chicken-and-egg question for the ore supply versus the operational depth. Of course, we can always spend more money to improve management, but I thought that should wait until we would get a secure ore flow to the plant. Sometimes you sign a contract, and you find out that down there, a contract has a different meaning than it does here in Canada. The problems we had in the past were about getting a gold grade in the ore supply and getting steady amounts of ore. I think that, for the first time, I really solved this problem with Karl's help. What he's doing is a game-changer. What I was able to achieve on this trip was new. I can't say too much, but I believe that this time we really secured a lot of supply for a long time to come. And this is the first time in five years that we have been able to achieve this. It will reflect in the cash flow of the company on our sales. That's the game-changer that I see, and I strongly believe we're going to have an incredible concession. We did get some exploration concessions in the past, one in particular, that we could never access -- it's in a different area. There was another one that was not really what I wanted because it was too green for me. I think we're going to put our hands on a very good concession right where we're working. That and the area nearby is gonna be another good game-changer for the company. I strongly believe that we'll be able to achieve that in the very short term.

Peter Bell: I have to believe that the locals there pay attention when they see somebody new show up. If they see this Karl guy show up and he's making things happen, then all of a sudden, they take the whole operation more seriously. Maybe. There's a bunch of stuff going on in the background with the global macro story, and I'm sure the local story is conducive to these guys doing more mining with these gold prices. And for them to be more legitimate about it, too. The more money they make, the more attention they draw. Honduras has a few big gold mines in the country, and it's a serious business.

Jean Labrecque: I would say that it's more than this, Peter. We are now more close to one of the major players in the area who owns many concessions. I was never able to work with him before now. Nor the people that deal with him. Now that we were able to achieve this, it's a big deal.

Peter Bell: The access is everything. Access is everything, whether it's Canadian financial markets or local Honduran politics. Access to the people is key. You need the locals on your side. Access for fieldwork is important, too, but it's about people, ideas, things -- people are most important, then ideas, and finally things are least important. The people become the key. It's a people business.

Jean Labrecque: I guess that pretty much covers everything, Peter.

Peter Bell: Thanks, Jean. Let me say the headline of your most recent news release is "Glen Eagle intersects true with 5.6 grams over 18 meters at La Esperanza 2". Good numbers. It's really easy to gloss over a headline when you're scanning stuff and reading news on junior mining companies, but when I went and checked the website, I had to do a double-take because I don't see LA ESPERANZA on your projects page. I think I know why that is, but I'm not sure.

Jean Labrecque: Peter, there is always competition and people trying to see where you're working. If you discover something major, then it brings attention, and we have to be careful. We will update the website and put it there, but we have to be careful as there are a lot of people trying to find out what we're doing and you always have competition. We're just trying to secure everything that we have there, and we will update the website as I think that's a must, but we have to be careful. And that's the problem of being public; in Honduras, we're facing some private competition, and they don't have to release anything. They can be looking at us and undercutting us. It's all happened before in the past, so we have to be careful now.

Peter Bell: Good. From my perspective, I don't really know what's going on behind the scenes. I can guess and listen and try to make inferences, but I don't know the entire reality. I do know that the facts I'm seeing in the press releases with drill results are good on their own, but they also play this bigger role in terms of signaling your ability to get more access to the exploration grounds. That access piece is the big value driver for me, and it's multi-layered. On the base layer, you got access to a new spot to collar the drill. On another layer, you've got new access to new deal flow. Maybe? I think that's what's happening, and I think you are earning respect in the local community as you go. You're putting the horse before the cart by drilling on this ground where you have a somewhat uncertain land position. This is all a really subtle discussion that ties into the right of access in terms of legal, moral, and social constructs. Really fun stuff. Seeing you spend this drilling meterage on gold that is at the surface on the ground where someone else is mining? Yes, please.

Jean Labrecque: Now it's time to go and get it. That's the next step. The agreement that we've reached with the people is one step, and then we're gonna get the ore out as the next step. It's starting in the middle of this coming week. Then we'll bring that to the mill. We've got a good two thousand tonnes to bring five to six grams, which is almost three times the grade of what we used to bring to the plant. And we were almost cash flow positive this past month and a half. If we double production, and we will, while we double or triple the grade, then the bottom line will be definitely affected by this new development. I'm really anxious to divulge it all to the market as it happens. I really believe that it will deliver.

Peter Bell: It's amazing to see it come together. There's this point for me about speculating: if you wait for all the facts, then you're too late. Maybe the market is not so hot right now that you have to be in early. It's possible that the good news will come out on this story, and the market will not really appreciate or digest it. It may take some time, depending on where you are and how bullish the sentiment is out there. And the seasonality, too. If you're trying to push water uphill here in December with this excellent news flow, then you may be wasting your time. It may not be until January when we really see the fireworks. But I don't have to wait for all the facts to be known before I make a risk decision, so let's go!

Jean Labrecque: Exactly, yes. It's time to deliver. And to deliver on the bottom line, it's all about dollars. And if we can be cash-flow positive, then the market will take notice. That's what Eric Sprott always told me, "You have to deliver." The problem is that it's far more complicated than I ever thought in the first place to get this deal going along with these people. Just to be able to get there and talk to them -- you're talking about years of hard work. It's all about trust. They don't trust you as outsiders. They don't really like you to be there -- they feel that you're a threat to them. It's taken years to get respect. Of everybody that went there, and I could name you three companies who went in and spent a lot of money, they left with nothing! I've been there for five years, and I'm still there. Cobra Oro is still there after all these years, and it's only getting better. Finally, I think that we're being accepted by the people that have control of the area and now we're welcome to work with them. That's a huge game-changer for the company.

Peter Bell: I look at Google and see this road number 117 in the jungle out there south of the concession areas on your website where you have been working in the past, and it's amazing to me there is a Tourist Center for LAS MINAS. You're in mining country, historically, and I think it is also so important. You can't call it modern brownfields exploration really because you're dealing with old historical mines and smaller modern mines, but these old historical mining camps are so important. They were mining high-grade, and we've already seen in the past some examples of some really stunning rocks from this area. To have that tourist center sitting there by one of your areas is the kind of thing I look for. It makes me pause and think, what's going on here? It's not easy, as you say, but if you can get a toehold and start to expand, then that's how you win. So far, you've kept those property rights, kept the mill, and I haven't seen any problems with taxes or permits or anything like that. I think you're in a tax-free zone, actually. You've been able to keep the show on the road, as you said, and now the wind is at your back more than ever before.

Jean Labrecque: Yes, absolutely Peter. I think that again covers what I have to say. If we go any deeper, I will have to release certain things.

Peter Bell: When when you flew into the country, did you fight to San Salvador or San Pedro Sula or into El Salvador? Your mill and exploration projects are in southern Honduras by the border with El Salvador and Nicaragua at the Gulf of Fonseca.

Jean Labrecque: It was cheaper to fly to El Salvador, considerably cheaper, and faster. I flew in there, and people came to pick me up. That was the first time I tried going through San Miguel.

Peter Bell: What a location it is there. No environmental grumblings or any problems like this that you hear hints of around there?

Jean Labrecque: No, where we are is super mining friendly. That doesn't mean you have the people on your side right away, but we do now have the people on our side.

Peter Bell: It's a mining area, and I think there's got to be a major discovery eventually. I can look around Google Earth and find pits at Mina Clavo Rico. And right there is El Corpus. To see these pits and operations on Google Earth is always a bullish sign. And the fact that it's a mining area just means the local people know what is at stake! They may not be so easy to be taken advantage of, which is good -- I want to see smarter counterparties. I want you to want to have well-informed partners. You want to have people who know what's going on and what the stakes are -- what can go right or what can go wrong.

Jean Labrecque: Yes. And then finally I would say that if we sent some material to the company there to Cycladex to run the test on our tailings, which I would like to recover eventually. We've got 50,000 tons sitting there at about a gram. We also sent Cycladex some samples of the ore, and we'll see the results of that. I believe that if we can come up, especially with this new government now, with clean technology, then that helps too. I know the cost to implement it, and I believe the costs would be another game-changer for the company here. I think we could do a lot with the small miners there, although that's further down the road -- maybe in the next six months or more.

Peter Bell: Wow. Those are big issues. The mercury is always a few conversations away. How much of that is going on out there? This is very dangerous stuff, and there's a lot of people around the world who want to help stop that going on in these places. With a new government coming in place, these may become more important issues, especially if the miners decide to become more visible in terms of their economic, social, environmental impacts. Oh boy, what an adventure!

Jean Labrecque: Yes, and I think that we may not be in bad hands with this new government. They have a different approach to mining. They have a greener approach to mining, and I think that will cause some of our competition to fade away. We have our gold exporting licenses and everything else, so we may find ourselves in a better position even from a competitive point of view. Peter, it's all good.

Peter Bell: I love that you have this little free trade zone for the plant, too. The fact that you were able to get that location there years ago is another good sign. I don't know a lot about Honduras and all this but like that always seemed encouraging to me that they had the foresight to set up a free trade zone, and then you had the foresight to set up a gold plant there too. Well done.

Jean Labrecque: Peter, we had a 20-minute call planned, and it's been an hour! I have to jump on a zoom now but let's reconvene. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, and I think that our shareholders are going to be very pleased in the coming months.

Peter Bell: Thanks for the update Mr. Jean Labrecque, CEO of Glen Eagle GER, on the TSX-V. Goodbye.

Jean Labrecque: Thanks Peter. Goodbye.