You’re probably wishing you had more gold right now because gold prices are going crazy. Should you buy gold now? Who’s got the gold?
With gold prices hitting historic highs, all eyes are on the companies driving this surge.
Jared Lazerson is the CEO of North Bay Resources. He has 25 years in the resource game and a passion for mining. From his early days playing with core samples in Vancouver to overseeing gold mines today, Jared’s journey is nothing short of fascinating.
North Bay Resources is a gold mining powerhouse with two active mines: one in Canada and another in California’s historic Sierra County, home to the original 1849 Gold Rush.
Jared shared exciting news about North Bay’s latest developments—production is ramping up, with gold yields that are nothing short of impressive. With a production cost of about $500 per ton, they’re poised to see strong returns given gold’s $3,000 per ounce milestone.
Obviously sparked by the recent gold frenzy Jared the gold miner has had to step up whatever he’s been doing to keep up! So what’s he been doing?
Jared said,
“About a year and a half ago. I started to get re-energized on gold. I’ve controlled gold projects for, well, way back to the beginning of my career, more than 20 years ago. This one up in Canada that we’ve taken control over, that one was, for example, something I’ve been involved with for 20 years, probably $20 million spent on it, 100-plus holes developed, so an advanced project.”
“But in terms of what’s going on globally, domestically with price of gold, as you mentioned, it’s a dangerous world. So gold has always been safe haven asset, but the interesting part is that now it is because of the returns, kind of a growth asset. So I think everybody kind of knows about that. The main factors, geopolitical, a lot of folks internationally and also domestically, you know, getting off the US dollars. So, internationally, for obvious reasons, people, you know, maybe not so friendly countries want to get out of US dollar or just generally diversify. But also domestically, there’s a lot of people in the US that feel there’s just too many dollars out there. “
And It’s not just gold that North Bay has its eye on—Jared also mentioned the presence of platinum at their California site.The energy in the industry is electric, and with retail buyers snapping up precious metals from unexpected places like Costco, the demand is clear.
Jared’s mining journey also includes a groundbreaking venture in lithium extraction, an industry innovation that helped revolutionize battery production.
Now, he’s taking his expertise and passion into the world of gold, and it’s paying off in a big way.
With North Bay Resources’ projects underway and the price of gold soaring, Jared Lazerson’s leadership could very well define this new era of the gold rush.
Enjoy these golden nuggets of gold education in this podcast of my live conversation with Jared Lazerson on The Debbie Nigro Show. If you’d rather read than listen the transcript of the audio is below.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
0:00:00
And now, back to the Debbie Nigro Show.
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Well, the one thing everybody relies on when everything else is screwed up is gold.
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0:00:07
Oh my gosh, gold prices are closing in on $3,000 milestone. This is crazy like why didn’t you buy more gold? Should you buy gold? Who’s got the gold? Who is mining the gold? Hi everybody, I’m Debbie Nigro.
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0:00:36
Great interview coming up for you right now. I think you’ll appreciate the insight from a man who’s been mining resources for 25 years and he’s got some gold mines. I’m like gold mines? I’ve got to talk to this guy. Jared Lazarson is joining the show and I’m excited to hear from him as you should be
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because I’m sure he knows more than any of us about what’s going on. He’s been an innovator in the gold industry, a leader in his industry in general, been recognized and a very dedicated CEO with a company now called North Bay Resources. We’re going to talk about gold, what’s pushing it way up price-wise to all-time highs and the new California gold rush. Hey Jared, welcome to my show.
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Hi Debbie, how are you?
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Jared, I’m so honored to meet you.
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I never knew a gold miner.
Not that many of us around, but I come from Vancouver, from Canada, so that’s kind of the heart and soul of mining in North America.
0:02:05
Yeah, actually, that’s an interesting point. Yeah, I grew up, you know, obviously playing with the Tonka trucks in the sandbox, but I was playing with core samples on the ground. A lot of my parents were teachers, but a lot of my friends’ parents were in mining. So yeah, from earliest memory, I remember knowing and learning about mining. came back to Vancouver, this would have been in the 90s, and we’re a resource economy in
0:02:34
Canada in general, but certainly British Columbia, and the fish were pretty much gone, the trees had been pretty much all cut down, so there wasn’t a lot left for me to do but go into mining. So it was somewhat out of necessity, but yes, a long background in mining.
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0:02:53
Okay, it can’t be a simple industry because it’s obviously going down into mines. I think most people have, you know, along the way growing up have had fantasies about, you know, panning for gold and finding a fleck of gold. Still to this day, tourists are trapped into, you know, panning for gold. But you’re actually going, you’ve got mines these days, right? North Bay Resources has actual gold mines. How many are you
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0:03:17
operating at this point? We have currently two in production or just going to production. When I say just going, I mean literally. We just shipped from our Canadian mine last month and we will have crews on site Wednesday day at our California mine in Sierra County and they should be underground within 10 days. So yeah, production on two mines and then we have a third, we’re just doing rehabilitation. So there were some older tunnels, we’re now fixing those up and we’ll move that along
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0:03:53
to production in the next few months. So two and a half mines, but two mines up and running.
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0:04:00
So I’m assuming you were sparked by all the gold frenzy to step up whatever you’re doing to be able to keep Getting the gold that everybody wants to get their hands on what’s going on with the energy on your end supply and demand Okay, so all-time highs on gold
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0:04:16
About a year and a half ago. I started to get re-energized on gold. I’ve controlled gold projects for, well, way back to the beginning of my career, more than 20 years ago. This one up in Canada that we’ve taken control over, that one was, for example, something I’ve been involved with for 20 years, probably $20 million spent on it, 100-plus holes developed, so an advanced project. But in terms of what’s going on globally, domestically with price of gold, as you mentioned, it’s a dangerous world. So gold has always been safe haven asset, but the interesting part is that now it is
1
0:05:00
because of the returns, kind of a growth asset. So I think everybody kind of knows about that. The main factors, geopolitical, a lot of folks internationally and also domestically, you know, getting off the US dollars. So, internationally, for obvious reasons, people, you know, maybe not so friendly countries want to get out of US dollar or just generally diversify. But also domestically, there’s a lot of people in the US that feel there’s just too many dollars out there.
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0:05:32
With the debt where it is, how many dollars have been printed, that the US dollar is not necessarily the best place to be. And then really the main driving factor right now is interest rate decline. So that’s what caused the last big bump up. It was a combination of those other two factors but with a declining US dollar. So you’ve got to remember gold
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0:05:51
is denominated exclusively in US dollars. So interest rates go lower, dollar gets weaker, and gold goes up just in an inverse relationship. So that’s the fundamental but I think the core is safe haven buying, central bank buying which hasn’t happened for decades, really what you hit on. It’s a dangerous world and gold is just the place to be.
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0:06:12
I could not have foreseen when I started ramping up a new gold company a year and a half ago that gold would be up almost 50% on the year. So it’s funny. It’s a safe haven asset but it’s now performing like a growth asset, far outperforming everything else actually.
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0:07:13
we’re there, we’re doing it right now, but we don’t have a number of quarters of years under our belt. But just looking at what we have based on assays and a lot of technical data, an operating mill and so forth, we’re effectively producing mining gold at $500 a ton. Our minimum target is a half ounce. Well, a half ounce right now is $1,250 a ton, a full ounce, which all of our mines are showing in terms of assays, confirmed assays, over an ounce. So that’s $2,600 plus a ton. The point being is we mine $500 a ton,
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0:07:48
all in, that includes processing, and then we can then, our profit basically is the difference. So this is an opportunity where you can leverage the move that’s already occurred in the price of gold without taking the risk of a decline in the price of gold or having to wait another 10 years or 5 years for the price of gold to make another move. In specific answer to your question, so the ore goes from the mine, it goes to the mill, it’s processed at the mill.
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0:08:18
We have both a gravity circuit and a flotation circuit that deals with 90 plus percent recovery. The California gold is primarily gravity recovery. The Canada gold is sulfide, so that’s primary flotation. We have both circuits. It’s 100 tons per day. You can begin to do the math at a half ounce, which is, like I said, our minimum, but really where our assays are right now, and our California mine is a substantially higher grade than this because it also has platinum. It’s grading up to five ounces per ton and one and a half ounces of platinum, but basically the production would be at one
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ounce per ton, that’s 100 ounces per day, at say 2,500, a gold price, that’s a quarter million dollars per day, and again, a cost at about 20%. So again, we’re very highly leveraged to the price of gold. Just to wrap up your answer to the question, we then pour that into what’s called door bars and then they go to the refinery in Reno. And what we don’t sell for cost, we’ll keep, we’ll put in the vault.
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So we’ll be a holder of gold as well, but there’s a refinery in Reno and at this point they’re very happy to take any production that we have.
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Oh my gosh, that was a heck of an explanation. Okay, you’re very busy over there making gold and getting gold out of the ground. You mentioned platinum. I just want to take a sidebar. Did you know that Costco shoppers are buying rotisserie chickens and platinum bars over there at Costco?
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0:09:45
Have you heard that news?
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0:09:47
I heard in August that they ran out of gold bars and I guess they restocked on the gold but I guess they saw a market but it’s very interesting Debbie that the retail market is so strong. You know, gold is one of those ones that tended to be more institutional or central bank. I mean it tended to be a government level and when you have retail for gold and now demand for platinum, it’s just very, very interesting and very positive for the industry.
that Costco was selling the gold bars but you’re right they ran out and so now they’re selling platinum. Very interesting that your background in what you’ve been doing over there and your mining background, may I just take a minute to go back because you’re kind of like really an interesting guy.
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You co-invented direct lithium extraction technology, really. Tell me about that real quick.
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So, we all know the story behind lithium. It kind of started with the phones and the batteries and then obviously then the EVs kicked in. And around 2016, 2017, as that was cranking up, everybody looked around and said, you know what, we don’t really have enough lithium here. It’s very tightly controlled among three companies.
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0:11:09
We know what happens when only three companies control something. So, and there was a lot of production facility for batteries, obviously, cranking up at that time. So I began looking at different ways to, to, I guess, ultimately extract lithium. So I found there was lithium in a lot of different
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0:11:27
wastewater sources, primarily oil and gas, Marcellus formation. So, yeah, we just went down that path and began to develop lithium extraction technology, which is now pretty much a standard. Everybody’s in it, Exxon and all the major oil companies and Salton Sea in California,
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for example. So, yeah, that was my first major venture. That company went from about a million-dollar market cap to around $150 million market cap, so I have some experience as well on the finance and market side, and was recognized by Standard & Poor’s Platts Metals in 2018. My company received and I accepted on behalf of the leadership in mining award for Basin Specialty Metals for DLE, Direct Lithium Extraction.
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0:12:18
I tell you to take a curtsy but you’re a guy so take a bow. That’s just amazing, fantastic. So you’re bringing all this background in mining and all your expertise as a CEO and just a brilliant guy in the industry to the gold ventures now and I did get one smile because one of the mines I know that is under your heading there is called the Mount Vernon Mine and I’m from Mount Vernon, New York.
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0:12:41
Yeah, Mount Vernon, this one is in California, Sierra County. So actually this is this is kind of the great side of all this which is the This is where the original California gold rush started 1849 and then there was a later one about three thirty years later Mount Vernon mine is right next to contiguous on the same channel as the Ruby mine The Ruby mine is largely mined out now But this is essentially the virgin ground of the Ruby Mine.
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0:13:14
The Ruby Mine was the richest mine in North America. They have multiple, very large nuggets in the Smithsonian. So we just received our grades from Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon came in, like I said, up to five ounces per ton equivalent of $17,000 per ounce. Our projections are based on that kind of half ounce,
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0:13:38
one ounce range, 1250 to 2500. So very rich, honestly, from my experience, I might not have believed it all, except for the fact that these assays are consistent with prior assays from the previous owners, and it’s next to the richest mine in California.
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So we’re very excited, like I said, Cruz will be there Wednesday, we should be underground shortly. So just a very exciting opportunity.
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I’m excited for you. I need one favor before I let you go and tell everybody else in the world how fabulous you are when I make this into a podcast and share it out. I need you to go to that Ruby mine and just get me a little piece because I lost the ring Aunt Mary gave me for my confirmation and I’m a Leo and Ruby is the stone. I haven’t been able to handle figuring out how to get a new one.
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0:14:27
So you just get me a little stone, I’ll make a ring and then we’re good. Okay, we’re even?
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0:14:31
Deal.
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0:14:33
Very good meeting you, Jared. I wish you all the best of luck. Jared Lasterson, the CEO of North Bay Resources Company is out there mining gold and you should pay attention to their resources and their progress. This is very interesting. It’s Northbay-resources.com. their resources and their progress. This is very interesting. It’s Northbay-resources.com. Jared’s an innovator and a lovely guest. Thanks so much, Jared. Great insight.
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