CEO interview: Winship speaks about Rubicon’s Phoenix project

Michael Winship, a mining engineer, joined the board of Rubicon Minerals (TSX: RMX; US-OTC: RBYCF) in 2011 and was appointed the company’s interim president and CEO in October 2015. Rubicon started trial mining its F2 deposit at the Phoenix property in Ontario’s Red Lake district last year, but the geology was more complex than previously thought and underground operations were halted in November. This week management announced that there is “significant doubt as to the ability of Rubicon to continue as a going concern.” Winship spoke to The Northern Miner about the project and Rubicon’s future. The Northern Miner: Well I guess I’ll start with the elephant in the room and ask why the company decided to build the mine on just a PEA? Michael Winship: I think at that time it was a measured evaluation and measured risk where we had the benefit of high metal prices, we had financing available, and we saw that we would have to invest nearly the same amount in underground development, and the optionality was really the incremental cost to build the mill facility. TNM: Would you do it again? MW: Now everyone is smarter with the benefit of hindsight and certainly we’ve seen in history a lot of people doing complete underground exploration and feasibility studies and with the benefit of that knowledge now, we would have proceeded along a different path, no doubt. Read the entire story at www.NorthernMiner.com/investing/winship-speaks