Most mining stories start with a drill hole. This one starts with three dead trees and a helicopter pilot who refused to land again until they were cleared.
Farshad Shirvani, a geologist with a master’s degree and more than three decades in exploration, had just set foot on a property in northern British Columbia for the first time. The pilot gave him an ultimatum, so Shirvani picked up a chainsaw — for the first time in his life — and started cutting.
“Thank God I didn’t cut myself,” he told host Steve Yang. Then he looked at the trunks. They were poplars, deep-rooted, and the wood was the wrong color. “It was completely green and dead because of the copper coming into the body of the tree. Then I said: God, this is where I want to be.”
That was his first field read on what is now the Hat Project — and it turned out to be a good one.
The Hat Project at a glance
Company | Doubleview Gold Corp. (TSXV: DBG / OTC: DBLVF) |
Head office | Vancouver, British Columbia |
Project | Hat Project, northern British Columbia — copper-gold-silver porphyry with cobalt and scandium |
Total resource | ~1.11 billion tonnes (M&I + Inferred), Feb. 4, 2026 estimate |
PEA economics | Post-tax NPV(5%) of C$4.96B–C$6.94B across scenarios; Scenario B later revised to C$7.27B |
Mine life / throughput | 25 years at 120,000 tonnes per day |
Stage | Pre-feasibility study underway; next resource estimate targeted for early 2027 |
Figures from Doubleview’s March 2026 PEA and subsequent disclosure. Always verify against the filed technical report.
The Company in One Paragraph
Doubleview Gold Corp. trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under DBG and on the OTC markets under DBLVF, with more information at doubleview.ca. The company is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. Its flagship asset is the Hat Project, a porphyry system in northern British Columbia carrying copper, gold, and silver — plus what Shirvani describes as a substantial cobalt endowment and possibly the largest recoverable scandium deposit in the world.
If you follow copper price action and gold market trends, the commodity mix alone is worth a look. But the strategic metals angle is where this story gets unusual.
Why the Golden Triangle Isn’t Actually a Triangle
Shirvani is refreshingly direct about the region’s famous nickname. “There’s no actual triangle. Triangle is a beautiful name, that’s why it’s been used.”
What matters geologically, he explains, is the Stikine terrane — a block of crust assembled through subduction that hosts essentially every significant gold, copper, and silver deposit in the district. The Hat sits on what he calls the northern limb of the Golden Triangle.
Shirvani didn’t stumble onto the address. He studied porphyry systems across Canada and British Columbia, staked what he could, and bought the one piece he couldn’t stake — from his own geologist, as it happens. When he arrived, there was no camp, no infrastructure, nothing. Just the address.
From Eight Blind Holes to 1.1 Billion Tonnes
The early drilling was a learning exercise. “It took us eight holes to find out how the deposit is working,” Shirvani said. Induced polarization surveys — later upgraded to 3D IP — gave the team a blueprint for where to drill and where not to. That blueprint has held up.
Doubleview’s most recent mineral resource estimate, dated February 4, 2026, at a 0.2% copper-equivalent cut-off, puts the deposit at roughly 1.11 billion tonnes:
Category | Tonnes (Mt) | Gold (Moz) | Copper (Blb) | Cobalt (Mlb) | Sc₂O₃ (t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Measured | 272 | 1.41 | 1.11 | 35.6 | 1,081 |
Indicated | 337 | 1.81 | 1.31 | 44.5 | 1,334 |
Measured + Indicated | 609 | 3.22 | 2.42 | 80.1 | 2,415 |
Inferred | 503 | 2.77 | 1.72 | 66.2 | 1,996 |
Total | 1,112 | 5.99 | 4.14 | 146.3 | 4,411 |
Source: Doubleview Gold PEA disclosure, March 2026. Shirvani quoted rounder figures on the call; the numbers above are the company’s filed estimate.
One point of clarification is worth flagging because it runs counter to a common assumption. Shirvani said on the call that Doubleview’s economic work was based only on measured and indicated material, with inferred ounces and pounds excluded. The filed PEA states otherwise: it carries the standard cautionary language that the study “includes Inferred Mineral Resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them.” Both the M&I and inferred blocks feed the mine plan. Readers should work from the technical report, not the interview, on this point.
What isn’t in dispute is the direction of travel. The current drill program is aimed at converting inferred material and expanding the footprint. “The practice is to drill more into the inferred area, add to the measured and indicated, and only grow it bigger,” he explained. “And the other thing is, when you expand the volume, you find new places to add to this deposit volume.”
There may also be metals in the deposit that nobody has counted yet. Shirvani flagged gallium and platinum group metals as potential additions pending metallurgical work — carefully framed as unconfirmed. “I say potentially because they have to identify that. That’s what we’re working on.”
For the first time in the company’s history, Shirvani isn’t personally sitting in camp for the entire drill program. “I have very good geologists now, and they work every day with me to make sure we go in the right direction.”
The company is currently working through a pre-feasibility study, with environmental and wildlife work being extended and multiple engineering groups running in parallel. Shirvani’s stated goal is to structure the PFS so that the jump into full feasibility is as short as possible.
The Part That Gets a Major’s Attention
Yang asked the obvious question: people keep telling Shirvani his company should already have been acquired. Why?
His answer went straight to the supply chain. He pointed to a smelter that he said was forced to shut down after its cobalt supply dried up — the kind of single-point failure that has become routine in a market where refining and feedstock sit largely offshore. Doubleview’s pitch is that it holds a large share of onshore North American cobalt — Shirvani cited roughly 69 to 70 percent on a 25-year basis, and said he hopes to extend that horizon another 25 years. He describes Hat as the largest Canadian cobalt deposit he is aware of in public disclosure.
Then there’s scandium, the metal almost nobody in North America has been able to buy at scale. “Why haven’t they used it before in North America? Because they never had it. It was chicken and egg.”
Scandium is used in solid-state batteries, aerospace alloys, and rail applications. Shirvani says Boeing and Lockheed Martin are buying the small volume currently produced in North America for testing — information he picked up at a U.S. conference. He acknowledges some scandium exists in Quebec, “but not this much.”
It’s a familiar pattern for anyone tracking rare earth and critical minerals processing or the broader push to rebuild domestic supply of strategic metals.
And copper ties it together. Copper, he argues, is the engine behind every functioning economy — “every country that has a very flourishing economy, the first and the topmost is copper usage.” He ranks China first in consumption, the United States second, and Canada around twentieth. The implication he draws is straightforward: the demand is not in the country holding the rock.
His summary: “We have what the United States needs — cobalt and scandium. We have what Canada needs — copper.”
Infrastructure: The Underrated Advantage
British Columbia is rugged country. Hat, according to Shirvani, mostly isn’t.
- More than 18,000 hectares across nineteen mineral tenures, per the company’s current disclosure. Shirvani cited 13,800 hectares on the call; the package has since grown through claim additions.
- Road access — he describes Hat as the only property in the Golden Triangle with established road access. The Golden Bear Road runs roughly 10 km north of the project.
- Flat topography — he compares it to Toronto or Los Angeles, not mountain terrain.
- Good water availability.
- A skilled labor force about 40 km away, compared to the roughly 80 km those workers commute today.
- Grid power is approximately 100 km out, which he calls “not much” in mining terms.
Then there’s the closed-loop engineering. The cobalt roaster is designed to generate about 25% of the project’s power, and the scandium recovery circuit uses acid generated from the deposit itself. “So we live off the land — we generate acid, we use it for scandium,” he said, arguing it would make Hat one of the more environmentally efficient copper operations in the region.
First Nations and Permitting
Doubleview holds the permits it needs for its current exploration and drilling work. Mine permitting is a separate, much later process — the project is still pre-feasibility.
The open variable is the land use planning agreement being negotiated between the Tahltan and the Government of British Columbia. Shirvani isn’t dismissive about it. “That has to be done first, which is the last thing — and that’s approval from the First Nations.”
He also relayed a conversation from a meeting with an elder about a week before the interview, who noted that no project had ever delivered real benefit to Telegraph Creek. Shirvani’s response: “Who’s better than me?” He frames Hat as a national-security-level asset for Canada, on the basis that no other domestic project carries scandium and cobalt at this scale.
Share Structure, Treasury, and the Valuation Gap
The numbers Shirvani gave on the call:
Item | Figure |
|---|---|
Shares outstanding | ~239 million |
Shirvani’s own position (fully diluted) | ~33 million (~15–16%) |
Cash in the treasury | ~$13.5 million |
Market capitalisation | ~C$470–500 million |
Other significant holders include an Alberta shareholder with roughly 11 million shares, a New York institution with about 15 million shares, and a group of aligned shareholders collectively holding roughly 30 million shares.
One name stands out: a former manager at Grasberg — the Indonesian copper-gold complex that ranks among the largest in the world — who was involved in that discovery and has held Doubleview stock since the company’s early days. Shirvani puts his position around 8 million shares, accumulated between roughly $0.05 and $0.20. “I’m so proud that he is my shareholder.”
“So we have a tight structure,” Shirvani said.
Notably, he says he has turned down $20 million and $30 million financings. The reason is straightforward: he doesn’t believe the share price reflects the asset. “I have not raised money because I believe our share price is not at the right location,” he said. Doubleview’s PEA carries a post-tax NPV(5%) in the multi-billion range — C$4.96 billion to C$6.94 billion depending on the scenario, with Scenario B subsequently revised upward to C$7.27 billion — against a market capitalisation he pegs at roughly half a billion Canadian.
An NPV is not a company valuation, and pre-feasibility projects routinely trade at a steep discount to one. But the gap is wide enough that Shirvani treats raising at current levels as “not fair to our shareholders.”
The catch: he estimates the remainder of the PFS and the full feasibility study will cost around $100 million. That money has to come from somewhere. His position is that it should come after a re-rating, not before it, which makes the next few quarters of news flow the load-bearing part of the plan.
“The market has not been favorable,” he said. One major, whose representative flew in from Toronto to meet him, put it more bluntly: “You are the most unknown large-cap in the companies that we have ever heard of.”
What’s Coming
Shirvani was candid about the box he hasn’t checked: promotion. Doubleview has done essentially none. That’s changing. On the calendar:
- Analyst coverage through Canaccord, which had not yet initiated at the time of the interview
- An investor relations hire dedicated to institutional outreach — “at least let them know we exist”
- Drill results expected within one to two months
- A metallurgy pilot plant, with the contractor nearly selected after interviewing more than two dozen candidates
- Updated economics, which Shirvani said he wants published at the point that produces the strongest result rather than the earliest one
That last item involves a genuine strategic choice, and he described it plainly. His engineers offered to close the pre-feasibility study early and publish; he pushed back and asked what the numbers would look like with more time. The compromise is an interim report — “almost between PEA and PFS” — with the fuller work to follow. “For my shareholders, I look at the dollar sign. What is the best dollar sign? Give me that.”
Timing has moved since the interview. Doubleview’s June 2026 development update guides to the next mineral resource estimate in early 2027, with drill holes H102–H108 having already extended mineralization about 150 meters beyond the previously known resource boundary. Readers should treat the company’s most recent release, not the interview, as current guidance.
On metallurgy, he flagged a real tension: the scandium-cobalt recovery process was expensive to develop, and patenting it would mean funding litigation against anyone who copies it. So the company is being selective about who sees the process.
On markets, he’s optimistic. “I believe that the market this year will have the best run in the past 20 years. Starting in September, we will have the largest commodity market… the elastic band has been stretched enough. Somewhere it’s going to release, and that’s going to be a big move.” That is a forecast, not a fact, and it should be read as one.
And on the takeover question, he was clear about his own posture: “We have to work until the day that some opportunity comes up and I cannot refuse. Other than that, I will go all the way.”
The Bottom Line
Doubleview is pitching a rare combination: a large, flat-lying porphyry with road access in a top-tier mining jurisdiction, carrying two critical metals that Western supply chains are actively short of — held by a CEO who is the largest individual shareholder and who has refused dilution he doesn’t think is fair to existing holders.
The gaps, by his own admission, are that almost nobody knows the company exists and that roughly $100 million of study work still stands between here and a feasibility decision. The first is a fixable problem. The second depends on fixing the first. The next two quarters of drill results, analyst initiation, and metallurgical work will show whether either gets done.
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Disclosure: This article is a recap of a recorded interview and is not investment advice. Steve Yang stated on the call that he is not currently an investor in Doubleview Gold, “although that may change,” and that neither Doubleview nor Farshad Shirvani paid for the interview. Statements attributed to Mr. Shirvani are as made on the call; where his figures differ from Doubleview’s filed disclosure, the filed figures are used, and the difference is noted in the text. Resource and economic figures are drawn from the company’s March 2026 PEA disclosure and February 4, 2026, mineral resource estimate. A Preliminary Economic Assessment is preliminary in nature, includes Inferred Mineral Resources, and there is no certainty that the results will be realized. Verify all figures against the company’s filings and technical reports on SEDAR+ before making any decision. Please review the full financial disclaimer and do your own due diligence.
