Douglas MacKinnon’s skills in business have taken a dramatic turn from the days of his work in the oil and gas industry in southeast Saskatchewan. The former Estevanite has created a new kind of business in Ecuador and is making a living searching for yellow gold in the jungle, rather than black gold in the Prairies.
MacKinnon started working with his father, at a time when there were around 280 small oil and gas companies operating in the Estevan area. Since then, MacKinnon has been involved with a number of oil companies in the area.
“After university, I came back and worked with my father in his company, Omni Resources. We drilled wells in the Estevan area,” said MacKinnon. “We drilled in Montana and North Dakota and had a project in Colombia, South America, as well. That was my first international play.”
It was in nearby Ecuador, almost two years ago, that MacKinnon founded Coco Liso Exploration Corp., a company that focuses on mining for gold and gemstones in the Amazon.
Through starting and heading previous companies, MacKinnon got exposure to how oil and gas businesses were run in Canada and in U.S. shale plays, such as the Marcellus natural gas play.
“I felt that the oil and gas industry would eventually out-drill itself, and that’s exactly what happened,” said MacKinnon. “In the meantime, I went down to Ecuador, to a little surfing village called Montanita for holidays. My surfing friends there would bring me nuggets of gold when they found out I was in earth science.”
MacKinnon said he learned of the tremendous opportunity for business in the area. Wanting to try something new outside of oil and gas, MacKinnon decided to begin mining for gold.
He sad, “This was when oil was $120 a barrel, so it wasn’t like I did it just to have something to do. I went there intentionally, and to put 10 years of research into geology and geophysics into action.”
MacKinnon carried out extensive research on the geophysics in the area—particularly relating to the Fruta del Norte discovery, one of the largest discoveries of gold in the last decade, in Ecuador.
“I wanted to see if we could do the same thing. We raised a bit of capital and went down to explore. We came back with three properties and about 20 different leads on different areas,” said MacKinnon. “That’s what we’re doing, now that gold has recovered.”
MacKinnon has come across everything from jaguars to anacondas, meeting and setting up crucial business ties with the local indigenous people in the area, who are the primary concession owners in his business.
Coco Liso collaborates with the indigenous communities in the area. The company employs many of them because they are used to mining. They have been mining gold and silver for decades.
“They are amazing. We’ve have also helped them with their needs, getting schools set up, and providing teachers for them,” said McKinnon.
The help of indigenous expertise in mining has helped MacKinnon’s company develop mining methods that are in harmony in nature, restoring what areas are done to an optimal state for growth, using gravel and the bounteous resources of the jungle.
“The Amazon is a very vibrant jungle. Everything grows there. The things you were taught in school, like how, if you cut down a tree they say it will never grow again, is an absolute lie,” said MacKinnon. “I planted tomatoes down there that grew nine feet tall in about a month and a half. I’ve never seen growth like that anywhere else in the world.”
MacKinnon said he found many similarities between the culture in Ecuador and Estevan in the 1950s, when the oil industry was starting out in the area.
“I found a lot of similarities in community building. We work with indigenous tribes, and it’s a different experience, but they’re hard workers and have to live off the land to survive,” said MacKinnon. “It brings back a lot of history to mind, of the history of the Saskatchewan farming community.”
On Sept. 9 and 10, MacKinnon will be in Estevan, looking to see what sort of support he can find in the community.
“There’s a large group of people waiting for the price of oil to jump back, (but) it hasn’t recovered. This is a nice opportunity to do an investment. Gold is on the tear right now. It’s gone up 150 per cent in less than a year,” said McKinnon. “We’re looking for entry-level investments into gold and silver, and we have a gemstone discovery we made working down here. If anyone wants to join us, they’re welcome to come and hear our story.”
