New York spot gold fell $6.80 to $1,982.30 on Wednesday. The TSX Venture Exchange rose 4.73 points to 611.75 while the TSX gold index lost 3.75 points to close at 310.68. Most Canadian gold miners edged lower and a few retreated with gusto. Lundin Gold Corp. (LUG) fell 81 cents to $17.41 on 462,000 shares and Iamgold Corp. (IMG) lost 22 cents to $3.73 on 2.73 million shares. McEwen Mining Inc.(NGT) bucked the trend, adding 18 cents to $10.63 on 30,000 shares. And then there were those with news: Collin Kettell and Denis Laviolette's New Found Gold Corp. (NFG) rose eight cents to $5.95 on 199,000 shares on word it has drilled a 28.65-metre interval averaging 5.16 grams of gold per tonne in the Keats West zone of its Queensway project in north-central Newfoundland. A second of the nine new holes from the area also did well, with a 14.65-metre interval averaging 4.02 grams per tonne. "These are exceptional results from Keats West," enthused Melissa Render, the company's vice-president of exploration and its go-to pontificator, at least when the assays are short of spectacular. Ms. Render pointed out that unlike some of the company's truly exceptional assays back in 2021, these new ones have interval lengths near their true widths, and they occur at or near surface. With what she deems "impressive consistency of grade and thickness from hole to hole," Ms. Render applauds Keats West as "one of our greatest discovery achievements." Investors undoubtedly like Keats West as well, but they fondly recall the greater discovery achievements made two years ago, when three-digit grades over two-digit intervals were frequent in the Keats, Lotto and Golden Joint areas. New Found's energetic 500,000-metre drill program is not expected to end until late this year, and there are 64,000 metres of drilling with pending assay results from holes competed along both sides of the Appleton Fault zone. And so, Ms. Render concludes her spiel noting that she and the company are "eager to see what comes next at Queensway." So, too are investors, so long as what comes next include more of those earlier bonanza-grade hits. New Found was not the only Newfoundland gold explorer with assays today. Jeff Swinoga's Exploits Discovery Corp. (NFLD) was unchanged at 17 cents on 440,000 shares on word it has received assays of up to 9.84 grams of gold per tonne over 12 metres from the Bullseye property, which lies just northeast of New Found's Lotto and Keats bonanza-grade discoveries at Queensway. A second of the eight holes produced 4.71 grams of gold per tonne over 2.5 metres, but from there, the grades and thicknesses dropped off. Mr. Swinoga, president and chief executive officer, was nevertheless "excited" to cheer on the "best assay results since the start of our 2023 Bullseye drilling program." In April, the company hit a 3.5-metre interval averaging 12.55 grams per tonne in one of three new holes and in the first three holes of the 2023 program, Exploits averaged nearly five grams of gold per tonne over three metres, results that also had Mr. Swinoga excited. Mr. Swinoga says that his crew is seeing a broad network of veins and sulphide mineralization commonly associated with the track of the Appleton Fault structure, and so he believes this "demonstrates that Bullseye has the potential to replicate or extend the high-grade gold mineralization observed by our neighbours within 250 metres of our claim boundaries" -- a promotional shout out to remind investors that Bullseye is an area play looking for a sniff of the bonanza grades lying tantalizingly close to the southwest. Another Newfoundland explorer had a good day. Mark Scott's Gander Gold Corp. (GAND) rose 1.5 cents to 19 cents on 356,000 shares following word it has begun its "first-ever drilling" at its Gander North property. Much of the property lies at a more northerly latitude than does the town of Gander, but a more accurate description of the project might be "Gander East," as the southwestern fringe of the big property is roughly 30 kilometres east of the New Found Gold hits at Lotto, Keats and Golden Joint on Queensway. Drilling has begun in the Viking area at Gander North, but Mr. Scott, CEO, cheers that he and his crew are "very pleased with the abundance of drill targets" that have emerged from their two-year greenfield exploration program. Those preliminaries included 40,000 soil samples, which Mr. Scott applauds as "a Newfoundland-best" -- presumably for the sample count, not necessarily the result. In any case, Mr. Scott says that many of these abundant targets will be drilled this year, and so this "will be an exciting time for the company and its shareholders in the midst of a robust gold market." Investors do seem hopeful, as Gander Gold's stock has doubled since early April in anticipation of the drilling. Brad Langille's GoGold Resources Inc. (GGD) lost 12 cents to $1.60 on 1.28 million shares on the heels of its initial preliminary economic assessment of the Los Ricos North project in Jalisco, Mexico. The new dream sheet follows a now two-year-old study of nearby Los Ricos South, a project that Mr. Langille, president and CEO, says is headed to prefeasibility, with results expected before the end of the year. The Los Ricos North study is based on a resource of 22.3 million tonnes indicated at 1.66 grams of gold equivalent per tonne and 20.5 million tonnes inferred at 1.51 grams per tonne. The combined resource holds 336,000 ounces of gold and over 102 million ounces of silver, along with 34 million pounds of copper, 241 million pounds of lead and 375 million pounds of zinc. The Los Ricos North study proposes a $220-million (U.S.) mine and a $137-million (U.S.) expansion that would average 8,000 tonnes per day over a 13-year run -- enough to support an internal rate of return of 29 per cent and a discounted net present value of $413-million (U.S.). Meanwhile, GoGold's plan for Los Ricos South called for an 11-year mine that would cost $125-million (U.S.) to build and another $45-million (U.S.) to develop underground, an operation based on a resource of 10 million tonnes measured and indicated at 2.17 grams of gold equivalent per tonne and 3.3 million inferred at a slightly lower grade -- about 386,000 ounces of gold and 50 million ounces of silver. The bottom line was encouraging, with a discounted net present value of 46 per cent and a discounted net present value of $295-million (U.S.). Mr. Langille says that the coming prefeasibility study will include the Eagle zone at Los Ricos South, so one can presumably expect an enhanced operation. Still, it appears that Los Ricos North will remain outside the plan for now, serving perhaps as another expansion opportunity if and when the time comes to start building a mine. |
