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Junior Exploration Sector

Exploration project’s purity surprises mining company: Frontier Lithium touts PAK project as a rare and valuable find – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – March 23, 2018)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Garth Drever can’t hide his excitement over Frontier Lithium’s Pakeagama Lake Pegmatite (PAK) project’s initial findings and estimates. But he is reluctant to say it could be the first lithium mine in Canada.

“It could be a few years before we go into production, but we are very happy with what we are seeing,” said Drever, vice-president of exploration of the Sudbury-based junior mining company, formerly known as Houston Lake Mining.

“The deposits are very clean, very high grade and that’s generating a lot of interest.” He was speaking on the latest findings from the project at the monthly meeting of the Sudbury Prospectors and Developers Association on March 20.

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RNC mulls selling Aussie mine to focus on massive cobalt-nickel project in Quebec – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – March 22, 2018)

http://www.mining.com/

Canada’s RNC Minerals (TSX: RNX) said Thursday it might sell all or part of its Beta Hunt gold and nickel mine in Western Australia to focus instead on its Dumont cobalt and nickel project in Quebec, the world’s largest undeveloped reserve of both metals.

The Toronto-based miner, which acquire Beta Hunt in 2016, said while it has grew the scale of the operation ever since, such asset is now considered to be non-core to RNC, particularly since Dumont’s potential value is significantly greater than the Australian mine’s current worth.

The company, however, did say it would consider other strategic alternatives for Beta Hunt, adding that no decision about the mine future has been made at the time.

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EV adoption rate reaching critical mass as search for ethical cobalt heats up – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – March 20, 2018)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Cobalt company Cobalt 27 is seeing an ideal storm brewing for its key commodity as the adoption rate of electric vehicles (EVs) accelerates faster than even optimistic forecasts had speculated.

“Cobalt 27 is a proxy for the adoption of the EV,” executive chairperson Anthony Milewski told Mining Weekly Online in an interview. “What our most recent raise tells one is that the thematic is picking up pace.”

He pointed to the EV adoption rate hitting 1.8% at the end of 2017. “Currently, Wall Street has projections for 2025 of an EV penetration rate of 15%.

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Klondex shares surge on news of Hecla acquisition – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – March 20, 2018)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Shares in struggling Canadian junior gold producer Klondex Mines Ltd. surged after U.S.-based Hecla Mining Co. announced it intends to pay a premium of almost 80 per cent to acquire the company in a transaction worth US$462-million.

Idaho-based Hecla’s cash and stock offer is worth US$2.47 a share (about $3.23) – a roughly 79-per-cent premium compared with Friday’s closing price.

Under the transaction, Hecla is acquiring Klondex’s U.S. gold mines, but its Canadian assets are set to be spun out into a separate publicly traded company, to be owned by existing Klondex shareholders.

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First Cobalt Buys Idaho Explorer in Race to Supply Battery Boom – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – March 14, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

First Cobalt Corp. is seeking to speed up its timetable to begin producing cobalt, riding the wave of interest in the metal used in electric-vehicle batteries and smartphones.

The Vancouver-based exploration company agreed to buy explorer US Cobalt Inc., which has properties in Idaho, in an all-stock deal with an implied equity value of about C$149.9 million ($116 million). Trading in the two companies’ shares was suspended.

“We’re trying to fast-track our way into North American mining and refining,” First Cobalt Chief Executive Officer Trent Mell said in an interview.

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This Commodity Investor Is Hoarding the World’s Cobalt Supply – by Mark Burton (Bloomberg News – March 13, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Backed by a Russian billionaire, Anthony Milewski started stockpiling the metal in 2015.

Anthony Milewski was among the first investors to realize that if electric-vehicle sales take off the way automakers expect, the world is going to need a lot more cobalt—an essential ingredient in lithium-ion batteries.

But the market for cobalt isn’t very big, and there aren’t many easy ways for investors to bet on prices. The metal is a minor byproduct of copper and nickel mining, and only a few places produce meaningful quantities. More than half the world’s supply comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, an impoverished country in central Africa mired in corruption scandals and political unrest.

So, in 2015, backed by a Russian billionaire, Milewski started buying metal from mining companies and putting it in warehouses. At the time, it was cheap because most industrial commodities were stuck in long slumps.

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‘Suds’ strategy pays through the drill bit as Osisko aims at replicating Canadian Malartic success – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – March 8, 2018

http://www.miningweekly.com/

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Celebrated Canadian precious metals firm Osisko Mining is aiming to replicate the success of its 9.4-million-ounce Canadian Malartic gold mine discovery – currently Canada’s largest producing gold mine – at its flagship Windfall Lake property, located in the Abitibi greenstone belt of Quebec.

The company relies on its somewhat quirky-yet-imminently-effective strategy called ‘Suds’, which is an acronym for “shut up and drill stupid”, chairperson Sean Roosen told a packed audience of miners and financiers during the recent Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada 2018 convention, in Toronto.

Osisko has had a colourful history, coming full circle from exploration and development, to royalties and financing, and back to exploration and likely development again.

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Global metals exploration likely to rise 20% in 2018 – S&P Global – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – March 5, 2018)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Global mining exploration budgets are expected to swell about 20% this year, bolstered by the generally positive trend in metals prices extending into early 2018, a new report by S&P’s Global Market Intelligence has found.

Global spending on the search for nonferrous metals rose 15% year-on-year in 2017 to an estimated $8.4-billion, compared with $7.3-billion in 2016, representing the first yearly increase in exploration spending after four consecutive years of declining investment in this area, according to the World Exploration Trends (WET) report, published in conjunction with the 2018 iteration of the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) International Convention, held in Toronto.

“Improved equity market support for explorers allowed many companies to launch or resume drill programmes on their most promising projects.

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Rise of crypto and cannabis cutting into mining, Osisko CEO says – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – March 6, 2018)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Canadian mining industry is facing deep-rooted structural problems, with no easy solutions in sight. That’s according to a well-known Canadian mining executive, who spoke on the opening day of the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention on Monday.

In an unscripted and candid keynote speech, Sean Roosen, chief executive of Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd., bemoaned the lack of investor interest in mining, the dearth of investment over the past few years in exploration projects, skyrocketing capital costs and, in particular, the rapid-fire rise of alternative sectors, such as bitcoin and marijuana, that has wooed investors away from the industry.

“People used to invest in prospectors and exploration because they wanted to take risks and they wanted to have fun,” Mr. Roosen said.

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[Northern Superior Resources] Junior miner ditches duty-to-consult lawsuit against Ontario – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – March 2, 2018)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Exploration president criticizes Queen’s Park on hands-off approach to Indigenous engagement

A Sudbury junior miner has dropped a $25-million duty-to-consult lawsuit against the Ontario government and has settled out of court.

With their case still on appeal, Northern Superior Resources president Tom Morris said with a favourable outcome far from certain, it just made financial sense for the small exploration firm to end its five-year legal battle with Queen’s Park.

He declined to comment on the terms of the agreement reached with the province. “There was no guarantee that we were going to win anything out of that. The reality was that with what was offered to us, it just made sense to bite the bullet and move on; and the same from the government’s standpoint.”

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What happens when ‘kingmaker’ Eric Sprott backs your penny mining stock – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – March 1, 2018)

http://business.financialpost.com/

The billionaire investor has injected $10 million in a company exploring for nickel in B.C.’s Golden Triangle — an area that has been mined for a century without much nickel ever being found

One Friday afternoon not so many months ago, Canadian billionaire Eric Sprott was sitting in a leather wingback chair in a dimly lit room, talking about a junior mining company that he just can’t stop investing in.

The company, Garibaldi Resources Corp., is in the earliest stages of exploring for nickel in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle, an area that has been relentlessly explored and mined for a century without much nickel ever being found.

Nevertheless, Sprott was enamoured: He compared the area to Voisey’s Bay, also a nickel deposit, and likely the largest metal discovery in Canada in the past 40 years. That find has turned out to be worth billions of dollars.
“It just keeps coming together,” Sprott said about Garibaldi, turning to an interviewer on his left during a video that will be posted on YouTube. That Garibaldi has never had any revenue passes without comment.

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Looking for Hemlo II: Canadian Orebodies – by Jay Currie (MotherlodeTV.net – February 27, 2018)

http://motherlodetv.net/

A lot of exploration is about looking for pointers, for clues, as to where a deposit might be. For Canadian Orebodies, a train of boulders, a number of which had high-grade gold mineralization pointed in a particular direction. If you look at the map above you can spot the boulder train. Angular boulders which suggest that the source is not far away.

If you follow the boulder train “up ice” – because the boulders were almost certainly the result of glaciation – you will see what Gordon McKinnon and his team at Canadian Orebodies have been quietly working on for the past nine months. The acquisition of the “Century Mining Claims”. It was not straightforward.

“Century Mining was in bankruptcy,” said McKinnon. “And Teck Resources held a bunch of rights including the right of first refusal and a back-in right. There were also two prospectors who had a 3% Net Smelter Royalty, which made for a drawn out five-party negotiation. After nine months of discussions, we managed to get Teck to give up its rights in exchange for a 0.5% NSR, and we negotiated a royalty buy down with the prospectors. Eventually, we got what we wanted and we finalized the acquisition of the property.

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Cobalt price: Supply scramble heats up with Canadian deal – by Frik Els (Mining.com – February 22, 2018)

http://www.mining.com/

Investors piled into Cobalt 27 Capital Corp (TSX-V:KBLT) and RNC Minerals (TSX:RNX) on Thursday after the companies entered into a royalty deal on all future nickel and cobalt production at RNC Minerals’ Dumont project in Quebec in a deal worth $70 million.

Shares in Toronto-based Cobalt 27 gained as much as 6% in lunchtime trade lifting its market cap to C$440m ($350m) . Investors who bought into the battery metals story when Cobalt 27 listed in June are now enjoying a 45% appreciation in the value of the stock since then. Cobalt 27 stockpiles the metal, holds options on cobalt juniors and enters into streaming and royalty deals in an effort to be a pure play on the cobalt price.

RNC Minerals stock popped 12% shortly after the open on the TSX affording the company a market value C$90m before cooling off in later trade. The Toronto-based firm which changed its name from Royal Nickel Corp in 2016 owns 50% of the Dumont project in the Abitibi mining camp in a joint venture with Waterton, a private equity investor. RNC Minerals is up 43% year to date.

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[Northern Superior Resources] A tale of two exploration projects – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – February 21, 2018)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

President, CEO and director of Northern Superior Resources gives overview of challenges of exploration on Ontario and Quebec properties

If there’s one piece of advice Tom Morris can give to mineral exploration companies, it’s let nature tell the story.

After more than 35 years in prospecting, exploration and mining, the president of Northern Superior Resources brought a message to the Sudbury Prospectors and Developers Association. Pay close attention to the findings, even if they aren’t what they are looking for, to determine what kind of resources are really in the ground.

Morris spoke on Jan. 20 about what he learned from two properties: TPK in the Far North, near the Ring Fire, and Croteau Est in Quebec. Very different locations, infrastructure needs, and histories. Both are showing great promise as potential gold mines.

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Harte Gold triples resource at Sugar project in Ontario – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – February 16, 208)

http://www.northernminer.com/

In its first real update since 2012, Harte Gold (TSX: HRT; US-OTC: HRTFF) has tripled the resource at its Sugar deposit about 80 km east of the Hemlo camp in northern Ontario.

The new 1.5 million ounce resource is based largely on Harte’s 2017 drill program (138,000 metres) and about 50% is classified as indicated and situated in the upper 500 metres of the deposit.

The Sugar zone (including the Middle Zone) now contains an estimated 2.61 million indicated tonnes grading 8.52 grams gold per tonne for 714,200 ounces of contained gold and another 3.59 million inferred tonnes (to a depth of 1,000 metres) grading 6.59 grams gold for 760,800 oz. contained gold. The resource used a 3.0 gram gold cut-off.

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