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Junior Exploration Sector

NORONT NEWS RELEASE: PROVINCE OF ONTARIO TO FUND RING OF FIRE ROAD PROPOSALS LED BY MARTEN FALLS, WEBEQUIE AND NIBIMINIK FIRST NATIONS

http://norontresources.com/

TORONTO, ONTARIO—August 21, 2017—Noront Resources Ltd. (“Noront”) (TSX Venture: NOT) participated in a joint announcement today by Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Chiefs of Marten Falls, Webequie and Nibiminik First Nations, which formally committed provincial funding to two First Nations road proposals that will provide community and industrial access to the Ring of Fire Mining District.

Road Proposals

The provincial government agreed to support and fund the following road proposals which will connect First Nation communities to the Ring of Fire:

•An east-west road connecting Webequie and Nibinamik First Nations to the provincial highway network north of Pickle Lake (the “East-West Road”). This road will continue from the Community of Webequie to the Ring of Fire.
•A north-south community access road is being planned for construction by the Marten Falls First Nation with an option to expand the road to the Ring of Fire to support the development of chromite mining (the “North – South Road”).

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11 Opportunities in Gold, Uranium and Diamonds (Streetwise Reports – August 14, 2017)

https://www.streetwisereports.com/

Former journalist James Kwantes, editor of Resource Opportunities, provides a tour of promising junior mining opportunities, from the extremes of northern Canada to the tropics of French Guiana.

The Gold Report: The U.S. stock market has been in a bull run for a number of years. What are your thoughts on the market and what it means for precious metals?

James Kwantes: Since Donald Trump was elected president, but also for years before that, large-cap U.S. stocks have been a “can’t miss” for investors, who have been rewarded for chasing returns. It seems very toppy to me, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t go on for a while still. In 2000, in the big tech boom, the market caps of the two or three largest technology companies equaled the market cap of something like every mining company in the world.

We’re at that level again. We’re starting to see weakness in the U.S. dollar, and that’s positive for gold. These things are cyclical. Gold looks like it’s ready for the next longer-term breakout and we’re heading into a period of seasonal strength. We’re starting to see signs of strength in the junior market as well.

TGR: Would you talk about a couple of companies that you like in the precious metals area?

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[Northern Superior Resources] Sudbury junior miner breathes life into Far North, Quebec projects – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – August 15, 2017)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Measuring 20 kilometres by 30 kilometres, Morris believes TPK has district-scale
mining possibilities, comparable to the Hollinger Mine complex in Timmins or
the Red Lake district. “I’ve been in this business for 35 years. I’ve never
seen anything like this.”

Tom Morris is excited to be finally returning to his roots. The president-CEO of Northern Superior Resources has two projects on the go this summer as his Sudbury exploration outfit advances a promising Quebec gold project while simultaneously blowing the dust off a mothballed gold and base metals property in Ontario’s Far North.

“When it comes to doing what we’re supposed to be doing, which is exploration, we’ve been pretty dormant,” Morris admits. During the downturn, it was all about survivability for many junior miners who tightened their belts as exploration dollars dried up.

After weathering that period in reasonably good shape, and with market interest in commodities looking favourable, it’s now time to get back to work with exploration dollars in hand and new company leadership in place. “Timing was everything,” said Morris. “I kept the company going for this opportunity that we knew was coming at some point.”

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Artists, hippies, miners — Patagonia divided over hamlet’s economic future – by Lucas Waldron (Arizona Daily Star – August 13, 2017)

http://tucson.com/

Patagonia has one bar, one coffee shop, one gas station. And customers at nearly all of them are divided between those in favor of a new mining project in this tiny southeastern-Arizona town and those against it.

Roughly half of Patagonia’s 900 residents support Arizona Mining Inc., a Canadian company that recently bought land near town for exploratory drilling. The rest oppose the mining company, seeking to preserve the region’s unique rare wildlife and steer the economy away from mineral extraction and toward environmental restoration.

Arizona Mining Inc. has vowed to create an estimated 500 jobs through a mine it plans to have up and running in 2020. In July, the company predicted the mine will extract 10,000 tons of minerals per day and could be viable for eight years.

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Arctic heating up for gold exploration – by Jeff Nielson (Stockhouse.com – August 2, 2107)

http://www.stockhouse.com/

This is not another story about global warming. The “heat” being generated in Canada’s far north by the gold mining industry is economic heat. As gold mining companies hunt for increasingly elusive projects which offer both robust grades and multi-million ounce potential, more and more of these companies are looking north – as in far north.

One of the companies cashing in on this new, northern gold-rush is Cache Exploration Inc. (TSX: V.CAY, OTCQB: CEXPF, Forum). CAY’s base of operations is Nunavut. The Company’s operational focus is the Kiyuk Lake Gold Project.

Kiyuk Lake is a huge land package, encompassing approximately 491 square kilometers. This is a true “district” play, as management was intent on locking up the majority of the entire Kiyuk Basin, a Proterozoic geological formation. Mineralization has already been identified along a 15 kilometer strike length.

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Cobalt explorer makes a move in historic camp: First Cobalt kicks off exploration program with promise of richer days ahead – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – July 28, 2017)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Walking into a mining ghost town like Silver Centre is almost akin to experiencing what the first miners of the Cobalt camp’s famed Silver Rush faced at the turn of the last century.

But the focus this time is not on finding high-grade silver veins but exploring for cobalt, previously discarded as a waste material. For exploration crews, it’s like starting from scratch. “I grew up in Northern Ontario and crawled around mine sites all the time,” said Frank Santaguida, vice-president of exploration for First Cobalt Corp. “It’s surprising how quickly the land reclaims itself.”

His Toronto-based company has an option agreement with Canadian Silver Hunter to acquire 100 per cent of the former Keeley-Frontier silver and cobalt mine, a sprawling 2,100-hectare property, 25 kilometres south of the town of Cobalt.

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Top 10 Canadian-based gold developers – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – July 20, 2017)

http://www.northernminer.com/

Gold exploration and development is enjoying a boom again, and Canadian juniors are leading project advancement at home and abroad.

The following are the top-10, Canadian-headquartered gold companies that are developing projects but not yet in commercial production, ranked according to market capitalization in mid-July. Gold royalty and streaming companies are not included in the list.

1. Novagold Resources – $1.9 billion market capitalization

Vancouver-based Novagold Resources (TSX: NG; NYSE-MKT: NG) is a familiar name in the gold sector, especially amongst retail investors. Novagold’s flagship project is its half interest in the large but remote Donlin Gold project in southwestern Alaska, which is a fifty-fifty joint venture with Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX; NYSE: ABX).

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Gold from every drill hole: Gowest Gold drills, preps site for future Timmins mine – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – July 7, 2017)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Gowest Gold found gold mineralization in all 23 drill holes from a recent exploration campaign at its future gold mine near Timmins. The Toronto-based mine developer is in the midst of driving a ramp to take a 30,000-tonne bulk sample at its Bradshaw Gold Deposit.

The company said the advanced drill program was designed to refine the geological model and the stope design in the upper part of the deposit where the sample will be extracted in the third quarter of this year. The 2,097-metre program produced some encouraging gold intercepts, including 7.70 metres at 8.26 grams per tonne (g/t), including 2.0 metre at 22.75 g/t gold.

“This gives us confidence in our resource model and with several holes intersecting gold grades higher than anticipated it supported our interpretation that the Bradshaw Deposit has room to grow and the potential to be a very successful gold mine,” said Gowest exploration director Jeremy Niemi in a July 7 news release.

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[Klondex Mines/Nevada] Reprieve for an Ancient Site: A Mining Company and a Tribe Find a Way to Work Together – by Stephanie Woodard (In These Times.com – July 3, 2017)

http://inthesetimes.com/

Preparations are underway to hand over to Western Shoshones 3,269 acres of Native sacred sites in Nevada. “We’ll have prayers, dancing, drumming and food,” says Joseph Holley, councilman and former chairman of the Battle Mountain Band of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshones, in Nevada. “There will be time for Paul to talk about what’s been happening over the past eight years and how he is helping us protect this place.”

Holley is referring to Paul Huet, the chief executive officer of Klondex Mines, a Canadian firm that in late 2016 purchased an existing gold-mining operation within a Western Shoshone cultural landscape called Tosawihi (pronounced DOS-a-wee). Purchased as part of the mining deal, the portion that Klondex will hand over to the Battle Mountain Band on August 18 is a spiritual hub.

Though 83 percent of Nevada is owned by the federal government, the Klondex purchase and handover of this unusual tract will allow it to remain privately owned by those who value it most. The Battle Mountain Band will hold and administer the lands on behalf of all Shoshones, according to Holley.

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Lou who? The private man atop Canada’s public markets – by Christina Pellegrini (Globe and Mail – June 17, 2017)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Few people on Bay Street know much about Lou Eccleston. And he seems to like it that way. As the head of TMX Group Ltd., the operator of the country’s busiest stock exchanges, he sits in the middle of Canada’s clubby capital markets. But Mr. Eccleston – a 59-year-old American who took the TMX reins more than two years ago and splits his time between Toronto and Princeton Junction, N.J. – isn’t really a member of the club.

In a setting where many key characters are known for being seen, Mr. Eccleston is not. So much so that some working on the sell-side in Toronto have dubbed him “Waldo,” as in “Where’s Waldo?” In many ways, his private nature is by design. “A leader’s job is to enable success,” Mr. Eccleston says. “It’s not about you when you become a leader. It’s about the people you work with.”

The youngest of three siblings and a father of four, he is most at ease talking about his business rather than the path he took to get to the top; never mind what he likes to do in his spare time, which – after some prodding – he says includes cooking and being with his family. Put simply, he’s not the kind of boss who will ask about your weekend.

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[Alaska] Miners get busy in elephant country – by Curt Freeman (Mining News – July 2, 2017)

http://www.petroleumnews.com/

Exploration drilling and field prospecting programs, many of them driven by newcomers, have popped up across Alaska this summer.

The summer solstice has come and gone, but the Alaska mining industry has paid little attention to the decreased amount of daylight because it is high summer in the high latitudes, time to be out completing work programs that have been in the planning since last fall. Exploration drilling programs have sprouted in the Brooks Range, Interior, Alaska Range, Southeast, Southwest and the Alaska Peninsula.

In addition, the sounds of tire-kicking are being heard over a wide area of the state with most of the interest focused on gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc prospects. Many of those thumping those tires are new to the Alaska mining scene, coming to elephant country to look for elephants. We will likely hear more from these new players later in the year.

Equal partners Novagold Resources and Barrick Gold announced a US$8 million budget for project optimization at their 39-million-ounce Donlin gold project.

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99 Ways To Die In Mineral Exploration – by Rob McLeod (CEO.ca – June 15, 2017)

http://blog.ceo.ca/

I recently heard a great story about the safety culture that has permeated the mining industry over the past decade, with probably a bit of overkill within the major miners. At an alleged meeting between 50+ mining execs from each side of Newmont and Barrick in New York City, discussing a possible business combo, the Newmont chair of the meeting started it off with a safety share: “when walking the streets of New York, make sure you put your blackberries away, since you might step in to the street and get hit by a car”.

Getting struck and killed while walking and trolling Facebook is a risk that transects all industries, but particular to the mining industry, there are no shortage of ways to meet your maker in mining or exploration. Oh, and the Newmont-Barrick merger didn’t happen!

A short list of hazards, in no particular order, include: helicopter or fixed wing crashes, rolling ATV’s, getting shot, avalanches, kidnapping, malaria and all manner of tropical diseases, freezing to death, boiling to death, mauled by a large carnivore, bitten by a small, poisonous critter, falling, or drowning.

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Canada’s Boutique-Broker Bust May Be Over But Lessons Remain – by Kristine Owram (Bloomberg News – June 26, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The crisis that wiped out a quarter of Canada’s independent brokers seems to have halted. Four new firms signed up with the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada in the first five months of 2017 and only two deregistered. That compares with net dropouts over the last four years as plunging commodity prices and higher compliance costs favored big banks.

Boutique dealers were also battered by Canadian investors’ post-crisis aversion to risk capital, which prompted them to avoid the kind of companies that typically work with smaller brokerages. Such firms funnel research and capital into small and mid-cap companies, which account for more than a quarter of volume traded in Canada’s equity markets.

“Life for independents has gotten better over the last six months,” Dan Daviau, chief executive officer of Toronto-based independent broker Canaccord Genuity Group Inc., said by phone. “Investors are all of a sudden saying, ‘Hey, I don’t mind taking a little more risk, I don’t mind investing in an early-stage tech company or a mining company that’s just discovering stuff.’”

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Canada’s First Cobalt braves political risk to pile in to Congo – by Aaron Ross (Reuters U.S. – June 23, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

KINSHASA – With Western companies in Democratic Republic of Congo treading carefully in the face of political turbulence and a worsening business climate, Canada’s First Cobalt Corp is an unlikely newcomer to the central African nation’s mining scene.

Several of the Toronto-based firm’s workers are former employees of First Quantum Minerals, whose prized Kolwezi project was expropriated in 2010 in an episode that underscored the risks of investing in Congo. But for First Cobalt CEO Trent Mell, the logic of entering a country responsible for nearly two thirds of global cobalt output as the electric vehicle market booms is simple.

“The bottom line is: No DRC, no Tesla,” he said, referring to the U.S. automaker. “You can’t fill the void when you have 64 percent of production coming out of the DRC.” Demand for the metal, a key component in the lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars and mobile phones, is surging. Consultancy CRU Group say electric car and plug-in hybrid vehicle sales could quadruple to 4.4 million in 2021.

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