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Junior Exploration Sector

Upbeat about exploration: Northwestern Ontario feeling rebound in mineral sector – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – May 3, 2017)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

After suffering through five lean years, optimism is slowly returning to the mineral exploration sector, and nowhere is that more evident than in northwestern Ontario. Fresh from soaking in the buoyant atmosphere at the Prospectors and Developers mining convention in Toronto in March, John Mason sees more geologists in the field, once-dormant drilling companies have rigs turning, and shortages of skilled and experienced labour are being reported in some areas.

“The optimism is real in terms of the money starting to flow,” said the project manager of mining services for the Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission, as prices for gold and other metals begin to rebound and exploration capital is more readily available.

When the City of Thunder Bay released its Mining Readiness Strategy in 2013, it pinpointed nine projects in the region that had near-term potential to become mines. A few more have since entered the picture, including Harte Gold’s decision to transition its Sugar Zone project, north of White River, into commercial production in 2018.

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Canadian Orebodies: Back to Hemlo – by Jay Currie (Resources Wire/Financial Post – April 30, 2017)

http://business.financialpost.com/

Gordon McKinnon, CEO of Canadian Orebodies (V.CORE), has gold mining, specifically gold mining at the famous Hemlo gold camp, in his blood. After all, his father, Don McKinnon co-discovered Hemlo back in the 1980’s. “I swore I’d never go into the business,” says McKinnon. But here he is helming a company which is exploring for gold at, well, Hemlo.

“We voluntarily delisted the company back in 2015. There was no money available for gold exploration and we wanted to save all costs possible to ensure the company could continue,” said McKinnon. “We joke that we called the bottom of the market when we delisted. Then, in January 2016, Rob Cudney (of FNX and Gold Eagle fame) came into the lunchroom at Northfield Capital, where we have our offices, and said, “This is the turn. We need another Hemlo.”

“Hemlo itself had a bit of a stigma that it had been picked over,” said McKinnon. “But the fact is that greenstone belts that produce mega ounce deposits, like that at Hemlo, almost always produce other systems. And, at the time, near Hemlo you could stake what you wanted.”

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Conflicting rulings in Ontario and B.C. muddy the waters in Eco Oro Minerals board battle – by Barbara Shecter (Financial Post – April 25, 2017)

http://business.financialpost.com/

A layer of drama was added to the fight between Eco Oro Minerals Corp. and a group of dissident shareholders Monday after an Ontario regulator and a B.C. court came to different conclusions regarding the battle over control of the board.

The shareholder group, which is trying to oust the board of the precious metals exploration and mining company in favour of their own slate, got a boost when the Ontario Securities Commission ruled early Monday that a disputed share issue by the company required a shareholder vote.

But a ruling from the B.C. Supreme Court later in the day — in response to a separate claim — found that the minority shareholders of Vancouver-based Eco Oro had not met the test for shareholder oppression. It also adjourned a special meeting at which a different vote — over board composition — was to take place Tuesday.

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Strongbow’s South Crofty to revive age-old tin mining tradition in Cornwall – by Henry Lazenby – April 21, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VAANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Bolstered by strengthening tin prices and improving fundamental support in the long term, Canadian mineral exploration firm Strongbow Exploration is set to revive a mining tradition in England’s county of Cornwall, that reaches back thousands of years to the early Bronze Age.

The company’s flagship asset, the South Crofty project, is a past-producing underground tin/copper mine, located in the town of Pool, in the historic Cornwall tin mining district of south-west England. The project is located 390 km west-southwest of London, and is about 4.5 km south of the Celtic sea coast.

The Cornish mining industry, which started about 2150 BCE, reached its peak in the nineteenth century, when thousands of workers were employed in up to 2 000 mines, before the industry collapsed when ores began to be produced more cheaply abroad in Malaysia and Indonesia, among others, Strongbow president and CEO Richard Williams tells Mining Weekly Online in an interview.

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NEWS RELEASE: Canadian Orebodies Doubles Land Position at Wire Lake Through Acquisition of the Black Raven Property

http://www.canadianorebodies.com

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – April 24, 2017) – Canadian Orebodies Inc. (the “Company”) (TSX VENTURE:CORE) is pleased to announce the execution of an acquisition agreement (the “Acquisition Agreement”) with StrikePoint Gold Inc. (the “Vendor”) to acquire a 100% interest in 33 mineral claims located 14 kilometres northeast of Marathon, ON, and generally referred to as the “Black Raven Property” or “Smoke Lake Property” (the “Property”).

“This is a highly strategic acquisition which ties directly onto our Wire Lake Property, and is along the known gold bearing trend currently being evaluated by Canadian Orebodies. This transaction more than doubles the size of our land package in the immediate area to over 11,000 hectares,” said Gordon McKinnon, President and CEO of Orebodies.

“This Property not only adds coverage over the extension of the Wire Lake gold trend, but adds numerous other highly prospective targets, including the bonanza grades of 312.90 gpt Au and 95.31 gpt Au from the Crocker Float.”

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Timmins leads Ontario for mining exploration – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily Press – April 19, 2017)

http://www.timminspress.com/

The value of mining exploration across the North is down, but exploration in the Porcupine Camp continues to be the busiest and most lucrative in all of Ontario. Mining exploration in the Porcupine Mining District alone showed a value of more than $19-million worth of exploration work that was carried out on 6,709 claims during 2016.

That was part of the report tabled this week by Ed van Hees, Ph.D.; the regional resident geologist for the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines in Timmins.

His report also showed that the $19-million exceeded the level of exploration work when compared to the other individual mining districts in Ontario. Work in the Thunder Bay area was just over $18-million. Next in line was exploration work in the Larder Lake area which was listed at a value of nearly $12-million. The Red Lake mining district was listed at only $8.6-million.

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Northern Dynasty shares surge 32 per cent after crucial Alaska permit approval – by  Sunny Freeman (Financial Post – April 13, 2017)

http://business.financialpost.com/

Northern Dynasty Mineral Ltd. stock jumped as much as 32 per cent Wednesday after it received a crucial permit from the Alaska government that could see its Pebble project clear a 10-year-long development hurdle.

The Vancouver-based company, which has also recently been the target of a short-seller campaign, said late Tuesday its U.S. subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership has received notice of approval for a miscellaneous land use permit from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

Its stock was trading up 31.7 per cent at $2.41 apiece in midday trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Shares had been on a tear, rising nearly 300 per cent since the November election of U.S. President Donald Trump on speculation that his administration would loosen environmental regulations that have held back its Pebble copper-gold project.

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InvestorIntel’s 6th Annual Cleantech & Technology Metals Summit Corporate Line-up Unveiled

https://investorintel.com

Early Bird Deadline for CTMS Delegates for “The Next Big Thing” April 22, 2017

On behalf of the team of InvestorIntel, a leading online source of independent investor information, we are pleased to announce the corporate presentation line-up for the 6th Annual Cleantech & Technology Metals Summit (CTMS2017.com | @CTMS2017).

Featuring 24 of the most impressive market movers in the cleantech and technology metals sector, CTMS is scheduled for Monday, May 15th and Tuesday, May 16th at the Omni King Edward Hotel in Toronto, Canada and promises to reveal through InvestorIntel’s EU Editor, Christopher Ecclestone – the next big thing.

InvestorIntel Corp. CEO Tracy Weslosky commented: “We are delighted to announce the CTMS corporate presentation line-up as follows, organized by market cap: CTMS2017 Corporate Presentation List (market cap): Lynas Corp. (ASX: LYC | OTC: LYSDY), Nemaska Lithium Inc. (OTCQX: NMKEF), Largo Resources Ltd. (TSX: LGO | OTCQB: LGORF), Neometals Ltd. (ASX: NMT), Alkane Resources Corp. (ASX: ALK | OTCQX: ANLKY), eCobalt Solutions Inc. (TSX: ECS | …

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Albany graphite deposit “a freak of nature” – by Norm Tollinsky (Northern Ontario Business – April 6, 2017)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Aubrey Eveleigh describes the Albany graphite deposit in northeastern Ontario “as a real freak of nature.” “We never expected to find something like this,” he said. “I spent my entire career exploring for base metals and gold for the most part, so this is kind of new. I had never seen anything like this in my life. Neither did any geologist I knew.”

Eveleigh, president and CEO of Zenyatta Ventures, a junior miner based in Thunder Bay, was intrigued by a “whopping” electromagnetic conductor picked up by an airborne survey 30 kilometres north of the Trans Canada Highway near Constance Lake First Nation and Hearst.

“There’s no outcrop in this area, so there’s nothing on surface to suggest what this was. We thought it was massive sulphide until we drilled into it and intersected hundred of metres of graphite breccia.

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How Spanish immersion placed resource hunter Aurania on trail of Ecuador’s ‘lost cities’ – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – March 30, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Junior explorer Aurania Resources is hot in pursuit of finding the last two of seven ‘lost cities’ in Ecuador abandoned by the Spanish conquistadors centuries ago.

With the Toronto-headquartered company on the cusp of closing a C$6-million financing led by Maison Placements Canada and Red Cloud Klondike Strike, Aurania’s president and CEO Dr Keith Barron is gearing up to head back to Ecuador in search of the lost gold mines that supported the Spanish settlements, and possibly local tribes, long before the Spanish explorers arrived.

Barron, who is also the founder of Aurelian Resources, is credited with being the geologist who discovered the Fruta del Norte deposit – one of Ecuador’s biggest gold discoveries that later sold for $1.2-billion and is currently under development by Lundin Gold – and is quick to point out to Mining Weekly Online during an interview that he is not on a Hollywood-style treasure hunt, based on some wild-eyed prospector holding a fragment of an old map, or who overheard a conversation in a bar.

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Critical potential: New USGS tool discovers fresh critical minerals hunting grounds in Alaska – by Shane Lasley (Mining/Petroleum News – April 2017)

http://www.petroleumnews.com/

Exploration companies familiar with Alaska already know the Far North state is a great place to look for critical minerals such as rare earth elements, platinum group metals, cobalt and tin. A new report published by the U.S. Geological Survey, however, indicates that Alaska may be richer in these and other minerals vital to the United States than previously realized.

Working alongside the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys, USGS developed a new geospatial tool that integrated and analyzed a massive load of geologic information and used this data to estimate the resource potential for six deposit types that host a large array of critical minerals.

After crunching all the data, this tool turned up new and expanded areas of Alaska with the potential for these minerals that are vital to modern living but that the United States depends upon foreign countries for more than half of its supply.

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Miners to spend $21 billion on exploration by 2025 – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – March 29, 2017)

http://www.mining.com/

An undeniable and ongoing rebound in commodity prices could take global mining spending in exploration up to as much as $21 billion by 2025, a level of funding last seen in 2012 according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, but which is necessary to sustain the industry’s growth.

While prognosticating that far into the future can inevitably lead to inaccuracies, Stan Wholley, President for the Americas at CSA Global — the world’s second-largest mining sector consultancy — said that such a hefty investment is essential.

“As deposits get harder and more expensive to find and after such an extended period of inactivity in the exploration space, I believe we need to be back at the levels seen in 2012 to replace resources and reserves required to sustain growth,” he told MINING.com.

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The rush for cobalt in Cobalt, Ont: Mining companies snap up land in the north – by Marina von Stackelberg (CBC News Sudbury – March 25, 2017)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

There’s an old school gold rush underway in northern Ontario, but the demand is for a special metal that is used in everything from smart phones to electric cars.

More than a dozen mining companies are staking out claims in Cobalt, Ont. as price of the mineral with the same name rises, according to the Northern Prospectors Association.

“The whole situation is a cobalt-style rush, just like an old fashioned staking rush,” said Gino Chitaroni, president of the Northern Prospectors Association and a geologist from the area. The town of Cobalt is located along the Quebec border, near Temiskaming Shores in northern Ontario, and is best known for the massive amounts of silver that were extracted a century ago.

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Miners Regain Mojo to Spark $18 Billion in Exploration Hunt – by David Stringer (Bloomberg News – March 24, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

A rebound in exploration by global miners could see spending hit $18 billion by 2025 with China the front runner in the search for a new generation of giant discoveries.

Exploration budgets are rising after they plunged to an 11-year low of about $10 billion last year as mining companies slashed costs in the wake of a collapse in prices, according to Richard Schodde, managing director of Melbourne-based MinEx Consulting Pty, an industry adviser.

“We are coming out of the bottom of the cycle. I actually see the opportunity for the exploration sector to regain its mojo and quickly deliver a pipeline of good discoveries,” Schodde said in an e-mailed response to questions. “It’s catch-up time for the industry.”

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RNC, private equity firm Waterton Global form nickel-focused partnership – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – March 22, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Canadian miner Royal Nickel Corp (RNC) has joined forces with private equity firm Waterton Global Resource Management (WGRM) to buy, develop and operate nickel assets.

The companies on Wednesday announced that they had inked a joint venture (JV) accord that will result in Waterton buying a 50% stake in RNC’s Dumont nickel project, in Quebec, for C$30-million in cash. The transaction values Dumont – billed as one of the world’s largest undeveloped nickel deposits – at about C$60-million.

RNC and Waterton have also agreed to inject $17.5-million each into the newly established limited partnership that will own Dumont, support its advancement to development, as well as to acquire other high-quality nickel assets globally. The JV entity’s objective is to establish a pure-play nickel company with multiple projects operating in stable jurisdictions.

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