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Junior Exploration Sector

Arizona shares tumble on speculation – by Salma Tarikh (Northern Miner – January 1, 2017)

http://www.northernminer.com/

Arizona Mining (TSX: AZ) shares slightly recovered on promising assays from the Taylor zinc-lead sulphide deposit at its Hermosa property, following a sharp decline after a mining publication raised concerns about the marketability of Taylor’s zinc concentrates, before sliding again.

Located 10 km from the town of Patagonia and 80 km southeast of Tucson, Ariz., the high-grade zinc deposit contains 28.3 million indicated tonnes grading 10.9% zinc equivalent and 75 million inferred tonnes at 11.1% zinc equivalent, using a 4% zinc equivalent cut-off grade. Exploration success at Taylor this year coupled with higher zinc prices have skyrocketed the company’s shares.

On Dec. 7, the stock touched a 52-week high of $3.49, up 947% from its 2015 close of 32.5¢. A day earlier the company had closed a $36-million bought deal with underwriters led by Scotia Capital, National Bank Financial, RBC Capital Markets, TD Securities and Raymond James. It sold 11.8 million shares at $3.05 apiece.

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[Prolific Flin Flon-Snow Lake Greenstone Belt] Rockcliff expands 
presence in Manitoba – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – October 27, 2016)

While it may not be apparent from its share price, which has ranged between 1.5¢ and 16¢ over the last year, Rockcliff Copper (TSXV: RCU) has quietly expanded its grip on Manitoba’s Flin Flon-Snow Lake greenstone belt, with recent option deals on two of the mining camp’s highest-grade metal deposits.

In September, the junior explorer signed an agreement with a prospector to earn 100% of the Laguna gold property, which hosts a former high-grade gold mine, 20 km southeast of Snow Lake and Hudbay Minerals’ (TSX: HBM; NYSE: HBM) 2,150-tonne-per-day gold mill facility.

The deposit was mined intermittently between 1916 and 1939 — producing more than 60,000 oz. gold from 101,000 tonnes averaging 20.57 grams gold per tonne — and there has been virtually no exploration done there in the last 70 years.

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Encanto Potash Corp. one step closer to financing $3B mine on Sask. First Nation – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – January 6, 2017)

http://thestarphoenix.com/

A junior mining company with plans to build a potash mine on a reserve northeast of Regina says two new 20-year agreements to sell a total of seven million tonnes of potash annually bring it one step closer to financing and building the massive facility.

The agreements, known as offtakes, with “bankable” India-based firms should help Encanto Potash Corp. secure the $3 billion it needs to build the mine on Muskowekwan First Nation, said the Vancouver-based company’s director of corporate development.

“We think that with this offtake, we can get our corporate financing,” Gary Deathe said, adding that while no junior mining company has successfully financed a potash operation into production, that is “100 per cent” Encanto’s plan.

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[Qubec Mining] “I would be surprised [if] someone [could] … raise capital right now to develop a uranium project until you know how this … will be settled” – by Staff (Mining Journal – December 20, 2016)

http://www.mining-journal.com/

Junior Strateco Resources’ (US:SRSIF) looming C$200 million (US$150 million) court case against the Quebec government is expected to set the precedent for other uranium hopefuls.

Strateco is suing the provincial government for investment losses and punitive damages after its Matoush uranium project was blocked following years of preliminary work.

Strateco spent an average $20 million a year on Matoush between 2006-2012, The Globe and Mail reported, on the basis that uranium exploration and mining were allowed in Quebec.

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NEWS RELEASE: Harte Gold Closes $25 Million Financing

Toronto – December 14, 2016 – HARTE GOLD CORP. (“Harte Gold”) (TSX: HRT / OTC: HRTFF / Frankfurt: H40) is pleased to announce the closing of the $25 million financing previously announced in its news release dated November 24, 2016. The financing will facilitate the acceleration of exploration and development work at Harte Gold’s 100% owned Sugar Zone property located in White River, Ontario.

The financing consists of a $15 million bought deal offering of 38,461,538 flow-through common shares priced at $0.39 per flow-through common share (the “Flow-Through Offering”) with Cantor Fitzgerald Canada Corporation and a concurrent $10 million private placement financing of 33,333,333 common shares priced at $0.30 per common share (the “Private Placement”) with Appian Natural Resources Fund (“Appian”) through its wholly owned subsidiary, for aggregate gross proceeds of $25 million at a blended average price of $0.35 per common share. On closing, Appian will hold a 16.8% interest in Harte Gold.

Finder’s fees payable under the private placements consist of a cash payment equal to 3% of cash raised and broker warrants equal to 3% of the number of flow-through common shares and common shares issued pursuant to the private placements.

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Arizona Mining comes out swinging – by Staff (Mining Journal – December 13, 2016)

http://www.mining-journal.com/

Vancouver-based Arizona Mining has strongly refuted claims made in global mining blog that compared some of its deposits to the “Bre-X” scandal. An article in the Global Mining Observer on the weekend drew a comparison to Bre-X, the company involved in a major gold mining scandal in the mid-1990s, the Financial Post reported.

Arizona says the Observer’s article, which is no longer available online, was misleading. “First, the article appeared to infer that the Taylor deposit was a re-named version of the Central Deposit,” Arizona said in a statement.

“There are, in fact, two distinct deposits at the Hermosa project – the Taylor zinc-lead-silver sulphide deposit and the Central deposit, which is a manganese-silver oxide deposit.”

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NEWS RELEASE: Arizona Mining Refutes Misleading Article on Taylor Deposit

VANCOUVER, BC–(Marketwired – December 12, 2016) – Arizona Mining Inc. (TSX: AZ) (“Arizona Mining” or the “Company”) wishes to address an article published by The Global Mining Observer on Sunday, December 11, 2016 regarding the Company’s Hermosa Project in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, which the Company believes is misleading. The Company is issuing this statement to provide its shareholders and the market with accurate information.

First, the article appeared to infer that the Taylor deposit was a re-named version of the Central Deposit. There are, in fact, two distinct deposits at the Hermosa project — the Taylor zinc-lead-silver sulfide deposit and the Central deposit, which is a manganese-silver oxide deposit. The article implies these deposits are one and the same, which is incorrect.

The metallurgical testwork on the Taylor Deposit was conducted by Resource Development Inc. (RDi) and has returned excellent results to date which were initially published in a January 7, 2016 press release, subsequently on February 1, 2016 with the maiden resource calculation, and reiterated by RDi within the Technical Report released on November 29, 2016.

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China the Centre of the Lithium Universe – by Kirill Klip (Renewables International – December 7, 2016)

http://www.renewablesinternational.net/

Maybe you missed it, but China is now “The Center of the Lithium Universe”. China is already the world’s largest electric vehicle market, says Kirill Klip, President of International Lithium Corp.

The recent Volkswagen scandal has once again shed light on polluting vehicles and the health hazard they pose to the public and environment. In hopes of ending this tainted legacy governments have began implementing regulations to phase out emission causing vehicles. Respectively, all major automakers have followed suit and pledged to build dozens of electric vehicles in years to come.

BYD, the Chinese company backed by Warren Buffet, is the largest EV manufacturer in the world, thus the Chinese companies are producing the largest amount of lithium chemicals for the batteries required to make them. The market is booming, there are currently 25 companies making 51 models of electric cars in China. Over 500,000 EVs will be sold in China this year alone.

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Wallbridge Mining ventures into the unexplored: Drilling commences on Sudbury joint venture (Northern Ontario Business – November 21, 2016)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

The Wallbridge Mining Company is breaking unusually new ground in the Sudbury Basin. The Sudbury-based junior mining company started another round of drilling on their Parkin Properties, on the northeast edge of the basin, in October.

The site is practically virgin territory compared to nearby areas, according to Joshua Bailey, vice-president of exploration at the Wallbridge Mining Company.

“It hasn’t had as much exploration as elsewhere,” said Bailey, adding that “if this project has a fraction of what is elsewhere in the basin, it would be a success.” This isn’t the first drilling in the area for Wallbridge.

They completed promising drilling between 2008 and 2012 as part of a joint venture with Impala Platinum Holdings Limited (Implats), after which they re-purchased Implat’s nearly 50 per cent interest in the properties.

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‘No roads, no problem’: How blimps could help northern Quebec’s miners overcome their infrastructure woes – by Kristine Owram (Financial Post -November 21, 2016)

http://business.financialpost.com/

Who needs roads or railways when you have blimps? A small Montreal-based mining exploration company called Quest Rare Minerals Ltd. thinks it may have found a solution to the lack of transportation infrastructure in Canada’s North: a blimp-like hybrid airship made by Lockheed Martin Corp. that can land virtually anywhere for a fraction of the cost of a regular airplane.

Quest plans to use a fleet of seven Lockheed airships to transport supplies and personnel to its Strange Lake mine on the boundary between Quebec and Labrador, 1,100 kilometres northeast of Quebec City. Once the mine is up and running, it will also use the helium-filled airships to transport ore out of the mine as far as the town of Schefferville, Que., where it can be loaded onto railcars.

Residents of northern Quebec shouldn’t expect to see the hybrid airships, which resemble a giant piece of meringue, floating overhead anytime soon.

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Nemaska Lithium’s Whabouchi project to ship lithium hydroxide in first quarter – by Lara Smith (InvestorIntel.com – November 8, 2016)

http://investorintel.com/

Nemaska Lithium Inc. (TSX: NMX | OTCQX: NMKEF) is a producer of the compound in Quebec, Canada, and is aiming to supply to the rapidly growing market. The company wholly owns the Whabouchi Mine project, a deposit believed to rank second in the world for size and lithium concentration. The company has developed a commercial process of producing lithium hydroxide (patent pending), which is the compound anticipated to lead demand in batteries.

The Whabouchi project is the flagship of this company, but not only for its size and quality of material. Officially authorised by the Quebec and Canadian Federal Governments in 2015, the project is being funded by over $69 million in investment raised in an offering in July 2016, from when the company began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The Company has previously ranked as “Top Company Overall” of the 2016 OTCQX® Best 50 and performed second best out of the mining sector on the 2016 TSX Venture 50®. Nemaska Lithium has further attracted a significant grant from Sustainable Development Technology Canada, receiving a second installment of $2.12 million in June.

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Indigenous people find employment in Ontario’s Ring of Fire – by Jeff Walters (CBC News Thunder Bay – October 20, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

Noront Resources has over half of its staff comprised of Indigenous employees

The one company in the Ring of Fire still doing active exploration said it has already made a positive impact on neighbouring Indigenous communities. Noront Resources has set a target of having over half of its staff comprised of Indigenous employees. So far, the company has met the target.

“Even at an early stage, where we are today in terms of exploration, we want the communities to realize some of those benefits through jobs, through training,” said Ryan Weston, the VP of Exploration with Noront Resources. “So that in a longer term scenario, they will ultimately be believers in the benefits, the positive benefits that a mine would create here in the Ring of Fire.”

Although the camp itself has few staff at the moment, half of the workforce is comprised of Indigenous workers. Kevin Jacob is a member of Webequie First Nation, the nearest community to the Ring of Fire’s Esker exploration camp.

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[Ontario] Boost to mining at the first level – Editorial (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – October 17, 2016)

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/

Mining is a very important industry in Northwestern Ontario, always has been. It employs many hundreds of people from Marathon to Red Lake, more in related industries. It is a business that creates wealth literally right out of the ground. That’s why it is important that government help make the sector sustainable.

Case in point, the announcement late last week by Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle of $1.2 million in funding to prop up the junior exploration assistance program. The fund helps these companies claim up to $100,000 on specific projects that seek new mining possibilities.

It’s part of a $5 million investment that the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund made to put together the second round of a junior exploration assistance program. “We’ve recognized that times are tough and commodity prices aren’t great,” said Gravelle.

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NEWS RELEASE: Positive Signs Put Junior Miners in a Good Position for Recovery – PwC report

Read the full report, which is now available at: https://www.pwc.com/ca/en/mining/publications/223176_JuniorMineReport_final_web.pdf

TORONTO, OCTOBER 12, 2016 – Mining companies once again make up over 50 % of the total market capitalization on the TSX Venture Exchange, up from 36% on June 30, 2015, according to PwC Canada’s 2016 Junior Mine report, Signs of Life. For the past 12 month period between June 2015 to June 2016, cash flows from financing activities increased significantly and cash flows from debt and equity financing increased to 45 % and 48 % respectively.

According to the report, investors have seen a rise in the market capitalization of top junior mining companies on the TSX Venture Exchange by more than 100% compared to last year.

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BHP Billiton and Newcrest Mining battle for SolGold stake – by James Wilson (Financial Times – October 10, 2016)

https://www.ft.com/

BHP Billiton has joined Newcrest Mining in trying to take a stake in a little-known copper and gold explorer in a sign of miners’ renewed appetite for low-cost entry into promising projects.

The battle between two of the world’s best-known miners for a stake in SolGold, whose prize asset is in Ecuador, shows how large companies are stepping up efforts to forge partnerships with smaller rivals to restock production pipelines.

So-called “junior” companies in mining have suffered a dearth of investment since the commodities cycle turned down from 2011, while larger companies have slashed budgets for capital spending and for exploration over the same period.

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