New York spot gold rose $6.60 to $1,937.20 on Tuesday. The TSX-V added 1.06 points to 623.03 while the TSX gold rose 2.23 points to 310.23. Most Canadian gold miners moved little, but Argonaut Gold Inc. (AR) added five cents to 73 cents on 7.51 million shares while Karora Resources Inc. (KRR) fell three cents to $5.36 on 715,000 shares. Collin Kettell's New Found Gold Corp. (NFG) jumped 37 cents to $5.36 on 320,000 shares. The company has assays from 37 new holes drilled at its Queensway project, west of Gander in north-central Newfoundland. While the headline hit -- 6.7 grams of gold per tonne over 24 metres at Keats West -- does not scream in the 72-point bold font trumpeting the bonanza-grade assays regularly received in the spring of 2021, the company did find reason to cheer its new results. Melissa Render, vice-president of exploration and now fully ensconced as the company's go-to promoter of all things explorational, enthused that the latest assays from Keats West "reveal strong continuity of grades and widths within the host structure." Of course, previous grades and widths from the area were clearly stronger than the new ones. Back in November, the company hit a 32-metre interval averaging 42.6 grams per tonne and 18.6 grams per tonne over nearly 16 metres. Nevertheless, Ms. Render says the Keats West assays show several hits grading on average two grams of gold per tonne over 10 metres and up to 30 metres, which, she says "increases our confidence that this fault resembles the strength of the Keats-Baseline fault." Her pitch, just mildly spiced with geologese, appeared to resonate with investors and she carried on in that vein, pointing out that the Keats West structure has been tested to just 110 metres and remains open down dip and along strike to the west. Ms. Render also turned her gaze east of the Appleton Fault zone, cheering that she and her crew continue to see high-grade intervals with mineralization, starting at surface and down to vertical depths of 200 metres, adding that she "is thrilled that further north we've now intersected another new vein situated midway between Keats and Golden Joint that contains coarse gold." On that latter point she is referring to a 2.45-metre interval that averaged 50.3 grams of gold per tonne -- mainly just a 0.95-metre interval with nearly 130 grams per tonne -- but the latest assays from Keats North were hardly inspirational, with 2.13 grams per tonne over 14.1 metres in one drill hole and 85.85 grams per tonne over 1.1 metres in a second. At this point, New Found Gold appears intrigued by Keats West and the idea of high-grade gold occurring west of the Appleton Fault, and so the company has five of its 12 drills working in the area. Further, Ms. Render says that her drillers are already pursuing the "underexplored gap" between Keats and Golden Joint as a follow-up to the new discovery. It was another week, another batch of Dublin Gulch assays for Victoria Gold Corp. (VGCX). Victoria added 26 cents to $10 on 1.17 million shares on word that a 257-metre interval averaged 0.51 gram of gold per tonne from the drilling in and around the Raven area. Unfortunately, while the widths of the headline hits keep growing, the grades are falling. Two weeks ago, the company averaged 24.7 grams of gold per tonne over 6.5 metres in the Lynx area and last week, it averaged 3.59 grams per tonne over 83 metres at Raven. Mr. McConnell, president and chief executive officer, was nevertheless enthused. The results from within and close to the previously defined Raven deposit "underscore the continuity and high gold grades which define Raven," he gushed, adding that the consistency of the mineralized structures and grades across Raven are notable, and as shown by the assays from the Raven distal program revealed last week, the mineralization remains open for expansion. Victoria says that the eastern strike of Raven will be a prime target for this year's exploration effort. Raven received a maiden resource estimate in September. The calculation listed nearly 20 million tonnes inferred at 1.67 grams of gold per tonne, a pit-constrained estimate that tallied just over one million ounces. Of those ounces, 936,000 sit within massive sulphide veins, within 15.4 million tonnes averaging 1.89 grams per tonne. The remaining ounces are within 4.57 million tonnes of rock averaging 0.92 gram per tonne. Expect an update this year, but those looking for the newer stepout holes to boost the tonnage further will have a longer wait. Investors were expecting more from Terry Harbort's Talisker Resources Ltd. (TSK). Talisker lost two cents to 11 cents on 2.55 million shares on its initial resource estimate for the Bralorne project in Southern British Columbia. The company has 117,000 tonnes indicated at 8.9 grams of gold per tonne and eight million tonnes inferred at 6.3 grams per tonne, a total of 1.66 million ounces. More gold could be on its way, as Talisker cheers that further potential exists in extensions of currently defined mineralized zones, both laterally and at depth. The company estimates that there are somewhere between two million and 2.5 million tonnes at between six and nine grams of gold per tonne -- perhaps between 400,000 and 700,000 ounces more if drilling pans out this target for further exploration. Mr. Harbort, president and CEO, cheered that he and his crew were "very happy" with their maiden resource estimate, one that "landed solidly within our expected range." He added that they were especially pleased to see the grade of the (still tiny) indicated mineral resource tracking significantly higher with increased drill hole density. He also lauded the "tremendous upside" offered by the target for further exploration, concluding that Bralorne can "quickly grow to be one of the largest permitted gold deposits in Western Canada." Darren Hall's Calibre Mining Corp. (CXB) rose five cents to $1.15 on 1.95 million shares on word it has drilled a 92.4-metre interval averaging 4.3 grams of gold per tonne at Golden Eagle in Washington. A second hole returned 2.9 grams per tonne over 195.1 metres and a third averaged 2.38 grams per tonne over 114.3 metres. Mr. Hall, president and CEO, says the new assays reinforce the potential for Golden Eagle to provide significant value to shareholders. The first phase of drilling confirms a robust mineral system, Mr. Hall applauds, adding that he is looking forward to assays from the second phase of work. "Golden Eagle is a meaningful contributor to the company's overall mineral resource estimate," with its two million ounces measured and indicated at 1.38 grams per tonne "adding positively to our organic growth strategy." |
