Most junior gold mining stocks tend not to move with the ebb and flow of the underlying commodity price. Certainly not the way their more senior brethren, with defined resources and production, tend to. And why would they? A higher or lower commodity price isn’t going to impact your cash flow or the value of your resource if you don’t have any of that in the first place. For a junior mining stock, it’s all about the drilling. If you find something promising with one round of drill results, then hopefully you can raise more money and keep going until you finally start building a resource estimate and perhaps your first PEA (preliminary economic assessment) or PFS (pre-feasibility study). Then, maybe, your stock price will start to correlate to the underlying commodity price, or not. In the meantime, if you want to follow junior mining stocks it’s worth taking note of when a big batch of drill results will start filtering out to the market to generate some buzz.
I’m sure there are dozens of companies out there right now that are in the situation of having drilling news pending but today we are going to look at only one – MAS Gold Corp. (TSXV: MAS). MAS Gold is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on gold exploration projects in the prospective La Ronge Gold Belt of Saskatchewan. MAS Gold operates four properties in the belt, including the Preview-North, Greywacke Lake, Elizabeth Lake and Henry Lake Properties that extend along segments totaling roughly 60 kilometres of the geologically prospective La Ronge, Kisseynew and Glennie Domains that make up the La Ronge Gold Belt. Additionally, the Company recently completed the acquisition of a 100% interest in the Preview SW Gold Project from Comstock Metals Ltd. (TSXV: CSL) in consideration of the issuance of 30,000,000 common shares in MAS Gold. The 843 hectare Preview SW Property is contiguous with MAS Gold’s Preview-North Property.
In January, MAS Gold announced the commencement of an 8,000 meter drill program on its Preview-North Property including drilling at the newly acquired Preview SW Deposit. The winter drilling program summary includes: a 4,500 meter drill program at the North Lake deposit; 2,700 meters at the Preview SW Property; and an 800 meter drill program at the Point Deposit. As of March 8th, the Company had completed 34 diamond drill holes with a total of 3,759 samples sent to SRC Laboratories in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for assay. All drill holes were successful in intersecting the felsite unit which is known to host previously intersected mineralization hosted in broad zones of sheeted quartz veins. Drilling was also successful in extending the felsite by 80 meters to the northeast and by 50 meters to the southwest. On-going drilling continued throughout the month of March as the next phase of the program transitions to the Point Deposit and the Preview SW Deposit.
The North Lake deposit located at the Preview-North Property is estimated to contain an Inferred Mineral Resource of 18,100,000 t grading 0.85 g/t Au, or 494,000 contained ounces of gold. The recently purchased Preview SW deposit hosts a historical Indicated Mineral Resource containing 158,300 ounces of gold (2.61 million tonnes grading 1.89 g/t Au) and a historical Inferred Mineral Resource containing 270,800 ounces of gold (5.70 million tonnes grading 1.48 g/t Au). The Greywacke North deposit has an updated, combined open pit and underground Indicated Mineral Resource of 645,000 t averaging 4.90 g/t Au for 101,000 in-situ ounces of gold (600,000 t at 4.89 g/t Au, and 45,000t at 5.03 g/t Au, respectively), plus a combined open pit and underground Inferred Mineral Resource of 410,000 t averaging 4.12 g/t Au for 55,000 in-situ ounces of gold (35,000 t at 1.97 g/t Au, and 375,000 t at 4.33 g/t Au, respectively). So the Company has already proven there is gold in this area. Now investors are waiting to see if they can develop and expand those numbers to the threshold where larger investors or potential suitors become interested.
As of yesterday’s close, and including the shares issued in the Comstock transaction, MAS Gold has a market cap of roughly C$17 million.
Leave a Reply