Space-Age Metals + An Island Mine Breakaway

The Calandra Report / By
Uranium In Wyoming | Alamos Gold’s Island Numbers | Zürich Metals Summit | Alberta Oil | Outer Space LODE

 

We tagged this earlier in the week. Copper Muscles In Congo. I expect  copper prices to get past $4 a pound in coming weeks. This is our largest nat-resources stake: Ivanhoe Mines, Africa.

Just in, as discussed for paying subscribers two weeks ago: a fledgling start for in-situ mining of uranium in Wyoming.

The boilerplate and comments to me are from Nuclear Fuels CEO Michael Collins about today’s (Thursday Nov. 9, 2023) Powder River Basin uranium drilling exploration results.

The explorer (symbols: NF URVNF) is an obscure, sub-$20 million enterprise that is part-owned by serial start-upper and considerable uranium, gold and hard-asset investor Bill Sheriff and his Texas looming uranium producer, enCore Energy EU.

ISLAND GOLD MINE, Ontario
Heady gold-exploration numbers in from Alamos Gold, 
a three-mine producer. AGI's numbers from underground drilling
at northern Ontario's Island Mine pushed AGI shares 4% higher 
today, hours before  the rest of the metals stocks started 
recovering from what has been a challenging week. 
See the findings please. They include 168.03 grams of gold 
per metric ton over 3.14 meters and 43 g/t gold over 2 meters.

That Nuclear Fuels boilerplate: assays from Kaycee Uranium Project in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin show 5 holes with grade thickness from 0.441 to 0.908. The best grade intercept was decent, not spectacular: 3 feet of 0.24% uranium equivalent *. I understand that five holes had a thickness of 0.3 or better — an economic minimum for a wellfield in the Powder River Basin. See report please.

Michael Collins, a The Calandra Report/TCR subscriber, and longtime TCR subscriber Bill Sheriff, are as stated CEO and chairman, respectively. NF has something like a 26-mile tract of concessions along Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. Michael tells me this morning that more assays from the rotary drilling will be released this month and into December.

*From Michael about uranium equivalent and assaying:

“Equivalent U3O8 is value derived from measuring the concentration of daughter products of U235 such as bismuth and using the known ratio of daughter products to uranium to derive a eU308 grade via a passive downhole gamma probe. The use of this ratio relies on the uranium having been in the same place for a significant amount of time.”

A SUMMIT
Headed to rainy Zürich for Precious Metals Summit 
in two days. The affair has about 90 companies explaining
their digs to funds, family offices and individuals. 
I'll be seeing 8 or 9 of them, including Xtra-Gold Resources' 
James Longshore. XTG XTGRF, a Ghana producer-explorer, is 
our second largest resources holding; I am helping Jim 
and an XTG co-founder at the conference -- not as a paid 
consultant, either, but as a Kibi Gold Belt believer.

Among others, one-on-one scheduled with John McConnell, 
whose Victoria Gold VGCX VITFF team at Eagle Gold Mine 
today is named a PDAC award winner, one of five, 
for its work at the producing mine in Yukon. 

I INTEND TO SPEND THE WEEK GATHERING IDEAS ABOUT 
The Calandra Report/TCR COMPANIES AND NOT PUBLISHING. 
Feel free to ping me. 

Here is that Precious Metals Summit list again.

Nuclear Fuels‘ Michael Collins continues, “Still, roll-front deposits are formed by active movement of water through an aquifer. The water, and the roll front, tend to move more quickly early in the formation of a basin and then as faults grow, the roll fronts become more static. 

Space-age Lode: Comstock Inc.  LODE, the Nevada miner now into recyling, de-carb tech and aerospace engineering, had its GenMat founder, Deep Prasad, a space-age engineer, telling folks at the New Orleans Investment Conference  last week about how his company, which has Comstock as an investor, is using generative means to produce unthinkable (think: out of this world) mining methods. Brien Lundin, who runs the show, tells me,  “From the feedback I got, I think Comstock was a hit. One long-time attendee, who’s heard plenty of presentations, said Deep’s presentation was the best he’d ever heard.” See DEEP’s SEC-filed talk here please.

“So if a roll front is moving slowly the uranium and its daughter products are in “equilibrium” and the eU3O8 measurement will be equal to the U3O8 assay.

“If a roll front is moving fast, the apparent eU3O8 will lag behind the actual location of the uranium, which might be deposited 50 or 75 feet in front of the modeled eU3O8 deposit so you may model a project in the wrong location. This is referred to as being in disequilibrium.

We discussed my catch-up investing in Alberta oil-gas cos the other day. I meant to mention a small-co and one I do not own: Petrus Resources PRQ just logged a respectable quarter and a fresh dividend policy that puts it at a 10% yield. It has “tremendous torque,” a Toronto oil aficionado tells me. More here.

“Most Powder River Basin projects are considered to be at or near equilibrium, so eU3O8 gives an accurate picture of the location of mineralization.”

Thanks, Michael.

I tripled my stake in URVNF this past week. Warning: as a uranium explorer, NF is at the extreme end of the risk spectrum.

— Thom Calandra [I own in this report a small amount of LODE; a lot of Ivanhoe and Xtra-Gold and decent stakes in Alamos Gold and Victoria Gold.]

[Coming in early 2024: MUSCLES IN NEW YORK, a cinematic tale about a fictional Congo-born chef who transplants to Brooklyn, NYC.) Oh-la-la?

Illustration: Christine Watridge

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Thom Calandra is a writer and an investor. Research and material are meant as editorial opinion. He is not a professional investment adviser. Please do not consider his reporting as a recommendation to buy or sell securities.