Jim Longshore, right, gives Denis Laviolette of EarthLabs‘ CrashLabs broadcast a Ghana-centric review of the profitable Xtra-Gold Resources
More metals outpacerstoday-Thursday: the copper price now $3.92 a pound. Also: physical platinum;Aztec Minerals AZT in wake of Cervantes, Mexico, intercepts; Collective Mining CNL (Colombia) with a porphyry find; Seabridge Gold SA SEA as it nears a partner for its KSM copper-gold project in British Columbia; Ivanhoe Electric IE (Montana, Arizona, Saudi Arabia); Nevada shovel-ready West Vault Mining WVM WVMDF; and Ivanhoe Mines IVN IVPAF with the copper-price rise (and as disclosed earlier this week, Wednesday, I sold 1,000 long-held shares and we continue tio hold approx. 82,000 shares); others. All of these are outpacing with the greater enthusiasm this week for gold. *
TCRs, some head-ups via the yearly PDAC mining show in Toronto. The 20,000-plus attendees are all looking for the metal companies and themes that will improve their portfolios, their finances and their well-being.
First off, a rare-ish video interview with Jim Longshore of Ghana-explorer-producer and zero-shareholder diluter Xtra-Gold Resources XTG XTGRF. Video link in images please.
I was at site in Ghana’s Kibi more than a decade ago with Denis Laviolette, a geologist and now CEO of EarthLabs SPOT SPOFF; he was a lad then.
I have been to the Apapam camp of Xtra-Gold 4 times since, and Ghana an additional two times, as you all know by now. Xtra-Gold is my second-longest holding, profitable XTG — since 2009. I am this week attempting to purchase more. (Ivanhoe Mines is my longest resources holding: since 2003 as a private-co and 2011 or 2012 as a pub-0co).
Denis’ interview here gives a warm sense of how wonderful Ghana and its people are.
(Also: where the alluvial profits and now-$11 million of treasury cash each quarter come from (for years and years); plus the self-financed exploration at Boomerang and Zones 2 and 3.)
Links to EarthLabs’ video interview of Xtra-Gold’s Jim Longshore
I lunched with Jim directly following this video interview — at a Bay Street restaurant where we always meet. The company’s Zone 3, suited for granitoid open pit mining, is grading 1.3 grams. “We’re not done; we think we can add another 600,000 ounces very soon to get to a 1.5 million resource.”
Please give this a view. Events ahead, as I understand it.
CCCM CUAUF C3 Metals 15% drop on light trading this morning (see C3 report from The Calandra Report this week please). I just saw Dan Symons in Toronto, and his team.
I get this from Dan right now: “I have been tied up most of the day, but it looks like a seller hit a bunch of bids on low volume in early session trading ,which led to more bids coming into the stock at this lower level. There is no fundamental reason for today’s decline in my view.”
Dan Symons, center, Okelia Crouse at far right, Stephen Hughes at far left — all C3 Metals Click to enlarge image please.
Brien Lundin, left, Rick Rule at PDAC investment forum
Adrian Day and Rick Rule at PDAC this week both indicated that the‘pathetic business’of metals companies and their money-losing operators looks set to gain investors in North America. I mention that the two also see royalty companies such as Elemental Resources ELE and EMX Royalty EMX as severely underpriced. Oil-gas companies, too — Exxon; Birch Energy; various Alberta oil and oil-gas producers.
As for uranium? Rick says he sees the nuclear fuel continuing its run, with fits and starts as spot (near $100) and 3-year to 5-year contract prices with utilities entertain fresh highs. He tagged a couple, including our CanAlaska Uranium CVV CVVUF.
DHT Maritime: Shipper DHT (not a metals company) is seeing spot rates of as much as $90,000 amidst the Red Sea Houthi rebels’ attacks in Middle Eastern shipping lanes. I have been adding.
Notably obscure (i.e., absurdly underpriced) and reviewed/visited at the PDAC show in Toronto this week also include: QC Copper& Gold QCU QCUUF — see image and caption here please; Western Alaska Minerals WAMM; Skyharbour Resources SYH; Banyan Gold BYN BYAGF; Ridgeline Minerals RDG RDGMF.
Stephen Stewart of QC Copper & Gold QCU QCUUF and Orecap Invest Corp. OCI
American Eagle Gold AE AMEGF: verbatim from CEO Anthony Moreau, who calls the company’s NAK project in central B.C., outside the town of Smithers “potentially the greatest copper discovery in Canada in the past two decades.”
I saw Anthony in Toronto and told him, as he is a subscriber, of my interest in copper as precious to global growth and under-appreciated. I do not own AE shares.
Anthony says about (300-plus meters of 1.09% copper) NAK,
“No PEA (prelim-econ-assessment) timeline. We are going to do what Great Bear did. Drill, hit amazing results and sell. No PEA and probably no resource before it is sold. A resource and PEA are what people do when they run out of places to drill and things to do. They create glass ceilings and the companies all do their own internal resource, which is the only thing that matters.”
Next drill holes in May for American Eagle; cash in bank $5.5 million. “By June, after warrants and a Teck top up, we should have $10 million or more and fully funded for the 2024 drill season,” Anthony Moreau says.
Anthony Moreau, American Eagle Gold Click to enlarge please.
OCI, by the way, the Orecap Invest Corp. portfolio that Stephen Stewart (see image please) and his partners run (it is a pub-co), holds multiple gold, copper and uranium projects and sizeable share stakes in developers American Eagle Gold; Mistango MIS at Kirkland Lake, Ontario; Baselode Energy FIND in Saskatchewan, to name several.
* In this report, I do not own American Eagle; nor QC Copper; nor Orecap OCI; nor Aztec Minerals; nor Collective Mining; nor do I own Baselode; nor EarthLabs; nor the oil-cos mentioned.
— Thom Calandra [I sold shares of Quebec’s Azimut Exploration AZM AZMTF this week at a 45% loss after more than 4 years; I still hold a reduced stake.]
Updated March 7, 2024 at 6:10 p.m. ET: After this report was published, my order for 10,000 XTG shares went through.
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.
Why is gold moving? Everyone says early rate cuts. They were saying early rate cuts when gold was dropping like a stone. Market analysts are going to have to learn how to credit something other than the Fed for every market move. but that might mean a little more work and independent thinking. FWIW, I think some big players other than central banks are beginning to think rationally about fiscal dominance…Treasury more important than Fed; spending, debt, deficits more important than the number of rate cuts in 2024.
Why is gold moving? Everyone says early rate cuts. They were saying early rate cuts when gold was dropping like a stone. Market analysts are going to have to learn how to credit something other than the Fed for every market move. but that might mean a little more work and independent thinking. FWIW, I think some big players other than central banks are beginning to think rationally about fiscal dominance…Treasury more important than Fed; spending, debt, deficits more important than the number of rate cuts in 2024.