In Transit From Zürich: Images, First Takes Below
A Uranium Run To $80 | Zürich Material | Azimut Comes In Light | Contango Ore
Alamos Gold, Victoria Gold, Contango Ore and other emerging or nouveau gold producers are leading the bullion equities Tuesday.
Gold is looking like a breakout of autumn slumber: https://www.
Copper steady: Ivanhoe Mines in this corner. Platinum in a one-week rebound.
Early-stagers with cash are STOCK-pitching in, too — including Collective Mining. Ari Sussman and David Reading and team are proving out a copper-gold, silver-tungsten designed for an open pit — next to once-maligned, now divine El Marmato in Colombia. More to come. Collective and its neighbor, Aris Mining, were at the Precious Metals Summit in Zürich.
An aside: the webcasting archive from Precious Metals Summit continues to be a gold mine. A trove.
Victoria Gold‘s share price got a boost from Florian Grumme’s technical wrap at the show. Worth a watch. See please:https://www.gowebcasting.com/events/precious-metals-summit-conferences-llc/2023/11/14/keynote-florian-grummes-technical-update-on-gold/play/stream/37270
A little anecdotal perspective about this usually lame-gold time of year: New Orleans Investment Conference‘s Brien Lundin.
“New Orleans is three weeks out now, and I thought the investor numbers were going to be down significantly from last year. By the time all the counting was done, we were actually up a few. They all came in at the last minute, and they were enthusiastic and buying. The last time I saw our crowd this energized in a bear market was 2015, and that was the long-term bottom. The next six months, the junior miners multiplied in price.” See excerpt from Brien here please. (Click on the image to read clearly.)
Thanks, Brien.
I will be transmitting the next few days of this week in bites; so much to report from Europe and a bit to report from a few that were not in Europe. Updates and a few wild ideas –– ones that will include thoughts from bankers, some family offices, some strategists, project finance pros, asset managers and the companies who appeared.
[Those will include among others Collective Mining; Xtra-Gold Resources; Victoria Gold; Uranium Energy UEC; Contango Ore; McEwen Mining; and one way off the radar in the Balkans: Terra Balcanica.]
Here at home, just now Azimut Exploration is finally in with its initial resource estimate for Patwon targets at Elmer Gold Project. That is James Bay, Québec: I am thus far underwhelmed after what I tracked as endless delays, some from wildfires, for the estimate.
Boilerplate: indicated resources: 311,200 ounces in 4.99 million metric tons grading 1.93 g/t Au; inferred resources: 513,900 ounces in 8.22 million metric tons grading 1.94 g/t Au. See release please at https://www.azimut-exploration.com/.
My co-investing and-or researching colleagues believe Azimut could have tempered its flag-waving after those first discovery holes. which sent AZM shares far higher than they are now. I still own them: AZM AZMTF.
Azimut’s Jean-Marc Lulin, a scientist, geologist, predictive modeler, some three-plus years back, bordered on intense belief of a 2 million-ounce resource at Patwon and surrounding Elmer. That was after the heady, potent first gold shoot uncovered from the scrub way up there, and which I toured.
One example, straight from Azimut: “Management considers these results to be among the most significant gold exploration results in the James Bay region since the 2004 discovery of the Éléonore deposit by Virginia Gold Mines. —January 14, 2020
Jean-Marc Lulin back to me just now: “It’s an INITIAL resource estimate. We already know solid targets to be further drilled.”
Eric Lemieux is prolific — Linkedin. He tracks Québec companies from just outside Montreál; they include Azimut, Stelmine Canada, Amex Exploration at Perron, Midland Exploration, Cartier Resources. Others. Thank you, Eric.\
Some faces, names and takeaways to come this week from Europe and back at home. [See my Linkedin please.]
Contango Ore
Led this week by big rebounder Contango Ore CTGO on NYSE — starting to turn heads with its gold mine partnership in Alaska — Kinross Gold at Manh Choh.
I sat down for a SIXTH time in four years (not counting an Alaska visit) with Rick van Nieuwenhuyse of Contango. Rick is frank about why the stock is moving: “Short covering,” he says.
We had discussed the usual structural short selling by investors, occurring when a project financing involves debt securities and-or a secured or unsecured credit facility. That is simplified, but I did meet a participant in the financing who acknowledged the shorting comes with the territory.
More importantly, why are short-sellers buying back their borrowed and sold stakes? I have some thoughts on that, as does Rick.
One, of course, the gold price is rebounding; two is that trucking concerns about gold getting to Fort Knox from Manh Choh are mostly way out of proportion. These are a group of cottages along some of the 4.5-hour drive; and three is that Contango easily could notch $55 MILLION of yearly free cash flow for its portion of Manh Choh.
Rick is trying to accelerate the time-line to April 2024 or sooner. “Kinross and Fort Knox are ready for us.”
* Uranium: Regarding the relentless uranium climb in spot and contract prices, I note that I own three small explorers: Nuclear Fuels NF (and Wednesday to go OTCQX as symbol NFUNF); Canalaska Uranium CVV CVVUF; and Laramide Resources LAM LMRXF, which has been an October-November nuclear star.
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.