‘One in 1,000 of these gold exploration projects turn into a mine.’
Xtra-Gold | Baselode Energy (Uranium) | Ghana
Gold is hovering just above $2,000 an ounce and copper is pricing at a 3-month low of $3.70 a pound.
Plus: Sandstone Freeze -- Uranium [Below]
Uranium (see Baselode below please) trends yet higher — spot price, contract prices and many but not all of the explorer-producer equities.
Jim Longshore speaking from Xtra-Gold‘s Ghana Kibi camp with Aaron Missere
Briefly
The quote above is from James Longshore of Xtra-GoldResources XTG XTGRF in Ghana.
He is speaking with Aaron Missere from his Kibi gold camp at Apapam.
Please view the 12-minute videoif you want to catch a plain-speak take on what it takes to run a west Africa gold camp with entirely and seemingly perpetual (annual gold sales of $2 million-plus U.S. yearly) self-financed exploration, equipment and salaries — this for a team intact since 2008 or so.
Jim, from rural Ontario, spends 3 to 4 months’ time in Ghana each year. He and his VP of exploration, Yves Clement, who spends 4 to 5 months or more there each year, this month and in January were grooming the exploration at Boomerang and Boomerang East in the Kibi Gold Belt.
McArthur River‘s ‘freeze wall for sandstone-type uranium, Athabasca Basin (Cameco). See below please.
The aim is to reach 1.5 million golf ounces in resource from 800,000. The video is instructive.
Jim spends little time and practically no money on hyping Xtra-Gold.
Jim and family own 6 million shares, and co-founder Mark McGinnis and his family have the same. Some 46 million outstanding equates to 13% each or 26% in total.
XTG is our second-longest resource holding after Ivanhoe Mines IVN IVPAF — since 2009 and 2003 respectively. Jim Longshore video here please.
XTG XTGRF is our rare resource holding that has stayed above water — the stock — nearly all of that time, and with no diluting of shareholders’ equity via financings. Xtra-Gold holds more than $10 million of cash and several well-timed resource investments, including oil-gas.
DPX: Extinct biotech IMV‘s DPX antigen vaccine technology is now in the hands of BioVaxys, a $10 million CAD pub-co.
I have no interest in BioVaxys BIOV BVAXF and no intention of pursuing any interest. IMV (formerly Immunovaccine) broke my heart and almost broke my portfolio — at least a $500,000 loss for us here at home across 8 or more years.
Baselode Energy
In the interests of filtering into our TCRs one or two obscure and entirely speculative explorers during what many say is a historic, price-busting nuclear rally this year (and last), I spoke today with a young geo-CEO poking holes in the Athabascsa Basin, northern Saskatchewan.
James Sykes, 43, took part in the Valentine’s Day 2014 discovery of NexGen‘s NXE super-rich Arrow deposit in the Basin. (Hey, 10 years ago today.)
James of Baselode Energy FIND BSENF and I spoke today Wednesday. He was in Saskatoon, where he lives.
As you know, I own 5 uranium companies and am fortunate to be enjoying the price streak. See previous and plentiful The Calandra Report coverage please.
I do not own FIND. I expect the company with a looming financing with flow-thru funding in the works, will soon show $20 million CAD in its treasury.
James and QC Copper & Gold‘s (Orecap Invest OCI) Stephen Stewart debuted Baselode FIND as a Canada pub-co in 2020.
I’ll be tracking Baselode’s two drill programs this year — at Catharsis and at Hook-ACKIO.
James is entirely into the geology and mostly lets Stephen at 12% owner QC Copper QCCU QCCUF perform the capital lifting.
Baselode Energy’s several Athabasca Basin projects
“At Catharsis, where our first drilling will start soon, we think we have the same characteristics as Arrow, low gravity in a mag valley with EM wobble, so there is something there is a structure with hydrothermal operation.”
Some 2,000 meters of drilling is planned for Catharsis – seeking shallow, mostly hard-rock uranium. Fresh drilling at Hook-Ackio, which Baselode has covered in an extensive and promising drill program, will start in summer 2024.
James Sykes
“We don’t like sandstone (uranium) because of water issues here in the Basin, but it is OK to have a little,” he says.
Baselode drilled 30,000 meters in 2021 at ACKIO for 116 holes. Baselode hopes for a compliant resource there by year-end. Grades came in at 0.9% 0.58% and 1.67% across substantial lengths — 31 meters to 50 meters — and close to surface at 29 meters to 60 meters deep.
“A perfect open pit scenario,” he says.
It helps having uranium prices seemingly rising each week to 17-year and longer highs.
“Cheap pounds in open pits are in demand right now.”
As for the sandstone, which long-producing McArthur River and Cigar Lake deal with (CAMECO CCJ), “You need massive grades (20%) and size to make a freezing wall for sandstone, and that is expensive, 24 x 7 and 365 days a year. (See image above please.)
“That’s a lot of water pumping,” he says.
Uranium stocks and the element’s spot and contract prices continue to go vertical today and this week — short-handed utilities, challenges at the two largest uranium miners, National Atomic Co. Kazatomprom KZAP and Cameco CCJ and not enough new mines coming online.
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.
