Royal Canadian Mint Dumped 4-6 Million Ounces of Gold into River
Bob Moriarty
Archives
Jul 21, 2022
Between 1908 and 1956 estimates of gold losses from the processing of 225 million ounces of gold by the RCM amount to just over 4 million ounces. Processing from 1956 to 1975 might add another 2 million ounces. The mint dumped gold and silver waste into the Ottawa River until 1975 when it was made illegal.
ESGold (formerly Secova Metals up until ten days ago) is in a 50-50 JV with Nepean Bay Joint Venture (NBJV) to recover as much of the metals as they can. NBJV has the rights to the project, ESGold will pay for and supervise testing and recovery.
I had a long chat with company management last week about the project. I covered the company in another article I wrote back in February of 2022 but what the company calls the Ottawa River Project is so interesting, I have to write about it because things are happening right now.
I’ve taken this straight from a PDF of the project the company posted last week.
- “From 1908 until 1975 and through regular process, Mint Canada discarded gold and other metals from its operations directly into the Ottawa River (material discarded was gravity fed into drains leading directly into the river).”
If you go to the PDF you can look at the production numbers and guesstimate of how much gold was discarded. This project is unlike any other resource company I have ever written about. This isn’t gold and silver that has to be mined. It is metal that was mined and milled. In the process of producing coins and metal blanks, a lot of the precious metals literally got dumped into the Ottawa River where hopefully it remains today.
I’m writing about it now because ESGold is in the process of actually defining both what might be there and what can be recovered. Last week the company ran an underwater mapping survey that tested water depth, riverbed topography and other underwater features as well as sediment over the riverbed. The company has identified three target zones with an area of 90 meters by 200 meters.
The information from the underwater survey will be interesting to potential investors but the money press release came on the 18th of July when ESGold said they were initiating an eight day sampling program of the high potential 90 by 200 meters landing spot from the two outlet pipes from the mint.
This is an easy to figure out investment. The RCM probably dumped 4-6 million ounces of gold and an unknown quantity of silver into the Ottawa River from 1908 to 1975. The material is high density so should be sitting on the hardrock riverbed. The sampling program results should not take long to determine and announce.
I’ll be 100% candid and I told the company management this when I chatted with them. There are only two possible alternatives. It either works and ESGold and their 50/50 JV partner make a lot of money in a short period or it is a magnificent failure. I don’t think there is any in-between ground. It works or it doesn’t. I like the idea so I bought shares in the company.
The current market cap is about $20 million. If it works that will go up, potentially a lot. They still have their backup project they plan to get into production by the end of the year so I don’t think there is a lot of downside to the price.
ESGold is an advertiser. I participated in the PP and bought shares in the open market. Please do your own due diligence.
ESGold Corp
ESAU-C $.09 (Jul 20, 2022)
SEKZF-OTCBB 230 million shares
ESGold website
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