OsiskoI spent most of last night trying to see what I was missing on Osisko by going through the various 43-101's related to the Niogold and Northern Gold acquisitions. Bear in mind that I was a shareholder of both of them, so I have studied them before. I didn't bother with Windfall, I've already seen enough.
I came to the same conclusion that I did when I originally decided the Oban/5 Weak Orphans merger was contemplated--that most of the properties were "tweeners," not large enough to create the kind of buzz that the original Osisko did in the past, but not so small as to be worthless. There isn't going to be a Malartic or Detour sized pit with comparable higher grades, at least not out of the present properties. I don't see any of the properties being much other than regional mill feed, if they make it to that point (other than the Marban Block, which I believe can justify a smaller mill/processing setup).
None of you so far has referenced the Northern Gold properties, most of which are on patented land and two of which have seen past production (Garrison and Buffonta).
Jonpol (Garrison UG) had a PEA performed with $900 gold, has development down to the 150m level with both a shaft and ramp, has seen a past 50k tonne bulk sample, and supposedly has 100k tonnes of higher grate developed ore ready to be extracted. It does have some Arsenic in it. Garrcon (Garrison open pit) had a PEA performed, and had a bulk sample and some stripping performed. It also had some UG development years ago. While the open pit bulk sample is what sent NGM into insolvency and hence the Oban buyout, the bulk sample was performed recently. There was supposedly a lot of definition drilling in the OP bulk sample area to define waste and ore.
Buffonta has three mineralized zones that have seen either mining or bulk samples, most of the ore is in the 5-6 g/t range. The Kerr pit saw production with a stripping ratio of 2.5 to 1. All three zones are near the surface and have historic resources.
Again, I don't see any of these properties being anything other than toll processed or part of a regional mill scenario.
I have also reviewed the Urban Barry maps to see who has what, and I just can't see what makes this district anything but another regional mill setup. All of the properties are, again, "tweeners."
I suppose that by now most of you have read page 202 of the recent Marban Block 43-101, and it explains most of the problems with the past resource estimates, especially comments 3 and 4. Did Osisko management miss these during their review of Niogold, or did they see them and take them into account in the purchase price?