Paradigm Capital morning comment on SUP Northern Superior (SUP)
• Northern Superior (SUP) released some further drill results on its Lac Surprise project in Quebec
• Recall that SUP announced a new discovery there on Nov 5/20, a result of 35.5m @ 1.02 g/t gold and 3.92 g/t silver. That was just the first hole, and other assays were pending.
• Today’s announcement is another hole, LCS19-005(ext), that was drilled 200m west along strike of that first discovery hole and this hole intersected 44.9m @ 1.44 g/t gold and 1.08 g/t silver or 1.55 g/t Au-eq.
• So that is ~30% wider and ~50% higher grade than the first discovery hole
• I will caution that this broad intercept was heavily influenced by a very high-grade hit of 1m @ 47.44 g/t Au-eq, so they are a bit guilty of grade smearing in reporting the broad intercept. However, there is still a nice 15.0m @ 3.82 g/t Au-eq around-and-including that high grade hit
• They reported results for four other holes. One had what we would characterize as potentially-economic mineralization (6m @ 0.87 g/t Au-eq) and the other three were anomalous gold, so still in the system just not particularly exciting to anyone other than geologists
• Recall that the Lac Surprise project is adjacent to the Nelligan project, a JV between IAMGOLD and Vanguard that hosts an inferred resource of 3.2 Moz @ 1.02 g/t. Both these drill results are ~2km west of Nelligan
• Don MacLean highlighted Nelligan as one of the hidden gems in IAMGOLD’s exploration portfolio. 2 Moz is nice, but if this extends onto Lac Surprise, now maybe you’re talking potential to get the combined project to over 5oz and kick it up in the rankings. Obviously still very conceptual at this point, 2 drill holes do not add 2Moz, but this is just the beginning of the Lac Surprise story.
• We include SUP in our Dirt Dozen favourite explorers primarily for the TPK project in Ontario that we think has the potential to be a multi-Moz mining camp. The work on that project has been delayed due to COVID, but they look set to begin the largest work project that property has seen in a decade.
• We will be looking to do a desk presentation with SUP early in the new year.
• Their Croteau project hosts a 640 Koz resource and provides a base value.
• To use an analogy, TPK is like the band I would be buying the concert ticket to. Lac Surprise was the opening act, and I was blown away by how good they were, such to the point that I already got my money’s worth out of the ticket even without the main act coming on yet.