| The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Thursday was a weak 82-106-112 as the TSX Venture Exchange fell seven points to 945. Eric Allard's Tantalex Resources Corp. (TTX) rose one-half cent to 10 cents on 3.89 million shares. The company said on Tuesday that it was expanding its drill program on four other waste dumps at its Manono-Kitotolo project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but it took until today to generate much interest. Nick Zeng and Fleming Huang's Golden Share Resources Corp. (GSH) lost one-half cent to 10 cents on 3,000 shares. The company appears poised to readjust its focus back to the Ogoki diamond project in Northern Ontario. It had taken a year off to pursue gold at Band-Ore, west of Thunder Bay. Mr. Zeng, chairman and chief executive officer, and Mr. Huang, president, are still mum about gems, but late last week they revealed that their company had granted an option to earn a 100-per-cent interest in Band-Ore to E2gold Inc. (ETU: $0.23). That news also triggered a shift in the company's end-of-release boilerplate -- often a harbinger of promotions to come -- in which Golden Share proclaims itself "focused on its drill-ready Ogoki diamond project" at the end of the spiffy, image-laden release transmitted by E2gold on behalf of both companies. Ogoki had previously been a company favourite, but early this year, Mr. Zeng said that his focus this year would be at the Band-Ore gold project. He said that because of the pandemic, Golden Share considered it appropriate to postpone drilling at Ogoki until this coming winter. In cheering the new option arrangement with E2gold, Mr. Zeng offered not a peep about Ogoki, but he did take time in July to applaud the project lying in the James Bay Lowlands area, about 200 kilometres southwest of the now shuttered Victor diamond mine. He enthused about the 10 magnetic anomalies that appear to form a distinct cluster traversing a 20-kilometre-long, northwest-trending axis, an arrangement resembling the Attawapiskat kimberlite field that includes the Victor kimberlite. Of course, much later in his spiel, Mr. Zeng tells investors that all this is "not necessarily indicative of potential mineralization" at Ogoki -- a bit of regulator-appeasing verbiage needed to remind the market that he is comparing apples to oranges, or more correctly, diamondiferous Attawapiskat kimberlites and mines to undrilled Ogoki targets. Narrowing that exploration gap will take drilling. While Golden Share purportedly plans the drilling for this winter, investors may also recall that Mr. Zeng's lukewarm promise of drilling comes from a company skilled in the art of delay. Four years ago, when Golden Share acquired the project, Mr. Zeng eagerly cheered the nine targets then identified as "drill ready." A year later, the drill-ready target count had reached 14, but Golden Share was still not ready to drill. It took a year to get drill permits, but even then, the only sounds emanating from the swamps of Ogoki were from swarms of voracious blackflies looking forlornly for drillers to bite. The target count grew by one the following year, but that was just as the novel coronavirus was winging its way out of Wuhan, providing Mr. Zeng and Mr. Huang with a novel excuse to avoid drilling for yet another year. Whether there will be drilling this winter remains to be seen, but at some point, Golden Share will have to put its theory to the test. The concept is basic: Ogoki hosts over a dozen circular magnetic targets that poke through otherwise geophysically quiet sedimentary cover rock, just as they do in the Attawapiskat field. Circular targets in similar settings have yielded kimberlite disappointment more often than not elsewhere, but Ogoki is much closer to Victor than the other duds. Still, to prove or kill the play, Mr. Zeng and his crew will have to raise cash and get a drill turning. |