a good read"Imagine what could happen — the major mining companies being forced to buy these explorers to meet demand if the gold price takes off. These explorers don’t have the processing plant’s in place and they can take a long time to both finance and build. Allowing a nearby producer to dangle a very tempting carrot in front of the shareholders."
https://medium.com/@simonpopple/where-does-gold-come-from-a99ef60563f2
"It’s really all about potential, so those with potentially large deposits could well get snapped up at very attractive prices. Many investors are fooled by large resources. Often a large resource can come from many different deposits, but that’s not really what the majors are looking for, particularly if the deposits are not close together. They want large deposits — ideally open in all directions. Which means there could be a lot more gold there."