Metalex (Reposting from Coolshivers) Diamond & Specialty Minerals Summary for Sept. 4, 2024
2024-09-04 16:29 ET - Market Summary
by Will Purcell
The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Wednesday was a so-so
71-76-163 as the TSX Venture Exchange fell two points to 552. Chuck Fipke and Chad Ulansky's Metalex Ventures Ltd
. (MTX) has been locked in a
Rip Van Winkle-esque slumber for over a decade, snoring away in the basement of the TSX-V. Metalex, which last saw a dime early in 2021 and last traded for a nickel over a year ago, lost one-half cent to one cent on 2,000 shares Tuesday. It was not always so, as the stock traded at $5.60 in 2002 -- $56 per share when one recalls the 1:10 rollback that occurred in early 2009.
Today's Metalex is far removed from the one 20 years ago that enthused about the next great diamond find in Northern Ontario that surely would follow Mr. Fipke's enthusiastic chattering about geochemical results from properties in the area west of James Bay. De Beers was building its big Victor mine in those years, and Metalex's ground was scattered about the surrounding area.
Metalex did find kimberlite, and it found diamonds in that rock, but it was unable to find support from an Ontario Liberal government that dithered for years about granting required permits for a big bulk sample of the U2 pipe. When the permits did eventually come, Metalex's once enthusiastic backer, Dundee Corp. (DC.A: $1.35), was gone -- and in any case, nothing can happen until Metalex and the local first nations come to some agreement. (Given De Beer's experience, one should not hold their breath.)
And so, Metalex's geographical focus shifted eastward to Quebec, and over the years its exploration focus has drifted from diamonds to scandium and on to lithium -- all on the same property in some cases. In the Great Recession years, the story was diamonds -- purpleones at that -- but as interest waned in gems, and as Metalex was unable to find larger macrodiamonds, the promotion shifted gears like an overloaded tractor-trailer climbing the Coquihalla Highway.
The scandium spiel began in earnest late in 2020 as an offshoot of the company's hunt for gold, another segue away from diamonds that Mr. Fipke and his crew have entertained over the past several years -- and are undoubtedly eyeing still as bullion soars. Unfortunately, the hunt for ilmenite -- which is touted as a source of scandium, and which ironically can be used as a kimberlite indicator mineral -- has not gone as well as planned. In April, the company conceded that drilling on the A5 block had failed to encounter mineralization.
Not to worry; before Mr. Fipke, chairman, and Mr. Ulansky, his president and chief executive officer, let slip that bad news, they had already applauded word that another block, B3, would be the focus of a coming drill program testing anomalies that could be potential sources for "nearby strongly anomalous nickel-copper-cobalt" samples. Drilling of two of those anomalies had been scheduled for summer, but there has been no word since.
And lithium? Well, the last mention came last fall, when Metalex pointed out that its A1 block is "in the vicinity of significant lithium discoveries," the most significant of which is the Corvette pegmatite swarm -- now given the socially correct but brutal-on-the-tongue moniker Shaakichiuwaanaan -- which is being explored by Patriot Battery Metals Inc. (PMET: $3.74).