Industry Setting
Wood MacKenzie in a September, 2019 article, points out that most gold ounces are being obtained via mergers and acquistions: “We expect to see this trend of increased M&A activity to continue, particularly amongst the more mid-tier gold producers as they look to solidify their own positions in the industry” - “We have, as of late, noticed an uptick in some majors opting to increase their footholds in a select few juniors with promising exploration opportunities” - “Due to insufficient exploration spend, gold reserves have depleted significantly with the global average mine life falling from 16 years in 2012, down to an estimated 11 years in 2018.” Their chart of average mine life is below.
https://www.mining.com/web/gold-exploration-vital-for-future-supply/
The reserves of gold miners are dwindling strongly. Per an article at dw.com, John Ing at Maison Placements: “The gold miners realize that the prices of companies are at such attractive levels that it's cheaper to buy gold in the stock market than it is to go and explore for it.” Ryan Handley at Laurentian Bank: "Given the lengthy amount of time required to explore, discover, delineate, permit, finance, and build a new mine, merger and acquisition is a much faster way to replace reserves." The average mine grade has fallen from over 10 gram per ton in the early 1970s to around 1.4 grams per ton today, according to Metals Focus, a precious metals consultancy. A link and the chart for the article are below:
https://www.dw.com/en/is-the-world-running-out-of-gold/a-47974833
Strategic Process and Prospects
At the AGM, all parties seemed to arrive somewhat on guard, then gaining a more relaxed pose as it became clear that most everyone is on the same side - wishing true success for Core Gold in its strategic process. Shareholders are happy to have the strategic process they’ve wanted all along, with the hope that there is a level playing field.
Ecuador, only recently opened up for mining is one of the most desirable places on the planet now. Fruta del Norte is staring up, and the junior miner stocks are showing some life. There has been speculation that properly explored, Dynasty with its 6 km strike length could host 10 or even 20 million ounces - additional ounces show up in every 5 meter bench mined.
Core’s assets are located in South America’s geologically riveting “hinge”, particularly dense with ancient magmatic intrusions and gold-carrying thermal systems. Core’s projects are in southern ecuador, with the least political difficulties and the environment friendliest to mining.
The company is in a collaborative mode, cooperating to accomplish a truly worthy strategic push to find the right companies and the right kind of finance - to actually take Core to the next level in a big way. It was refreshing that Core’s latest press release included a link to how to get your shares back, for those few that may have pledged to Titan.
Serious investment will be attracted by a company that is already mining and doing so successfully, uncovering new veins every day, and which offers such great drilling opportunities at Dynasty, Copper Duke and Linderos. Overall, the mood at the AGM indicated that the elevator is going up.