There'll be no trouble getting cash to build?
Gold Summary for May 13, 2020
2020-05-13 17:32 ET - Market Summary
by Stockwatch Business Reporter
New York spot gold rose $15.70 to $1,717.40 on Wednesday. The TSX-V fell 7.30 points to 493.41 while the TSX gold index added 2.78 points to 345.40. Eldorado Gold Corp. (ELD) dipped 20 cents to $12.33 on 2.01 million shares; Endeavour Mining Corp. (EDV) led the advance, adding 98 cents to $28.34 on 850,000 shares. Neither company had news to support their moves.
Jeffrey Pontius's Corvus Gold Inc. (KOR) jumped 35 cents to $2.58 on 958,000 shares on word that it has discovered a large mineralized zone below the known deposit at Mother Lode, on its Bullfrog project in Nevada. The new find, which occurred during drilling of the first deep drill hole into the Central Intrusive zone (CIZ), returned 2.56 grams of gold and 3.18 grams of silver per tonne over 125.5 metres commencing at a depth of 376 metres. The interval included a 14.8-metre zone that averaged 8.88 grams of gold per tonne and a deeper 33.27-metre interval that returned 3.77 grams of gold per tonne.
Those grades compare favourably with what the hole encountered on its way to the CIZ. The drilling encountered a 42.9-metre layer of oxide rock averaging 0.72 gram of gold and 0.65 gram of silver per tonne and a somewhat deeper sulphide zone that returned 1.97 grams of gold and 2.14 grams of silver per tonne over 38.2 metres.
At last report, Mother Lode held 40.1 million tonnes measured and indicated at 0.33 gram of oxide gold per tonne and 14 million more tonnes inferred at 0.29 gram per tonne, about 556,000 ounces, with 13.2 million tonnes of sulphide ore averaging 1.72 grams per tonne and 2.17 million tonnes inferred at 1.6 grams per tonne, or about 845,000 ounces.
Mr. Pontius, president and chief executive officer, says that the assays reveal the potential of the CIZ, adding that the company will be evaluating this "exciting target" with innovative core drilling. (If the drilling needs to be innovative, investors are left to ponder what the mining will be like.) Those worries are a way off, however, as Corvus remains committed to developing a low-capex, quick-to-account, phase 1 starter project at North Bullfrog.
Mr. Pontius made no mention of a starter pit when Corvus rolled out a preliminary economic assessment for North Bullfrog in 2018. Also missing in action was low-cost -- the proposed capex was $424-million (U.S.) -- not to mention quick-to-account, since the dream sheet was presented as the initial PEA study, suggesting that more studying lay ahead. Indeed, Mr. Pontius said a year later -- last fall -- that he and his crew were pondering ways to cut the capital cost and speed up cash flow using a starter pit plan. Unfortunately, with more study to come, there will be no cash flow to aid Mother Lode any time soon.