Some folks don't get it?
Gold Summary for Dec. 2, 2020
2020-12-02 18:58 ET - Market Summary
by Stockwatch Business Reporter
New York spot gold gained $14.70 Wednesday, ending the day at $1,829.90. The TSX Venture Exchange followed bullion higher, adding 9.06 points to 766.17 while the TSX gold index rose 0.33 point to 321.85. Most Canadian gold miners inched higher today, but one, Eldorado Gold Corp. (ELD), fell 14 cents to $16.71 on 2.12 million shares on an updated reserve estimate.
Eldorado now lists 17.74 million ounces of gold, up from 17.5 million at the end of 2019, despite having mined 615,000 ounces through the first nine months of 2020, thanks to an increase of 1.4 million ounces from development. The party hats and horns remained stowed away, however, as 557,000 ounces went poof through increased cut-off grades.
Brad Humphrey and Dr. Andreas Rompel's QMX Gold Corp. (QMX), down one cent to 16 cents on 2.12 million shares, has materially increased its resource at the Bonnefond project, just east of Val d'Or. The company lists an open-pittable resource of 7.4 million tonnes indicated at 1.67 grams of gold per tonne and 2.37 million tonnes inferred at 1.97 grams per tonne, nearly 550,000 ounces. Further, QMX now has a deeper inferred resource underground, listing 967,000 tonnes at 4.52 grams per tonne, a further 140,000 ounces of gold.
Mr. Humphrey, president and chief executive officer, cheered the 50-per-cent expansion of the indicated resource and the doubling of the inferred resource in what he calls an "interim update for Bonnefond." He was similarly pleased with what the company has been finding beneath the proposed pit shell, pointing to the "considerable upside potential down to a 1,000-metre depth" for underground mining. Indeed, this area appears to be emerging as a QMX focus, as Mr. Humphrey believes that the company will continue to develop the underground potential "for some time to come."
Dr. Rompel, vice-president of exploration, chimed in from a geological perspective, saying much the same thing but with a healthy sprinkling of jargon interlaced with promotional enthusiasm. (The "huge amount of resources for a potential underground mine" results from a "highly successful drilling campaign within the shear zones crosscutting the tonalite intrusives," he enthused.)
That potential emerged earlier this year from assays that had an "extremely impressed" Dr. Rompel cheering the "fantastic results." (Superlatives drip from Dr. Rompel's tongue like dew from a blade of grass.) In any case, Dr. Rompel concludes his enthusiasm by predicting that QMX will "continue to build on this estimate during the next drill campaigns."
Of course, Dr. Rompel's enthusiasm is tempered by history, something that Bonnefond has in spades. Unfortunately, there is limited success and less excitement in that history, which began when gold first turned up on the property over 100 years ago. Generations of explorers have come and gone since then, the latest of which was QMX, which arrived in 2004 as Alexis Minerals and which took 15 years to roll out a maiden resource estimate.
The pace is brisker now. Drilling continues with three rigs operating and plenty of assays are still to be received -- hence the interim status of the latest estimate. QMX just finished 10,000 metres of drilling in the northern part of the property and is now working on a 5,500-metre effort in the south. Further, Dr. Rompel and his crew are planning for a winter drill program that will target an eastern zone, between the Bonnefond deposit and the old Bevcon mine. This will be a seven-rig, 35,000-metre program, say Dr. Rompel and Mr. Humphrey.
Tamara Brown's Superior Gold Inc. (SGI) gained two cents to 62 cents on 1.01 million shares on the heels of a preliminary economic assessment of a pushback plan at its Plutonic mine in Western Australia. The plan calls for resurrection of the Main pit at Plutonic, which produced 2.1 million ounces of gold between 1990 and 2005. Plutonic still operates as an underground mine, supplying about 2,250 tonnes of ore per day to the mine's processing facility, which is rated at about 5,200 tonnes per day and is capable of handling the additional 3,300 tonnes per day that the company proposes to haul from the expanded pit.
The dream sheet proposes a six-year run for the Main pit operation, which would average 60,000 ounces of gold per year at an all-in sustaining cost of $863 (U.S.) per ounce. The capital cost of the plan -- essentially the pit pushback expense -- is just $57.8-million (U.S.), making the plan economically attractive with a discounted net present value of $84-million (U.S.) after taxes.
Ms. Brown, interim CEO, says that the plan "starts to unlock the significant value sitting within the Plutonic gold operations," adding that it is a technically simple, high-return brownfield gold project that has all the necessary infrastructure already in place. Still, she and her crew will proceed carefully: The next step is a prefeasibility study.
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