The markets haven’t been forgiving for the mining sector since 2011 when the commodity supercycle started its downturn. Even the majors are feeling the pain as they cut billions from their capital budgets and trim thousands from their employment rosters. However, amidst this financial storm, Millrock Resources (TSX: V.MRO, Forum) remains on the move. In fact, during 2015 while other junior miners dropped off the map, the Vancouver-based prospect generator put together 12 property acquisitions, ending the year with 31 active exploration projects.
But just having the real estate isn’t enough as Greg Beischer, company CEO, explained, “Millrock is quite good at generating projects, but it’s even more important for a generative company to generate partners that are going to fund the exploration work; that’s often the tougher side of the equation in this market.” Despite the challenges, that’s exactly what Millrock has been doing. For example, last July the company signed an option to joint venture agreement with First Quantum Minerals and as a result, completed a $2.0 million, First-Quantum-funded Alaskan drill program.
Then in December, Millrock announced an option to joint venture agreement involving another Alaskan property known as the Stellar project. This particular area had been identified by Millrock some years ago through a strategic alliance with Altius Minerals (TSX: ALS, Forum). At that point, Altius put up the funds for some of Millrock’s generative exploration work and earned a royalty because of it. The alliance between Millrock and Altuis expired, but Millrock had great faith in its Stellar claims and continued to retain them.
Maintaining claims is one of the greatest challenges for project generators – how long do you keep your cards? This becomes especially thorny when markets are bad as Beischer illustrated, “You know, we’ve held onto these Stellar claims a long time and I’ve heard a saying for exploration geologists when it comes to keeping a property, it’s a balancing act between tenacity and stupidity. There were times last year when we had to write a cheque for roughly $50,000 to just maintain our claims, we had to do a bit of soul searching to determine whether we wanted to do that, but this time it worked out and we’ll recoup that money in short order.”
Beischer was referring to the aforementioned December option agreement which came into being after the company was approached by Vista Minerals (Alaska), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Australian-based privately held Vista Minerals. Under the deal, Vista can earn up to 80% JV interest by funding exploration to the tune of US$4.0 million and cash payments totalling $300,000. Millrock keeps a 1% Net Smelter Royalty on all metals. Pretty painless. This particular deal is unique for Millrock as Vista will act as the operator, letting Millrock maintain an advisory position. So what attracted Vista to Stellar?
Well, Vista already had an interest in the region. It seems there’s a mini copper/gold rush along the Denali highway with another Australian miner, Coventry Resources, reporting positive copper results from drilling completed earlier this year. This good fortune is just down the road from Stellar and as such, Vista regarded Stellar as an opportunity. But there’s more; the property contains the high-grade Zackly copper-gold skarn deposit.
Zackly was first discovered about 40 years ago and is thought to contain approximately two hundred thousand ounces of gold, but due to the logistics, financing and technology available at that time, the previous claim holder never fully developed it, leaving the area relatively underexplored. Because of this, Beischer feels there’s untapped potential at Stellar. He believes there is a much larger system at play when it comes to Zackly with the possibility of an adjacent porphyry-style deposit.
So Vista’s initial efforts will be to expand and verify Zackly, but through a round of more wildcat drilling they hope to establish this potentially larger system and tie the whole property up in a pretty bow, making it extremely attractive to majors like Freeport and Barrick.
Over and above Stellar, Millrock remains pretty active in Alaska. Through a strategic alliance with another Australian miner, Millrock will be funded to generate other high-grade copper-gold projects in the region. A pretty sweet deal as this exploration will come at no cost to Millrock’s investors. As the funding arrives, Beischer intends to use 2016 to focus on an area surrounding the Pogo Mine which is located about 48 kilometres northeast of Delta Junction. The Pogo Gold mine, operated by Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., has estimated reserves and resources of 4.87 million troy ounces of gold.
Now, you’d think with those kind of numbers every prospector on the planet would have staked the area, leaving only scraps, but Beischer explained, “Yes, in better times the whole Goodpaster mining district was completely covered in mining claims held by many different companies, but over the past three to four years land holdings have dwindled to almost nothing. So we’ve made deals to pick up some of the key blocks and we’re staking in between to build large prospective property positions that will really interest majors. This really is a great time for prospect generators to find and build some terrific projects at the cost of staking or less.”
That said, Millrock will continue to develop strategic relationships with funding partners in order to push these projects forward. However this still remains a challenge in current markets, but Beischer is confident that there will be news of more earn-in agreements with partners funding exploration in the very near future. He also added, ‘I think we’re getting some traction in Mexico where we bought an entire exploration company a year and a half ago. We’ve had one partner already briefly spending money on exploration there. I’m very excited about the area and we’re working on bringing in another partner, which I think we got, so you should be reading about it soon.”
Millrock also plans to continue accumulating historic data on its three projects; Todd Creek, Poly and Oweegee Dome located in BC’s fabled Stewart Golden Triangle. It will then take that data and put in in context with a regional database. Needless to say, this will be a big job and will probably take two to three months to complete as Beischer explained, “We need to properly delineate targets and determine what additional surface exploration should be carried out before drilling begins. We don’t want to approach funding partners without a complete, fully-evaluated package.”
I asked Greg why Millrock continued to forge ahead while other juniors threw up the white flag, “That’s the key to success for generative companies and exploration in general. It takes consistent, systematic effort over time. If you’re totally at the whim of the capital markets to carry out your exploration, your efforts will be fitful and unless you get very lucky, you won’t have much success. Our business model allows us to commit to that constant concerted effort.”
So as we look ahead into 2016, Millrock remains positive in what some would consider a doubtful market. Beischer, a veteran of the mining sector, explained, “I think we’re getting close to the end. Historically these downturns are on average, five years, and we’re five years into it at this point. It could go on longer, but I’m starting to see signs. I’m not an economist, I’m just a practical geologist, but I’m starting to see things that indicate that there’s a change in the wind.”
We are certainly at a potential turning point as marginal players aren’t getting funding, going bankrupt and getting wiped off the map. This building capitulation is clearing the field; a necessary weeding that will contribute to the health of the remaining junior market. Also, despite what the US Fed thinks, we’re facing a potential major market correction across the board. The global markets have been heated for years with no real foundation and the fall is due to come. When that rapid normalization happens, commodities like gold will become the investment of choice once again, thus ramping up prices. This will start the financing engine for the junior sector, giving the companies more breathing room to work.
Whether this correction happens in the next year or ever, Millrock will continue to forge ahead, building on its success in a methodical and cost-effective manner. As long as Beischer is able to keep the consistency and quality going, it will only be a matter of time before funding partners come to the table to generate assets majors will flock to. I will be interested to see how Millrock’s world unfolds over the next 12 months and I think investors would be wise to keep them on their radar. This is of course, my opinion. As always, do your due diligence before making any investment decision.
--Gaalen Engen
https://twitter.com/gaalenengen
FULL DISCLOSRE: Millrock Resources is a Stockhouse Publishing client.