Greenland is fast becoming a frontier for exploration among mining businesses. The massive island is the largest on Earthand has long been understood as a home for fishing and hunting, but with a low population of just 56,000 people, it is beginning to attract the attention of foreign investment for a number of new mining projects, especially gold.
There is a lot of potential in Greenland right now. The changing physical landscape is changing, revealing rich minerals all around it, revealing different belts from base metals to gold and other minerals.
Situated in this belt is AEX Gold Inc.(TSX-V: AEX, Forum), the only active gold listed operation in the territory.
Rich minerals across the surface.
The massive island isn’t really well known in the mining market, which is quite advantageous for AEX Gold. These rich minerals are located fairly close to the sea and outcropping near the surface. The Corporation's licenses have gold samples or grades coming up to surface, which they are sampling and assessing. It is like a new crop just waiting to be harvested, yet with little to no vegetation, there isn’t much sitting in the way of their digging, either in a literal sense or from an administrative perspective.
Greenland - a safe jurisdiction.
The local government is looking to boost its economy by supporting resource projects through grants to generate increased tax revenue. It’s a win - win for the government and businesses such as AEX. The miner is being embraced by the government along with exploration and new mining projects that could take full advantage of its renewable and local resources.
Greenland also boasts a favourable legal framework to its complete infrastructure, especially in South Greenland. Its surface is rich in rare-earth minerals, gold, iron-ore, uranium.
AEX’s principal business objectives are the identification, acquisition, exploration and development of gold properties in Greenland. The Corporation's principal asset is a 100% interest in the Nalunaq Project, an advanced exploration stage property with an exploitation licence, including the previously operating Nalunaq gold mine. AEX is incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act and wholly owns Nalunaq A/S, incorporated under the Greenland Public Companies Act. The mine is situated in Southern Greenland’s the Nanortalik Gold belt. The area is rich in resources and access to power (more on this later). This recipe has all the right ingredients for a successful operation. It also has exploration licences at its early-stage Vagar and Tartoq properties.
AEX acquired an existing exploration licence in 2015 and its Nalunaq property is currently at the advanced exploration stage, including a previously operating mine situated within its property. 100% owned by the Corporation, The Nalunaq property has historically hosted a high-grade gold mine which has produced more than 350,000 oz of gold at an average grade of 15g/t between 2004 and 2009 (Crew Gold Corp. historical gold shipment and production numbers).
In an interview with Stockhouse Editorial, CEO Eldur Olafsson explained that the past three years has been dedicated to exploring Nalunaq, as well as developing an updated geological model and further an extension of the main vein strike length up to 1 km. With a number of regional exploration targets, the property hosts the Nalunaq project - a high-grade NI 43-101 compliant gold resource estimate of 263k oz. (inferred) at 18.7 g/t. The focus now is to effectively fast track the resumption of operations at Nalunaq and target first production in 2021.
As stated in a recent update for investors on the summer exploration program at Nalunaq, its leadership reported that key activities will be to determine the quantity of potentially gold bearing mill oversize materials from past operations for a possible bulk sample program, as well as surface and underground geological mapping assisted by drone technology to improve the geological model. The project also completed its mechanical audit of the existing underground process plant, with the objective of planning a potential re-start of the plant in the future and also initiated a baseline survey program on site as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment activities and investigation of the opportunity to implement sustainable energy to support future programs.
There is also exploration planned on other properties, including a newly-granted licensein South Greenland. The objectives of this exploration work will be to identify additional mineralized zones for the purpose of defining a more detailed exploration program on these properties next year.
Three licenses were applied for in September 2019, the Corporation has also found extremely high-grade samples of gold and can see very clear and good structures of something that could be had in Nalunaq. There is gold at surface in high concentration. AEX is further exploring these areas and acquiring different properties while also buying up another valuable resource - data.
As CEO Olafsson told it, the company that used to own these properties gathered its own dataset and when AEX put that data into an artificial intelligence prospecting tool, it learned where to find the best places to stake further licensing and targeted those areas. He, along with the rest of the Coproation's leadership, believes that good exploration assets are the key to growing in this market. Given these assets are in a safe jurisdiction with phenomenal grades and expectational potential, makes this stock special.
Another method that AEX has utilized to increase its value across operations is to maximize efficiency while keeping costs, and its carbon footprint, low. Less materials need to be broken down by acquiring such a high-grade deposit. Everything taken underground from out of the mine will be processed and shipped to a processing facility elsewhere, or processed on site.
Ethical, clean, sourced.
Greenland’s environmental guidelines have been evolving and companies such as AEX have been moving away from generating electricity through using traditional fossil fuels. The Corproation is using oil to put in generators, or to power mobile mining equipment, which is a high cost both monetarily and and environmentally. However, there is potential for the Corporation to utilize hydro and wind power to complement its operations. Though AEX does not use hydro power currently, it could be applied to both its existing exploration activities.
Building the mining community.
The Greenlandic Government is making moves to grow its revenue and bring in further opportunities for its people. AEX Gold is in prime position to not only help this cause, but also to benefit from it. The AEX's leadership comes to the role with deep knowledge of Iceland, which has many similarities to Greenland and has been through a similar period of change.
Up until recently, Greenland was very isolated and its economic and cultural activities reflected that. Now the island is at historically high levels in terms of education and personal wealth, stemming from broadening its horizons to develop opportunities beyond traditional agriculture and fisheries.
Olafsson noted that one of his goals is to see that the majority of its employees will be Greenlandic, though workers may have to be brought in, if the mining sector’s growth materializes as anticipated. Leadership still wants to ensure that, where possible, before looking elsewhere, they will use local people first.
Another long-term vision for AEX is to see their zone in Greenland grow into a mining camp, which could attract larger investors and larger companies to partner.
Looking to the future of this investment opportunity.
Looking at the near-term, the AEX is working to get its Nalunaq mine into production in the next three years and find similar deposits over the whole gold belt. Work began in September and will continue through early October 2019, samples are currently being extracted from mines in the area and licenses are being extended.
AEX Gold is an emerging operator with a lot of news coming in the next few weeks to watch out for as it advances its business to become an emerging gold producer. It is already sitting on a very rare high-grade resource that is nearly impossible to find anywhere else in the world and here is a business exploring the very genesis of the prospect that Greenland has to offer.
aexgold.com
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.