Gold Explorer Advancing Two Canadian Properties, Benefiting from New Brunswick Protection Status of Mining Claims
X-Terra Resources has the funding to simultaneously explore two of its properties.
X-Terra Resources Inc.'s (XTT:TSX; XTR:FSE) gold exploration properties are in Canada, the Grog and Northwest project in New Brunswick and Troilus East in Quebec.
The company recently completed an inaugural, 1,904-meter drill program at the Grog and Northwest properties, where it has an option to earn a 70% interest.
New Brunswick is an especially good place to be exploring right now, as the provincial government has placed all mineral claims under protection status, "to ensure continuity of mineral claims during this time" of extreme uncertainty. This means that work requirements for the 2020 exploration season are waived for active claims and all active claims are extended for one year. X-Terra is one of only a handful of companies exploring specifically for gold in New Brunswick.
"This is a bold step and demonstrates the outstanding leadership and support the government has taken to ensure stability for individuals and companies like X-Terra, that have been working and will continue exploring in the province, once the Covid-19 pandemic situation begins to improve," Michael Ferreira, president and CEO of X-Terra, stated.
In addition, "New Brunswick, with its vast network of forestry roads, provides so much access that it allows the company to put almost all of the money into the ground. The chances of success are higher because there are more funds being spent on actual exploration versus camp costs, logistics costs, helicopter costs, etc. That's one on the reasons we're really fond of New Brunswick, the infrastructure there, and, of course, its gold potential," Ferreira told Streetwise Reports.
Having drilled 16 holes in five targets at Grog and Northwest, the company is awaiting assay results for 11 of the holes, all of which come from the Grog property. X-Terra noted that the program has already exceeded its expectations, "as all geological targets have revealed very encouraging visual indicators of significant alteration and mineralization in different contexts related with the MacKenzie Gulch Fault."
The first drill results published were from the Northwest property, which is actually located south of Grog. "In an area of the property 2 km west of Rim and 3 km north of Dome and Bonanza, trenching revealed grades up to 4.5 g/t gold. We noticed in the trenches there were more parallel veins, confirming a stockwork existed, and there was more alteration than we had observed elsewhere. So the decision was made to drill under our trenches," Ferreira said.
Assay results for the first two holes at the Northwest property were released on February 18. "The numerous anomalous results in gold, including 6.93 g/t Au over 0.5 meter in NWST-20-003 and 1.2 g/t Au over 1 meter in NWST-20-002 prove that the system is gold bearing," the company stated.
"Hitting gold values in these first holes is big step and really encouraging considering that the initial gold discovery was generated by fortuitous roadside prospecting and pre-existing till samples completed by X-Terra. The extension of the till survey in that direction warrants additional sampling, which will ultimately reduce the initial 500 meters spacing between samples, and will without a doubt, define more accurate exploration targets that will eventually be followed up with additional drilling," Ferreira noted.
As for the Grog property, Ferreira said that "when our senior geologist went out to the property for the first round of due diligence and verification, he observed some important key alteration components, which are very closely associated with epithermal and porphyry deposits. All the work that we've been doing and the discoveries that we've made on Grog have enabled us to design an intelligent drill program to carry out tests over four different targets spanning 3.7 km within a gold-bearing corridor. More importantly, the 11 drill holes pending all originate within a 1.6 km gold bearing corridor that is extremely favorable, from Grog to Bellevue South. Our primary objective is to see if we can connect that entire system all together."
The company also plans to be active at its Troilus East property in north-central Quebec very shortly. The project is adjacent to Troilus Gold Corp.'s (TLG:TSX; CHXMF:OTC) property, which currently has a mineral resource of 4.71 million ounces of gold equivalent Indicated and 1.76 million ounces gold equivalent Inferred. Troilus recently completed at 6,000-meter drill program and raised just over $12 million. X-Terra's Troilus East is located less than 2 km from the former open-pit mine that saw historical production of 2 million ounces of gold and 70,000 tons of copper.
Troilus East, which is 100% owned by X-Terra and is royalty-free, is made up of 182 mining claims covering around 93 sq km.
The area overall has recently been a beehive of activity. "We have seen Troilus Gold and others staking claims in and around the entire Frotet Evans Greenstone Belt and to the south. The area is getting a lot of attention and a lot of money is being spent to acquire land in this area," Ferreira said.
"This summer we have the budget of $400,000 up to $600,000 to go and put some boots on the ground at Troilus East, to complement the work that's already been done in New Brunswick," Ferreira noted.
X-Terra is actively exploring both its Quebec and New Brunswick projects. "As we wait for the remaining New Brunswick drill results to come in, we are completing some additional compilation to better understand the projects to come up with new targets and new exploration approaches in order to increase our chances at a discovery," Ferreira explained.
"Our exploration strategy has remained unchanged and we were lucky to complete our drill program before the Covid-19 outbreak," Ferreira noted.
X-Terra has 61.7 million shares outstanding, 85,783,102 million fully diluted. Current strategic investors include Caisse de Depot, Sidex, SDBJ, FTQ and Desjardins Securities.
The company recently closed a non-brokered private placement of 3 million units at CA$0.08 per unit, for gross proceeds of $240,000. Each unit consists of one common share and a warrant to purchase one additional common share at CA$0.13 until March 25, 2023. The company noted that the funds will be used for exploration at the New Brunswick and Quebec properties and for working capital purposes.
X-Terra has garnered the attention of industry observers. Michael Kryton of Equity IR wrote on October 15, 2019, "X-Terra Resources Inc. is proving to be one of the sector's most persistent gold diggers. The Quebec-based junior gold exploration company just announced results from its stripping and trenching activities at the Grog and Northwest properties in the Restigouche County in New Brunswick. The new discovery, referred to as the 'Bellevue showing,' revealed a gold value of 2.24 g/t Au."
"For a company that has been in the sector for just five years, X-Terra Resources has been consistently producing results and growth. For investors, these are the hallmarks of a good thing. Good as gold," Kryton concluded.
Technical analyst Clive Maund charted X-Terra and on February 24 wrote, "The price and its moving averages are tightly bunched together, a circumstance that frequently precedes the start of a major bull market, and an advance from here will quickly lead to moving averages swinging into bullish alignment." He rated the stock "an immediate strong speculative buy."