Multi-Million-Ounce Potential Being Realized Now
It’s rare for a grassroots gold project with multi-million-ounce potential to reside in a Tier 1 mining jurisdiction.
Yet that’s exactly what Westhaven Gold (TSXV.WHN; OTC. WTHVF) has in its Shovelnose project in south-central British Columbia.
And with an emerging target that’s a carbon copy of Shovelnose’s initial discovery, Westhaven looks due for a major market re-rating in the near future.
As the global economy emerges from Covid, mining in many places is getting hard.
Countries like Chile and Peru have voted in leftist governments and are actively looking at tax and royalty regimes that could partially nationalize mining in those countries.
Events in South America are part of a global rejiggering of country relationships with miners that’s going to put an increasing premium on projects in safe jurisdictions.
As it happens, Westhaven Gold owns a project that’s not only in a Tier 1 mining jurisdiction (British Columbia), but it also sits just off a major highway and near all infrastructure needed to turn a discovery into a mine.
Westhaven benefits from the BC’s Mining Exploration Tax Credit (METC), which is a permanent incentive to support investment in mining.
The METC is a refundable income tax credit for eligible individuals and corporations conducting grassroots mineral exploration in the province, and it’s worth 30% of qualified mining exploration expenditures.
This year, Westhaven will receive approximately C$2 million back from the METC.
Westhaven Gold’s flagship Shovelnose Project lies along Highway 5; just two-and-a-half hours away from Vancouver, BC.
With those jurisdictional advantages providing a stiff tail wind, a discovery is just what Westhaven has in its sights at Shovelnose, whose South zone has already been churning out great widths of high-grade gold.
Now, drills are tagging into another area of high-grade gold on the same mineralized trend as the South zone.
The opportunity for investors here is to own Westhaven at bargain prices, just as an aggressive drill program seems well on its way to establishing a million-ounce (and possibly a multi-million-ounce) gold deposit at Shovelnose...
...And all in a mining locale with a stable rule of law and well-understood mining regulations.
In other words, a place lacking the increasing political risk of many parts of the world.
Grassroots discovery hiding in plain sight
It’s an amazing fact about Shovelnose that, despite its location in a key British Columbia mining district, it is a greenfields project that had never been drilled before.
That fact makes Westhaven’s discovery of high-grade gold on the project’s South zone all the more remarkable.
The company’s drilling and exploration program at Shovelnose identified the South zone, a key node along a trend of mineralization that currently spans more than four kilometers.
Highlights from the South zone feature some amazing intersections, including 1.7 meters of 175.0 g/t gold and 249.0 g/t silver, 17.7 meters of 24.5 g/t gold and 107.9 g/t silver and 12.7 meters of 39.3 g/t gold and 65.5 g/t silver.
Those are bonanza grades for sure, and they explain why Westhaven is focusing a portion of its 40,000-meter drilling program this year on defining a resource at South.
Ticking all the boxes for a multi-million-ounce resource
Is the company’s excitement about this zone justified?
Well, consider the following slide from an analysis of Canadian gold discoveries put together by Kenorland Minerals.
An analysis of Canadian gold deposits by Kenorland Minerals suggests that “discovery” drill holes on those deposits had median grade thicknesses of 134. Click to enlarge image.
This slide ranks major Canadian gold discoveries according to the grade-thicknesses (i.e., an intersects grade times its width) of its discovery holes. The median grade-thickness for these projects’ discovery holes is 134.
According to the analysis, the majority of Canadian deposits with more than five million ounces of reserves have grade-thicknesses in excess of that median.
Now take a look at this map of the 100+ grade-thickness intervals drilling has produced to date on Shovelnose’s South zone.
The South zone has returned multiple intervals with grade-thicknesses exceeding 100, a potential marker of a multi-million-ounce gold resource. Click to enlarge image.
Granted, South’s correspondence with Kenorland’s analysis of gold discoveries doesn’t guarantee Shovelnose hosts a multi-million-ounce resource...but it’s a good indication that this project checks all the boxes of a major discovery.
Carbon Copy Target yields high grade zone
That’s even more true when you consider the recent high-grade results from the FMN target, located to the South zone’s northwest.
Highlights from recent drilling at FMN include:
• Hole 139 (19.9 meters of 2.6 g/t gold and 139.8 g/t silver, including 10.4 meters of 3.4 g/t gold and 209.0 g/t silver and 5.5 meters of 4.6 g/t gold and 267.4 g/t silver)
• Hole 158 (3.5 meters of 9.5 g/t gold and 151.8 g/t silver)
• Hole 161 (16.0 meters of 9.2 g/t gold and 27.4 g/t silver)
• Hole 167 (4.2 meters of 5.3 g/t gold and 9.3 g/t silver within 22.1 meters of 2.2 g/t gold and 5.9 g/t silver)
The recent FMN discovery at Shovelnose could end up doubling the available gold resource at Shovelnose. Click to enlarge image.
This drilling has already identified a corridor of high-grade gold at FMN that suggests 500 meters of potential strike.
And here’s the thing: The next holes from this program at FMN will include a hole to test the continuity of the mineralization between these prior holes.
Odds of another high-grade hit are high, a fact which adds a short-term drill-hole speculation at FMN to the longer term, project-wide discovery potential at Shovelnose.
Given the assays FMN has generated so far, Westhaven’s chances of doubling up on the high-grade resource it is defining at South are excellent.
Beat the market to the punch
The best part of the Westhaven story is that the broader market hasn’t woken up to this budding discovery at Shovelnose.
Here you have a project generating high-grade gold hits left and right...that’s located in one of the world’s safest mining jurisdictions…and its share price is trading at a fraction of its 2020 bull market highs.
Consider that venerable institutional player Raymond James stepped up with a major investment this year in Westhaven via a C$0.70 financing.
That means at current levels, you can leverage all of Westhaven Gold’s considerable discovery potential at prices well below what smart money investors paid just a few months ago.
With drill results set to flow at regular intervals throughout the balance of the year and a maiden resource estimate — one that could wow the market — due out on the South zone in Q4 2021, Westhaven Gold is offering a near-ideal entry point here.
If you like the idea of investing in what could be a multi-million-ounce gold discovery before the broader market catches on, you’ll want to start your due diligence on this company now.
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