The Fraser River Gold Rush brought thousands of prospectors to British Columbia back in 1858.
Fast forward to today and Westhaven Gold (TSX-V WHN, OTC: WTHVF, Forum)has defined a million ounces of gold-equivalent resource along the Spences Bridge Gold Belt, which could well be the source of all the Fraser River’s alluvial gold.
And now explosive new drill results show this could be only the beginning ….
Dear Fellow Investor,
In gold mining, finding the hard-rock source of a major alluvial gold rush is a bit of a Holy Grail.
The gold nuggets that prospectors panned for in rivers in the 19th and 20th centuries must have come from somewhere…but that “somewhere” has often remained frustratingly elusive.
One of the most notable examples: The Fraser River Gold Rush.
This legendary stampede brought thousands of prospectors to British Columbia in 1858 and had them panning for gold in the province through the middle of the next decade.
Now, Westhaven Gold has made a discovery along the Spences Bridge Gold Belt that its technical team believes may be the source of the Fraser River gold.
That’s not pie-in-the-sky prognosticating, as Westhaven has already outlined a million ounces of gold equivalent on its flagship Shovelnose project…
…And just-released high-grade drill results are indicating that there could be much, much more gold to be found.
Not only is that project still wide open for more discoveries, but Westhaven has another three properties along the Spences Bridges Gold Belt to test in the months ahead.
The best part is Westhaven is currently trading around C$0.40 a share, which gives it a valuation that’s a fraction of the project’s current in situ value.
With the market largely missing the value Westhaven has already proven up at Shovelnose (and completely ignoring the exploration upside implied by recent drilling), you have a chance to be an early mover on one of gold exploration’s more compelling stories.
Canada’s Newest Gold Belt
In the Spences Bridge Gold Belt, Team Westhaven sees the potential for the belt to host the hard-rock source of the Fraser River Gold Rush.
If that proves to be true, the company could be on the way to outlining a multi-million-ounce, district-scale gold resource.
All that alluvial gold had to come from somewhere and, given the success it has had with the drill bit at Shovelnose, Westhaven is confident it’s on the right path.
If true, it’s quite a find, considering that Shovelnose sits in a Tier 1 mining jurisdiction, is just five kilometers from a major highway and boasts a powerline on the property.
What’s more, the town of Merritt lies just 30 kilometers away, providing a ready source of labor for any mine built at Shovelnose.
A Million-Ounce Head Start
Thanks to a recent maiden resource estimate for the property’s South zone, Shovelnose has been shown to have 841,000 ounces of indicated gold equivalent and 277,000 ounces of inferred gold equivalent.
The preliminary metallurgical work on the ore from this resource shows recoveries of 95% for gold and 96% for silver. Better still, the ore is non-refractory, which means it won’t be expensive to extract the metals from the ore.
Note that 75% of the resource at the South zone pit is already in the higher-confidence indicated category. And the estimate is based on lower-cost, open-pit extraction.
And consider this: The average gold-equivalent grade of the indicated resource is seven times higher than the cut-off grade for the resource, making it a very rich open-pittable deposit.
Big Time Exploration Upside
Westhaven is by no means done testing the exploration upside at Shovelnose, as new assays have returned spectacular gold grades over significant widths.
Consider these recent results:
- 3.13 meters of 45.2 g/t gold and 195.6 g/t silver at the Alpine zone, which lies on the northwest end of the pit outline for the South zone
- 16.0 meters of 9.2 g/t gold and 27.4 g/t silver, 3.5 meters of 9.5 g/t gold and 151.8 g/t silver and 19.9 meters of 2.6 g/t gold and 139.8 g/t silver on the FMN zone
The FMN zone is a new discovery that could host another “South Zone” some two kilometers northwest of the pit outline from the million-ounce resource estimate.
Given the success Westhaven is enjoying with the drill bit, more hits like that are likely in the offing for this company.
Better yet, it looks like they’ll come as gold is on a bull march, and a rising gold price alone could result in a significant re-rating for the company.
Drills Are Turning
Bottom line: Even with the million-ounce resource Westhaven has defined at Shovelnose, current drilling there suggests there’s a lot more gold left to find.
You can arrive at a rough-cut estimate of the value of Westhaven’s current resource by taking a tenth of its in-situ value of US$1.9 billion. Doing so gives you a conservative valuation of Westhaven of US$190 million.
Now consider that Westhaven is currently trading at levels that give it just a C$55 million market cap.
That’s a lot of room to run on a company that continues to prove up value with the drill bit — and on a project that has all the infrastructure needed to become a mine.
With more drill results on the way in the days just ahead from Shovelnose, investors may soon be kicking themselves if they don’t investigate Westhaven Gold right now.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Westhaven Gold is a client of Stockhouse Publishing.