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Clifton Mining became listed recently on the Alberta Exchange, under
the symbol CFB. It first started trading on Feb 10 at about .85,
trading as high as C$1.79, closing today at C$1.55.
It has 19 million shares, on a fully diluted basis, and is focused
on the Clifton property in Utah, on the Utah-Nevada border. This
company has been private for some time, going through the usual
due diligence, and finally came public.
Their main property is a "mountain", which has been mined in the past,
in the late 1800's and was the site of the first smelter in Utah.
The property is fully permitted, and there are no important
environmental issues.
The Clifton Shear Zones, which form a section of the Clifton Claims,
are a series of vertical shear veins. The shear zones range in
width from 2.5 to 70 feet with some that are as long as 1000 ft.
There is a tunnel which extends into the mountain to a distance of
662 ft, which crosscuts numerous veins, and some mining has already
been done.
There are several impressive aspects to this project:
1) There is abundant high-grade silver ore, with a lead credit. It
has been estimated by Ken Friedman, who has written an excellent
write-up on this company, that the mining cost would be about
$2 per ounce. Shear zones outcrop, and grades average more than
10 oz/ton of silver, .05 oz/ton of gold and 3 % lead. Mr Moeller
president of the company, has suggested that the lead would actually
pay for the mining costs of the silver!
2) Clifton has hired Behre Dolbear, a highly respected independent
firm to provide new estimates of proven and probable reserves. In
their initial detailed analysis, they estimated a resource of 9.2 mill
oz of silver, stating "this study should not be construed to repre-
sent the real potential of the Clifton shear zones. The above
calculations were derived from ...less than 10 % of the strike-length
of the veins have been sampled to date. "
In fact, less than 10 % of 8 veins have been evaluated, of the
38 veins known, and there are many more veins being identified, as
they outcrop. Extrapolating this, (using a factor of 50- 100 %
of 40 veins), one can estimate a resource of 45 million oz.
A previous geologist has talked about a possible resource of 1 billion
oz of silver, and 5 million oz of gold. Behre Dolbear is coming
back to the property, now that the weather will permit work,
and they will monitor additional drilling, and presumed expansion of
the reserve. Clifton's goal is to produce 8-10 million oz silver per
year, in addition to the lead. They already have a 200 ton per day
mill on site which is being readied as we speak, and plan another
500 ton per day mill.
They plan to extend the tunnel another 500 ft, and eventually
drill all the way across ( a total of 3000 ft.).
Ken Friedman has written a very nice summary on the company,
which he recently updated as it became public. He regards
it as a bargain under C$2. (Ken Friedman, Non-Linear Resource).
You can contact the company directly, at 801-756-1414, William
Moeller, president. Ken Friedman is also a director of the
company. I am a shareholder, and have only recently purchased
shares on the open market.
Friedman has stated that "the company's strategy will be to proceed
aggressively with the development of the property, at the same time
that they are producing ore. The aim is to develop 100 million oz
of proven and probable reserves by the end of 1998. Success in this
endeavor would mark Clifton as one of the larger primary silver pro-
perties in the world. It would also be one of the lowest cost
producers, thanks to its 1) relatively high grade ore (average
13 oz /ton of silver 2) ready accesibility of the ore, as most
of the sivler-rich zones outcrop, and 3) significant by-product
credits from gold (.05 opt) and lead (4%+)>."
This seems like an outstanding silver play to me, and as silver and
other precious metals regain their luster, I would expect this
stock to be a winner.
Regards
Dan Paloyan |
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