A Combination of Finnish Gold and Portuguese Zinc
By Stephen Clayson
22 Jun 2006 at 11:27 AM EDT
resourceinvestor.com
LONDON (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Northern Lion Gold Corporation [TSXv:NL] has a sound looking redevelopment project in Finland to its name, plus blue-sky exploration potential in Portugal and a portfolio of prospecting licences in Sweden.
The Haveri gold project in Finland is Northern Lion’s bread and butter, with a 6.6 million tonne resource grading 3.5 g/t gold and 0.50% copper. This adds up to an overall inferred gold resource of 742,682 ounces – not too far off the ‘magic million’ that usually starts to put gold projects on the market’s radar screen. There are areas of very high grade material, and drill intersections have been recorded of up to 27.2g/t over 9.2 metres. Just as importantly though, lower grade intersections have been recorded over wider widths, such as 41.8 metres at 2.36g/t.
Northern Lion is still establishing a geological model to fully describe the spread of mineralisation at Haveri, and more drilling is intended to take place this winter in aid of this. Even so, results from the project so far indicate that there is a fair chance that sufficient accessible resources might one day be outlined to justify a mine. Finland is a politically stable, mining friendly nation, and logistics are good, making Haveri a nice core asset for the company.
In Portugal, Northern Lion is exploring 240 square kilometres of largely untested ground in the Iberian pyrite belt, which is one of the world’s major massive sulphide districts. First off, the company is spending C$400,000 on an aeromagnetic survey over the entire area, and this will hopefully yield some targets worthy of follow-up on the ground. The process of surveying and processing the results will likely take until September, and then the company will find out if its effort has been worthwhile.
Zinc, copper and lead are the main metals of interest, and a big find would be an enormous boost for the company. Portugal is a low cost operating environment by European standards, and the Iberian pyrite belt’s long history of providing employment through mining should ease the permitting process should an economic deposit be found.
In Sweden too, Northern Lion’s focus is on copper-zinc-lead deposits, and over the summer, groundwork will be ongoing to try and generate drill-worthy targets. Sweden unarguably has a mining pedigree and Northern Lion has a large land position, but the company is likely to focus more on its exploration project in Portugal given its untried nature and hence the chance for a big find, although Sweden is not to be neglected.
Investment Outlook
Overall, Northern Lion offers investors a good split between pure exploration upside in Portugal, and a somewhat less risky redevelopment proposition in the form of the Haveri gold project. The Swedish interests provide a sweetener, although the projects in Finland and Portugal are clearly the attention grabbers.
The company has C$2.4 million cash in the bank, so should not need to raise funds until the current soft patch in the market passes. This is helpful, as Northern Lion shares have suffered like so many others in the recent general sell-off of mining and metals stocks. Looking forward, news flow, especially after the end of summer, looks likely to be strong, giving plenty of potential fuel to power a share price recovery when the market is ready. |
