Hello Condor
Like Bill, I think the timing is ill-conceived. This should have been dealt with in a special meeting last fall well ahead of the season.
Having said that, MGJ does have a dual commodity focus and from a promotional perspective, I understand the need to have a simpler clearer commodity story that can be promoted according to "the flavour of the play" if you'll pardon the "play" on words.
That is the nature of the junior stock game. The trouble is, while diamonds are the flavour this spring, what will be the flavour next spring? If I recall, last spring it was PGM's and the spring before that it was .com's and before that, Greenland diamonds. What will it be next spring, diamonds, O&G, biotech?
As a sector, Canadian diamond juniors are certainly getting the ink this year. When TWG announces exciting lab results in February, the news will insure interest in diamond juniors in general for at least another year or two and of course the story in Ottish will be flogged for all its worth for the next two years.
Same with Misty Lake in the NWT. When BHP comes back this spring, having drilled targets and hit kimberlite up ice of geochemical trains with good numbers, market interest in MGJ specifically, and all NWT diamond juniors in general, will be rekindled. Same at Yamba Lake. If SUF’s 10 target drill program comes back this spring with kimberlite pipes, NWT play speculation will be reinforced, and of course MIY will reap the rewards (if not before).
Over the past few years, the market generally lost interest in NWT diamond plays. The reason being that it was assumed everything had been exhaustively looked at. If pipes were here, the market postulated, they would have been found by now. Scoffers posted that about Yamba Lake, suggesting DeBeers had been there and if there was anything, they would have found it. Then SUF discovered a pipe and a dyke and continue to pursue pipes responsible for numerous geochemical trains unrelated to known sources. Same at Jackson Inlet, others including DeBeers had looked, but not thoroughly enough. In that case hardly at all, assuming that the uneconomic pipes at Sommerset Island were duplicated on the Brodeur Peninsula. Helix didn’t even need geophysical surveys to find pipes at Jackson Inlet as they literally stood out like black/brown bulls eyes against the barren pale limestone. Now TWG, through the initiative of Helix, has the promise of an exciting discovery on its hands.
Aside from the under-funded and unfocused exploration of others responsible for TWG’s good fortune, exploration techniques and technology have made significant advances and have been responsible for numerous successes in recent years.
BHP's Falcon System has repeatedly demonstrated that it finds pipes that do not and did not show up using 1992/98 Mag. and EM survey technology. BHP has found numerous additional pipes on their Ekati claims, Archon has done the same on their surrounding claims and DeBeers did the same on their Kenady Lake claims. Several years ago, Aber/Kenneccott found a huge pipe (A11 I believe) southeast of East Island, long after it was thought everything had been thoroughly explored.
These discoveries, and the ones MGJ/BHP, TWG and possibly SUF/MIY will make this year reinforce the fact in the market's mind that the techniques and efforts used to explore claims in 1992-98 were not fool proof or exhaustive. Some pipes simply do not show up using older mag and EM techniques/technology and some pipes such as those TWG have at JI were simply assumed to be uneconomic and overlooked.
I suspect speculation in NWT diamond plays will be in vogue for at least another year and Nunavut diamond plays such as TWG’s JI play, probably for several years beyond that. Therefore MGJ’s diamond play spin-off should benefit from ease of promotion long after the May target date and certainly into the 2003 promotional season.
Promotion of MGJ’s base metal plays, especially Sarah Lake (South Voiseys Bay) will certainly experience similar promotional clarity and that play has Falconbridge drilling in earnest this spring/summer and most probably for the next few years now that land claim issues have been resolved.
At the end of the day however, finding diamonds and Ni/Cu/Co massive sulphides would be the best promotional mechanism of all for MGJ and that is what offers the most upside potential.
Regards
Vaughn |
