EDV, KRR, RRI, RIO
Endeavour Mining aka EDV released their Q4 results and it was a bang-up conclusion to a bang-up year. Gold production for the quarter was 355k oz., up slightly from Q3, and costs were flat, allowing the company to end the year near the top of guidance for production and near the middle of the range for costs.
In spite of spending $100M on dividends and $19M on share buybacks, EDV managed to add $118M to their cash stash, which totaled $951M at year end. This also means that for the first time since they went on the buying spree a few years ago, they now have more cash on hand than debt ($830M).
Clearly EDV has successfully integrated the two major purchases, and they have a strong pipeline of both development and exploration projects. One has to wonder whether, will all that cash on hand, whether they will be tempted to undertake another takeover. (Orezone comes to mind.) The main argument against that is that they have a convertible bond worth $330M which come due next month, and they probably want to settle it in cash rather than shares. OTOH, they do have an undrawn credit line that was recently increased to $575M.
Message 34164796
Karora Resources aka KRR released another set of drilling results from a number of deposit that are part of their Beta Hunt gold mine in Australia.
Much of the drilling tested mineralization at depth. At the Western Flank Deeps, results like 9.5 g/t over 7.1m and 3.8 g/t over 6.0m extended mineralization to over 250n below the resource envelope, and it remains open at depth and along strike. At the A Zone, deep drilling extended minerlaization while infill drilling increased confidence that this will in due course become another mine, with mineralization now defined up to 150m below the current resource envelope.
At the recently defined Mason zone, drilling indicates that deposit is part of the same gold system that produced the existing Larkin resource but south of the Alpha Island fault. Likewise, the nearby Cowcill zone, also south of the fault, continues to grow. Mason and Cowcill will be further explored later this year. In the meantime, an updated Resource Report for Beta Hunt is underway and will be released around mid-year.
Message 34164963
Prospect generator Riverside Resources aka RRI has concentrated on Mexico for most of its existence, but a few years ago they added Ontario to the mix, and the results have been excellent. They staked a number of gold prospects, did some preliminary exploration, and sold most of them on for a profit while retaining several of the best prospects for more exploration, ideally to be paid for by a JV partner.
Now they have staked a new prospect called Duc, located amongst a number of former mines in the Porcupine mining district in northwest Ontario. They have already proved up two areas prospective for large gold structures. Next up will be geophysics and then drilling, again ideally paid for by a JV partner yet to be revealed.
Message 34165007
As Rio2 aka RIO waits for the permit appeal process for its Fenix gold project permits in Chile to go through. we can only watch for signals. IKN this weekend provided reminded us that the rejection of an appeal for the proposed Diminga iron mine in Chile is quite a different situation, given the history of bribery associated with the project and its much more environmentally sensitive location. Rather, the appeal to watch is that for Anglo American Los Bronces expansion. If that one gets turned down too, I will get worried for RIO, which is next in line after that.
Over the weekend Saville, like IKN last week, pointed out that PM ETFs have not increased their inventories over the last two years, making this a setup for rapid price rises as sentiment becomes more positive. He also points out that silver failing to conform gold's recent move up signals a likely coming correction in the latter, but only as a correction in an intermediate term bull. |
