NTH, OGC, EDV
And the flood of NRs continues....
First up, Nord Precious Metals aka NTH released a speculative and IMO unnecessary PR regarding the Miller Creek tailings on their Castle Mine property in Ontario. First they make the argument that the silver content in those tailings might be higher than thought due to the presence of native silver and then concluded by telling is we will find out next week. I wish they hadn't wasted money releasing this PR and instead folded it into the one they have promised next week.
Message 34820241
As OceanaGold aka OGC's Halle gold mine gradually transitions to underground production, they continue to define more high grade ore. For example, the Ledbetter Phase 4 deposit was originally slated as part of the open pit, but with 82.0 m @ 35.07 g/t Au, 4.6 m @ 398.12 g/t Au, and 71.0 m @ 16.80 g/t Au, OGC is now studying whether it would be more profitable to extract it from underground. The assays above were from resource confirmation drilling, and now exploration drilling at a nearby target has begun.
Meanwhile, resource conversion at the Horseshoe deposit continues to yield intercepts like 40.5 m @ 13.30 g/t Au, while drilling continues to expand the HEX deposit with results like f 24.2 m @ 2.47 g/t Au below currently defined mineralization.
These drill programmes will continue the rest of the year. Meanwhile, I continue to be surprised that OGC hasn't been swept into the current flood of M&A among gold miners. They are great candidates for a merger, a takeover by others, or taking others over themselves.
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West African gold miner Endeavour Mining aka EDV spent a few years in buying mode, then consolidated their new purchases for a while, and most recently have spent the last couple of years building new mines. Now those construction projects, if not already complete, are very close, so we will see the results of the production increases start flowing to the bottom line.
Today EDV announced they have declared commercial production at the Massawa BIOX Expansion in Senegal and at the Lafigué mine in Côte d’Ivoire. Proving once again they are a competent operator, both projects came in on time and on budget. In both cases it will take some months to reach full production, but FCF for the company is already increasing. Given their shareholder returns policy, i expect both the amount of share buybacks and possibly their dividend to increase
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FWIW, BMO released a new analyst report on EDV. Given that EDV is not planning on starting any new construction, other than optimizing current producing assets, until 2026, they emphasize the coming increase in FCF and have increased their target from $36 to $40 while maintaining tham at Outperform.
Saville is seeing more indications that gold may exhibit a 1-3 week surge to a new ATH before setting an intermediate term top. |
