WRLG, IAU, ODV, ARK
West Red Lake Gold aka WRLG, which recently restarted production at their Madsen gold mine in Ontario, continues to drill up the high grade South Austin zone. WRLG's deposits require closely spaced drilling because the mineralization is usually concentrated into high grade and discrete lenses, which the previous operator failed to deal with.
Today's set of drill results both increase confidence in the eastern portion of the lens and extend it down plunge. The numbers continued to be high grade, e.g. 5m @ 21.91 g/t Aum 15.45m @ 8.79 g/t, and 6.75m @ 17.31 g/t Au.
The sheer amount of close-spaced drilling required to profitably mine at Madsen mean we will be getting a number of other PRs similar to this between the production updates.
Message 35222086
The new management at Nevada gold miner i-80 Gold aka IAU continues to execute their plans, which we hear about in the Q2 results-
Although they managed to sell 8400 oz Au in Q2, the big news was that they executed their recapitalization plan, raising over $350M with potentially another $130M if all warrants are exercised. As a result, the company ended the quarter with a cash stash of $133.7M
So now it is all about building mines. Construction at Archimedes underground starts this quarter, and IAU has 5 feasibility studies underway, including one for refurbishing their autoclave, vital for the hub-and-spoke model of development they are following. Mind you, there is still money to raise, so they are planning to sell a non-core property and some royalties, as well as seeking out debt financing.
IAU's share price was punished due to the dilution from the refinancing. The question now is whether execution (and the high PoG) can make up for that over time.
Message 35223477
Osisko Development aka ODV released its Q2 results. In the quarter they actually did manage to earn some money by selling 1393 oz Au from its small heap leach at its Tintic project in Utah as well as the gold extracted from the bulk sample on what has become their main project, the Cariboo gold mine under construction in central BC. As a result they ended Q2 with $46.3M in their cash stash and $34.2M in outstanding debt.
But the real story comes under the heading Subsequent Events, with loans and PPs raising almost $600M intended to pay for the construction of Cariboo (though I best they will need more). All this dilution has meant that my warrants have not yet reached my sale price, after which I will bid adieu to ODV and not look back.
Message 35223454
So far this year Arras Minerals aka ARK has demonstrated what a roller coaster ride holding shares in a drill play can be. After tripling so far this year on positive drill results, yesterday ARK released assays from two more holes testing the Berezski Trend on their Elmes property in Kazakhstan.
The stock immediately dropped by a third. It has bounced back somewhat today and is still more than a double just in 2025, but oh my goodness...
Expectations were clearly high. One of the holes delivered multiple long intercepts of Cu/Au porphyry, with 440m @ 0.49% CuEq (0.16% Cu and 0.25 g/t Au) being the thickest intercept so far. Looks good, right?
The problem comes with the second hole, which delivered nearly 300m of mineralization, but also lower grade and Au-dominant. Not terrible, really, but given the previous drilling expectations were very high.
As I mentioned earlier, the stock has rebounded nicely today. If the pending assays and further results from the drilling currently underway are more consistent, it should be possible for ARK's share price to regain upward momentum, but for now I will be happy with the double so far this year.
Message 35224671 |
