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Strategies & Market Trends : Dino's Bar & Grill -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Goose94 who wrote (153793)	7/6/2023 5:58:52 AM
From: Goose94	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 202720

North Arrow Minerals (NAR-V) Just when you thought it was out, the Lac de Gras (LDG) diamond project in the Northwest Territories pulls the company back in. This time, however, diamonds will be an afterthought at best. North Arrow and Arctic Canadian Diamond Co. have terminated their joint venture on the sprawling property south of Lac de Gras, with North Arrow assuming control and ownership of the property. The property pickup might raise an eyebrow or two at first glance since LDG has been a diamond play for a generation, while North Arrow has amended its "all-about-us" boilerplate to all but eliminate mention of diamonds. Gems faintly sparkle at the end of the lengthy spiel, but only in an "also owns" addendum that translates to "we have not dropped them yet." In fact, Mr. Armstrong, North Arrow's president and chief executive officer, soured on LDG diamonds in 2016, electing to dilute North Arrow's interest rather than meet its partner's cash calls covering more work. He now gets it all back, but for its lithium potential. And so, the new arrangement sees North Arrow's 21-per-cent sliver of the LDG project swell to 100 per cent -- apparently for little more than the stroke of a pen. Oh, to be sure, Arctic Canadian is relieved of certain obligations -- responsibility for the exploration camp on the property being the main item -- but at this point the main cost to North Arrow is a 200,000-share transfer to an arms-length vendor covering "certain exploration data related to historical lithium exploration in the Northwest Territories." Mr. Armstrong and his crew say that North Arrow "intends to evaluate the lithium potential" of the LDG diamond project, particularly in the area surrounding two spodumene-bearing pegmatite dikes noted by government geologists who mapped the area in the 1940s. And so, North Arrow will now have to shoehorn the mammoth project -- or at least the parts prospective for lithium -- into its roster of projects needing exploration cash this year. Work on the DeStaffany lithium project, southeast of Yellowknife near the shore of Great Slave Lake, began a few weeks ago. That effort is slated to include channel sampling at two lithium-bearing pegmatites, Moose 1 and Moose 2, with property-wide prospecting planned to seek not yet identified pegmatites. Indeed, Mr. Armstrong expects to make sufficient progress at DeStaffany that drilling is planned for later this summer. The shift in focus to lithium from diamonds has made raising cash an easier prospect. This spring, Mr. Armstrong sought $2-million through the sale of flow-through shares at eight cents and regular shares at six cents, with a promise to spend the cash on lithium projects. When the placement closed less than a month later, North Arrow had sold 23 million regular shares and 13 million flow-through shares, raking in just over $2.4-million. Inveterate diamond investors do have a few snippets of hope at North Arrow, largely courtesy of Dr. Christopher Jennings, one of Canada's original diamond explorers and a North Arrow director. Earlier this year, North Arrow sold a 0.5-per-cent royalty on the Loki diamond project, just west of LDG, to Umgeni Holdings International Ltd., a private company owned by Dr. Jennings and his wife, raising $374,000 that was slated to be spent on the diamond project. (This is not the first such transaction -- Umgeni now holds a combined 2.5-per-cent royalty on Loki.) As well, investors are still awaiting an update from Naujaat in central Nunavut, where North Arrow and Australia-based Burgundy Diamond Mines Ltd. are co-venturing on the Q1-4 kimberlite, a big, low-grade source of potentially valuable orange and yellow fancy diamonds. (Burgundy, by the way, is acquiring Arctic Canadian from the former creditors of Dominion Diamond Mines Ltd.) The pipe has been bulk sampled, but the outcome of a detailed look at the results and the diamonds recovered is still outstanding. At last report, North Arrow and Burgundy were contemplating a larger bulk test for 2024 -- or is it 2025 now? -- but the silence is disconcerting. Not to worry -- there is always lithium. Will Purcell