Tempus Resources (TMRR.V) is an illiquid stock, a gold explorer in a vortex.
On a regular day, the stock sits and waits.
On an irregular day, it stretches for a moment, then waits some more.
The markets, crowded and noisy, kick off in the distance like a bespoke tailored riot that pauses every day at 1pm and resumes the next day at 6am, but Tempus, the old man of BC, the once glorious gold producer tucked up in the green hills, he’s immune to the din.
Earlier in the year, the company stock ran to $0.10 on the back of discovery results that included 28.5m of 28.1 g/t AU. That’s filthy, but it had been higher still a year earlier on similar numbers, touching $0.34.
But now, he waits.
6c.
4c.
3c.
2c.
Tick follow tock follow tick follow tock follow tick.
Here’s to waiting, indeed.
Tempus is a public company listed in both Australia and Canada. It owns the Elizabeth-Blackdome (E-B) project in south-central BC, Canada, a project with two main elements: Elizabeth and the previously mined area, Blackdome, which comes with the Blackdome mill, where around 230,000 oz. of gold has been produced in the past.
At today’s gold valuation and in CAD, that’s $597 million worth of the shiny that was discovered, drilled, dug up, milled, and sold on before Tempus came along. This project made some people handsomely rich.
But how much is still in the ground? It’d be silly to assume it’s all been located and hauled away, so Tempus is doing a little work to figure out the lay of the land.
And that’s why we wait, because Tempus has got the data from some drilling and sampling, and is waiting for a new NI 43-101/JORC resource to be completed that will announce to the world what they’re sitting on.
Tempus, recently, raised AUD 2.5 million in Australia and planned to do more drilling, but the market might be more inclined to be kind to a goldco if it has a nice resource estimate backing it, so management are sitting on the money raised while the paperwork circles its final destination.
Tick follow tock follow tick.
As someone paid by companies to make y’all aware of what they do, this waiting business is difficult for me. I’m not going to spin hype out of whole cloth, there’s nothing to this stock right now UNLESS you’re prepared to wait.
Let’s be clear, some people aren’t. Some have bailed out, taking whatever anemic bid they can find to get out of the scene and play somewhere that requires less patience.
“Here’s to you, Ahab!”
Meanwhile, as those people set their bags on fire and walk away, others come in for a cheap breakfast.
Tempus has that just raised CAD $2.2m in the bank, and owns the mill (that would cost tens of millions to build from scratch, and can serve as a revenue stream if it can be leased to other goldcos nearby), and has the gold asset itself, and you get all of that for a CAD $6.2 million market cap which, when that resource drops and patience ceases to be important, should be a nice launch point.
I’m not going to tell you this thing will get repriced tomorrow, because I don’t hate you and I want you to do well in life. But I do have confidence this deal will find a better place on the markets once that 43-101/JORC is dropped on the public, and I certainly think the resumption of drilling will bump the dial a little.
When will that happen?
The company pointed to ‘as early as’ early August.
It’s now mid September. What this says to me is, that waiting I was banging on about earlier?
The big waves are due.
TECH TIME:
- Exploration and Agreement: The E-B area has rich gold veins. Tempus has agreements with local First Nations groups in BC for exploration, which we talked about earlier in the year. They’ve drilled 80 holes since November 2020.
- Gold Mines Nearby: There are other gold projects in the region, with some large companies involved and some of these companies don’t have a mill like Tempus, which might make their mill attractive for future deals or collaborations, or even as an acquisition, should the company get it kicked back into gear.
- Recent Discoveries: Tempus did some earlier work and has found more gold veins than were known when they first got the assets, with some of those drill results having highlights among the best in North America that year. The company’s stock price increased after those discoveries but financing has been rough in the resource world and, over time, the share price reflected the lack of news. We are now at a place where that low share prices presents an attractive low buy-in… if you’re okay with waiting.
- History of Mining in the Area: Another old mine nearby, not owned by Tempus, produced a lot of high-quality gold in the past. Tempus’s mill site is permitted and in good condition, and they’ve focused on shallow drilling to keep spend low, but other mines in the area have gone much deeper and found reason to keep going.
Loits of Canadian gold explorers have low valuations right now, so it’s a buyer’s market. But few gold companies in Canada have the combination of a permitted mill, high-quality gold discoveries, and a low valuation.
The only reason TMRR is so cheap, is impatience – period. And recent weeks have seen that impatience slow as folks chew up cheap stock on offer, moving it up slightly. Volume is growing.
Yes, the company could do more to keep investors in the loop and, yes, there’ll be investors pissed off that the money they raised hasn’t been put in the ground yet (with winter on the way), but the company would say that having cash in hand brings opportunities in itself as bodies float by them down the river, and security that they can get more cash on the back of a decent resource estimate.
Dilution? Yeah, the low-priced raise brought dilution, but their share structure (248m sharesout) isn’t insane by Canadian standards, and it’s positively tiny by Australian standards, where billions of shares out is the general rule.
Low priced, decently financed gold explorer in good jurisdiction with a mill kicker, waiting on a single document to land so it can shout about the earlier spotted high grade bonanza data?
Yeah. And so, we wait.
— Chris Parry
FULL DISCLOSURE: As mentioned above, Tempus is an Equity.Guru marketing client.