When we last talked about Ashley Gold Corp (ASHL.C), we framed things as a one-man show diligently working his ass off to progress a gold property that had plenty of potential but was facing headwinds due to the general market malaise on gold.
All he needed was a small amount of capital, we said, and this thing could run.
Well, Darcy Christian, ASHL’s jack of all trades, got in a little financing after all and, during his travels, he brought home something unexpected.
A uranium/vanadium property.
While Ashley Gold is – obvs – still a gold explorer, when you see something shiny on the ground, you pick it up.
And sign an LOI for it.
By signing a preliminary agreement, this deal is about potentially owning a special piece of land in Utah called the Sahara property, based on five years of milestones being hit.
This area is not too far from a town called Green River, where Western Uranium and Vanadium (WUC) is in the process of permitting a processing facility for its San Rafael and Sunday Mine complex resources. This facility could start working on ores as soon as 2026, and Ashley Gold wants to be ready to supply it ASAP.
Let’s break it down simply:
- Ashley Gold could fully own the Sahara property after five years if things go according to plan.
- This property isn’t just a random piece of land. It has over 900 old drill holes on it, so far, most performed using older technology, and is one mile off the Interstate-80, via gravel all-weather roads.
- The area is ready for more drilling to confirm and possibly locate more resources. There’s already an old mine site and tunnels on property.
- With new technology and drilling, there’s a good chance they’ll find much more than what was previously thought to be there.
- The property covers a large area – over 40 square-kilometers of contiguous prospective ground – which means there’s a lot of potential for discovery.
- Includes a historic mine decline and 700ft of haulage drifts, and consists of over 400 claims totalling over 10,000 acres.
Darcy is excited about this as he thinks the move could help the company make money in the near future without having to give up too much long term to new investors. Uranium was found there before, and the thinking is there could be more as yet undiscovered.
Darcy had this to say when asked about the pivot to uranium.
“When you spot an opportunity I don’t think you can be too proud to take it on just because you’re focused on something else. This was a full steam ahead project in the 1980’s until depressed uranium prices in the 1980s dropped below $15/lb. The planned mine never went into production but they did continue to drill well into the late 1980s, and developed a proved/probable RESERVE of 500,000 pounds pre-feas to feas equivalent in 70’s metrics. There was 100,000 metres of drilling done, representing $10-15 million worth of exploration in todays dollars, and mineralization in two thirds of those holes.”
The Sahara property is in a region known for having lots of uranium and vanadium, and because some mining has happened there before, the property is easy to get to and has the necessary amenities like water and power close by to make progress relatively inexpensive and easy.
To snare it, Ashley Gold will offer up shares and commit to doing more exploration going forward and if they decide to go all in, they’ll need to pay up and meet certain goals.
Upon signing the Definitive Agreement and successful financing Ashley will issue 4,500,000 shares. Ashley will drill an initial 1,000m program and produce a NI-43-101 report for the property.
With election to pursue 100% ownership a consideration of approximately CAD $5,000,000 payable in cash and shares over 5 years. The terms will be also subject to certain work commitments, a 2% NSR and bonus’ linked to successful delineation of 10MM and 30MM pounds of Uranium tied into a Preliminary Economic Assessment.
And all this while their core gold poperty continues to get worked and gold prices tick higher by the day.
