The Discovery Process: Five mining explorers you should know about

We’re in a funky time period where our client companies are all a little quiet, so this gives me the chance to spread my wings a little and tell you about interesting deals I’m spotting in the wild.

Some are big and getting bigger, some are beaten up and cheap, some are early, some are just too damn quiet for their own good, but all are interesting, and have come to light for us as part of a new platform we’re developing to spot great mining deals in the wild. More on that later, but let’s get to some resource fun.

YOU WANT ZINC? BECAUSE THIS IS HOW YOU GET ZINC

GROUP ELEVEN RESOURCES (ZNG.V) has been slowly but surely climbing the stock charts over the last year on the back of three zinc projects out of Ireland, one of which just sprung a nice drill result 180m away from the discovery area.

Behold: 29.6m of 10.6% Zinc + Lead (4.0% Zn and 6.6% Pb), 78 g/t Silver and 0.15% Copper (from 283.4m down hole).

That was good for a 26.7% jump from $0.15 to $0.21 on the day but this story has been building for a while..

The company says:

Twenty holes have thus far been drilled by ZNG over at the Ballywire discovery area. Every hole has intersected mineralization [..] Mineralization intersected at Ballywire to date is predominantly shallow, mostly ranging from 250-350m below surface. The mineralized horizon shallows towards the north and deepens towards the south.

The fine print here is Glencore has a property nearby and has taken an 18.1% stake in ZNG, while investor Michael Gentile owns 15%. The group has a compliant resource estimate on two other properties in Ireland that it’s not focused on for now, but the Ballywire Discovery has a lot of people interested for the metal, the jurisdiction, the management team who’ve done it before, and now the numbers.

#NOTACLIENT

THE BIG DOG GETTING DOGGED

WEST RED LAKE GOLD MINING (WRLG.V) is enduring a stock slump of late, despite the Frank Giustra pre-production play having a lot of friends for much of the year and having just brought in $33 million in financing.

The company has popped some decent drill results, including 8m @ 16.69 g/t Au on on,e and 17.83m @ 6.17 g/t Au on another, as they look to build out the South Austin Zone to the south of their property, in preparation for production.

Appointing long time mining analyst/newsletter queen Gwen Preston as IR VP was a bold but smart move, and ongoing construction/drill work makes it clear this crew has got a far better idea of how to work the project than the previous team, who miscalculated everything and ended up coughing it up to The Juice at liquidation sale prices.

The stock, however, has been taking on water since the financing was announced. For mine, that’s a great time to take a piece, because they’ll be pulling gold out of the ground in a minute.

#NOTACLIENT

THE PILOT FISH UNDER WEST RED LAKE’S BELLY

GOLDON RESOURCES (GLD.V) has held well after its April/May stock runaway took it from $0.03 to $0.13. That’s a tough run to hang on to when folks will usually be inclined to take profits but GLD investors have one eye on the horizon.

Specifically, at the drilling West Red Lake is doing in a direction towards their property at West Madsen.

Says the company:

GoldON Resources Ltd. has mobilized a crew from Emerald Geological Services for fieldwork to prepare for the next phase of drilling at its 100-per-cent-owned West Madsen gold property. Located in the heart of the Red Lake Gold Camp, the 5,988-hectare Property shares its eastern boundary with West Red Lake Gold’s Madsen mine/mill property.

Let’s be clear, GoldON is on the clock. While WRLG is going full bore to bring its project to production, there’s no shortage of belief that the veins running through the big dog’s yard continue on through GLD’s back 40.

If the GLD crew can show some of that belief is well founded, they can really make their land, acquired from the folks at Great Bear before that group became a legendary and super-profitable exit, the next big thing.

Though it’s racked up some great stock success so far, it’s still just a $5 million market cap deal.

#NOTACLIENT

THE ONE TO COME

SAGA METALS (IPO SOON) is a deal I spotted in the wild that should be on the markets shortly, if all goes well, but the keyword here is jurisdiction.

Saga has three projects; a Quebec lithium play, a Lanbrador uranium play, and a titanium/vanadium project, effectively touching on the green energy boom in just about all the ways you’d hope.

Admittedly, when most folks think of uranium in Canada, they think of the Athabasca Basin, but here’s the thing – if you’re content with a lower grade but lots of it, Labrador is an interesting side bet. Years ago there was ample uranium exploration at the Lab, but the government pulled a moratorium while they tried to figure out how to properly engage explorers and exploit that resource.

Attention obviously shifted to the prairies in the time since, but when the guv decided to open things back up, nobody was paying much attention.

Saga, however, was right there, snapping up their property after millions had been spent exploring it and building it out from 1970 to 2008. Now they’re sitting on a winterized camp with a loading dock, about 150 kms south of Paladin Energy and Atha Energy projects.

Saga will work that property, and has outlined that work in detail on their website.

And don’t discount the lithium side of things, they have a project in Quebec’s James Bay that isn’t far from Rio Tinto, which has been making discoveries in the area. The project has 100+ pegamtite outcrops discovered to date.

I’m told there’s hope for a mid-month IPO, the group are super professional and determined to advance quickly, and they have enough cash to hit the ground running.

Solid.

#NOTACLIENT but we’ve chatted.

SHHH

MOONBOUND MINING (MML.C) is this week’s ‘look for yourself‘ deal.

They’ve been quiet since last year, got a nice little project or two, but the thing that’s got the hairs on my neck standing up is the gradual increase in trading volume WHILE THEY’RE IN A FINANCING.

They’ve just changed auditors, the stock is at $0.42 despite raising at $0.30, and they’re acquiring an African lithium deal.