Junior Resource Investing
I sat down with base metals analyst Connor Mackay of Pi Financial recently to discuss Fireweed Metals. Connor covers Fireweed and I took this opportunity to pick his brain and have him show his work a little bit on the process and logic behind his work.
Fireweed is a best-in-class asset that, because of this status, makes it a bit of a trick to properly place a dollar value on as it is without a true peer. However, its inherent and strategic value is impossible to ignore and as Fireweed continues to prove up discovery after discovery and progress through economic studies, you have to think that eventually a sort of critical mass will be achieved and its true value will be more properly reflected in its market cap and share price.
Part 1: Companion Article; Part 2: Written Summary and Transcript
FWZ.V; FOM.T; IVN.T
Though it’s only been a few short weeks since I last interviewed them, Founders has certainly provided enough material news to warrant an update. Drill results continue to surprise to the upside and confirm the potentially world-class nature of the Upper Antino targets currently being drilled. The market seems to be slowly catching on finally as of yesterday (Feb. 29) but if you ask me, this is a materially different project than it was since my last interview with CEO Colin Padget. Not just what grades are being unearthed, but where they are being found are what maters here.
Two parts: Part 1. Companion Article, Part 2: Written, Timestamped Summary and Transcript
FDR.V
I wanted originally to do a fact-based deep dive into recent news and follow it up by pointing the compass into the future to highlight what’s to come in 2024, but with the eagerly-anticipated lab results of Mukuyu-2 gas samples due back imminently, I thought I would hold off on the detail-oriented breakdown for their arrival and instead provide more of an “emotional status update” for the stock with this article.
The long and the short of it is that the current flatline of the stock is (I believe) the precise sort of contrarian moment investors should be champing at the bit to buy into, not panic as a result of. Invictus holds real value and looks poised to add to that significantly over the next 12-24 months, with a resource 1.3 TCF and counting after just 2 wells in a region starved for energy solutions.
The first of a few confirmed for 2024 drilling seasons (stay tuned), I traveled into Saskatchewan's north to visit Fathom Nickel's Fly-In camp at Albert Lake at the site of the old Rottenstone mine. Rottenstone, though tiny, was one of the richest polymetallic nickel deposits in Canadian history, with a LoM average grade of 3.3% Ni, 1.83% Cu and an eye-popping 9+ g/t Pd+Pt+Au.
CEO and VPEx Ian Fraser has been chasing the source of this incredible mine under the theory that sort of incredible grade at surface has to have a giant "mother" lurking beneath somewhere waiting to be found, and he has exhaustively compiled a broad, deep, pool of data in pursuit of it. With drill campaigns underway, maybe this is finally the season where Mother Rottenstone gives up her secrets.
Click the header image above to view the video, and read below for my companion piece for the trailer. I look forward to releasing more content from this site visit in the near future.
Tickers Mentioned: FNI.CN
Founders Metals (FDR.V) is already a hell of a story and is just going to keep getting bigger. Honestly, that’s it.
Of course, CEO Colin Padget and I talked about a lot more than that in our longform intro interview - historical mining, modern exploration success, permitting, mining tailings, future plans, and much more - but all roads lead back to Rome here. Which is to say that my discussions with Colin (and my DD work in general so far) have led me to the belief that Founders - far from being done in terms of exploration results leading to market appreciation - is just getting started. This is because Founders’ Antino gold project has all the hallmarks of a truly great project.
Alright, so first off, I am off on vacation and so am obviously away from my office/studio and its consistent setup. So I apologise if the audio quality is a little inconsistent at times. I thought I had done an appropriate troubleshooting session before hand but apparently not. I think I fixed it enough for it to not be a distraction, but you will have to be the judge.
Regardless of the audio quality, the story quality here with TOCVAN (TOC.CN) remains top notch as CEO Brodie Sutherland discussed with me earlier this week. Not content with being just another junior getting bled out in a weak market, Brodie has an ambitious plan to get TOCVAN to small-scale-yet-transformative production within just 2-3 years. He discussed with me in-depth why his dream is realistic.
1. The Interview; 2. The Companion Article; 3. The Written Summary and Transcript
A bit of a quick-hitter collection of topics. I sat down with CEO Greg Beischer to discuss: Drill Results; initial MRE; future resource growth; future drill plans; KoBold as a company and a neighbour; Mark Begich appointment to BoD; and, finally, as the core focus - a disucssion of Canwell’s prospects and their high-impact potential for AEMC.
Part 1. Interview. Part 2. Companion Article. Part 3. Summary and Transcripts
My first sit down with CEO Martin Turenne of FPX was a busy one. The morning of our interview, news came out that FPX had acquired another strategic partner, bringing on Japanese company Sumitomo in another major derisking event for the company. Designed with the idea in mind that FPX is already well known, topics were more involved than your typical introductory company interview. The wide-ranging interview centers on a discussion of the new partnership, conversations around ongoing First Nations negotiations, updates on FPX’s many partnerships, and a reflection on what Martin believes needs to change most for the mining industry to be able to continue to grow and meet the needs of an evolving society in a sustainable fashion.
3 Parts: 1. The Interview; 2. My Companion Article; Summary and Transcripts
Fathom Nickel is just a couple weeks away from spudding its next drill campaign. With 4500 meters budgeted, the first half will be going into their Albert Lake property. Their primary target is eagerly anticipated and will finally be able to be drilled. Below, I provide some thoughts on the drill program based on my interview with Ian, but also provide a (very speculative) model of just how big this target might be which is the focus of today’s article.
3 parts: 1. The Interview. 2. The Companion Articles. 3. Summary and Transcript
Thesis Gold Released the final results of its 20,000 meter infill and resource upgrade drilling from its Lawyers project in 2023 (with the 30,000m from Ranch not yet fully back from the lab). This interview - with CEO Ewan Webster and COO Ian Harris - reviews the results of this campaign and how they fit within Thesis’ goal of redeisgning the mine plan to improve economics. A discussion of the good, the bad, and the impact on the drill program on the new mine plan is had, as well as discussions on ongoing met work. Below you will find my companion article, and written summary with timestamps to help you track my conversation with Ewan and Ian.
I sat down with Fireweed Metals (FWZ.V) CEO Brandon Macdonald for a far-reaching discussion on Thursday, December 22. Building off implied general knowledge of Fireweed, the focus of this conversation was not so much meant to be an overview of the company as it was an opportunity to dig deeper into specific topics and concepts related to it. Brandon reflects on his own time as CEO of FWZ, the strength of his team and its teamwork, the importance of geological originality and expertise, infrastructure developments related to mining in Yukon, and more.
Part 1: Companion Article
Part 2: Written Summary and Timestamps
A big one. The original goal was to examine the value - present and future - of Globex’s 1% GMR on the Mont Sorcier Iron project owned by Cerrado Gold in Quebec’s Chibougamau region. The work is particularly relevant as Cerrado recently announced they had officially begun the tender process for project financing, led by TD Bank.
The scope of the project expanded rapidly. Valuing the royalty of course in turn meant valuing the project itself, including primarily a stress testing baseline costs and pricing and premium assumptions of the September 2022 PEA. To be able to have a semi-informed opinion, this in turn required some analysis and discussion on future demand dynamics for iron in general, and in particular Mont Sorcier’s high-grade 65% + 0.6% V2O5 concentrate.
So what began as a simpler, project-based analysis became underpinned by a series of more fundamental, macro, datasets and discussions.
This will then be published in multiple parts. Part 1: “A Basic Intro to Mont Sorcier and Globex’s 1% GMR” is found below. It will provide a summary of the project so far. Critical analysis of baseline economic assumptions and future iron forecasting will follow in a part 2, likely at this point after Christmas.
Tickers Mentioned: GMX.TO; CERT.V
Sendero Resources (SEND.V) has mobilised its drill rig and is just weeks away from its mid-January inaugural 4500m drill campaign on its Peñas Negras project. Staked before The Lundins made the surrounding Vicuña copper porphyry belt world famous and historically almost entirely undrilled, Sendero has a rare real shot at a potentially massive discovery over the next couple months. Executive Chairman Michael Wood joins me to discuss some of the details that makes this high-risk, high-reward opportunity uniquely powerful.
CEO John Miniotis of Argentinian Ag+Au developer Abra Silver (ABRA.V) sat down to go over his company’s recently-updated Mineral Resource Estimate. The MRE showed improvements essentially across the board for Abra, from grade, ounces, further potential, and recovery rates, and sets them up nicely to hopefully deliver what looks like to be an economically compelling PFS in time for PDAC.
iTech leaves 2023 behind having made significant progress on all its graphite and REE-Kaolin projects even while their share price has faltered. Brutal sector sentiment has damaged the share price even though graphite specifically received bullish macro news.
However, amidst these stormy conditions, iTech holds a critical advantage of not needing money. Their series of financing one+ years ago has spelled them safely through some absolutely brutal sector sentiment and will importantly allow them to continue their 2024 plans to prove up further damage value undamaged while everyone hangs on for the market to change.
There will be two parts to this update:
Part 1 consists of my own thoughts on iTech’s year. Part 2 is my written summary of the AGM.
I once again display a bit of a propensity for mental self-harm as I build a written summary of my recent interview (all 2.5 hours of it) with Scott Macmillan of Invictus Energy. My hope here is the same as my recent summary of Giga’s PFS: To build a practical and useable piece of DD for current and prospective Invictus investors to utilise. Invictus, with all the challenges of frontier exploration, remains one of my top picks and my most overweight position due to the size of their prospective resource and the character of their Managing Director.
A little bit of a different work today. Rather than making an effort at finding evidence to create an informed opinion, today I am more so summarizing and compiling evidence for you to create your own opinion with. Economic studies and technical reports are such a critical part of this sector, but they can be daunting at times. With this in mind, I did a proper deep dive of Giga’s recent PFS. My hope was to boil down the 440 pages of content into the most meaningful bits to ease your own due diligence process. So rather than analyzing references and data for you, I am hoping I could create my own reference for you to do your own analysis with.
One of my favourite companies came back on the show. CEO Ian Fraser of Fathom Nickel joined me to do a deep dive into the geological model of their Albert Lake and Gochager Lake projects in northern Saskatchewan. Geology is obviously a critical part of every exploration story, but the exhaustive levels of knowledge and detail Ian and Fathom have developed on these projects has allowed them to attain a level of mastery that is rare for a company at this stage of exploration. Which is why it is one of my favourite pre-discovery (ish) exploration companies, and why “setting the table” geologically, as this interview set out to do, is particularly important for Fathom and its current and future investors.
I sat down with CEO Claudia Tornquist and Chairman Chris Taylor to discuss Kodiak’s ongoing efforts to prove up their MPD project as a tier 1 copper porphyry discovery. This interview looks to place their many recent drill results within a larger context of what Kodiak has done, is doing, and wants to do. A discussion of Kodiak’s geological model provides viewers with the framework needed to understand what is happening “big picture”.
Alaska Energy Metals Corp (AEMC.V) is revitalising a well-known nickel target with huge potential resource numbers located in central Alaska. High-confidence historical data has provided CEO Greg Beischer and his team a big head start in building towards a resource that looks like it could be well over a billion pounds of 0.35% NiEq by spring of 2023, with a targeted resource of nearly 5 billion pounds by spring of 2024. An aggressive, multi-drill approach is being supported by strong financial backing so far.
Another check in with Globex Mining today. I will highlight recent headlines and upcoming news events (maiden resources from Kiboko, drill results from Brunswick, and more), but also wanted to use Globex’s Q2 ‘23 financials to reflect on potential outcomes for this company, specifically within the context of the overall (rather dismal) resource market.
I get to sit down with CEO and VPX of Fathom Nickel Ian Fraser. FNI.CN are operators on the Albert Lake and Gochager Lake nickel projects in northern Saskatchewan. Both are highly prospective nickel targets with a proven, effective, exploration thesis. I provide my video interview, my own initial thoughts on Fathom, as well as a written summary of the interview.
Bit of a surprise update, as I was expecting Mike to take a little bit getting back to me after his vacation. Checking in with iTech Minerals this time with another two parter article. I asked Mike to answer a brief Q and A (which he developed really strong answers to) and thought I would talk graphite a bit ( spoiler: 🪦) as well.
I explain in detail my thoughts on Giga’s new PFS for its Turnagain project and why I think it has potential. I also use Turnagain as a vehicle reflect on the process of evaluating mining projects: What to take into consideration and the weighing of risk based on who is doing the evaluation.
Tickers mentioned: GIGA.V
Troilus Gold is a very brownfield developer that has 8m+ Oz AuEq with great economics and a lot of reasons to believe the sting of inflation can be reduced in their upcoming FS, the first economic study since 2020. Also 260,000m of drilling is being put into an updated MRE that is just weeks away.
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Part 1: Brief Overview of Troilus
Part 2: Written Summary of the Interview
All numbers in USD unless otherwise stated.
Dolly Varden had a stellar drill campaign last year with new discoveries and eye-popping grades throughout the year. 2023 looks to continue to expand this new discoveries and also pursue other new targets. Dolly Varden has a strong reputation in the market and has major backers and can raise money effectively.
Demand for nickel is set to possibly to 3X or more, while EV-grade nickel could 8X+ in demand by 2040. There just aren’t that many nickel sulfide (Class 1 quality) deposits left to be found in the world. Giga Metals Turnagain nickel project has characteristics - size, simplicity, location - that make it impossible to ignore. The price of nickel is going to have to rerate permanently northward to bring the amount of supply we are going to need online.
Thesis Gold and Benchmark Metals have both fallen off quite a bit since the recent announcement of their proposed merger. Market sentiment seems uncertain about the direction of the new, amalgamated company. In addition, there are (valid) concerns specific to the up front costs Benchmark’s Lawyers project that have been voiced to me by some of my readers. However, Thesis has a plan in place to improve on these economics above and beyond efficiencies found through the merger and I believe this makes them a well-supported pick to see a strong increase in value over the next year or two.
iTech Minerals is midway through a redefining discovery drill program that has them on the path to rerating and market success. Drilling out their Lacroma graphite target has been a strong success and it unofficially keeps getting bigger and bigger. Positive metallurgical characteristics also define what is proving to be a cheap, simple ore body, leading to potentially compelling economics.
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iTech Minerals is a smartly-run company exploring and developing their Lacroma graphite project in mining-friendly South Australia. Characteristics critical to high-value commercial applications have been demonstrated with their graphite. Clear, short, pathway to commercial production. No credit in the market yet given for a legitimate new discovery.
Giga Metals is a hyper-leveraged, low-carbon Nickel developer of the huge (top 10 globally) low-grade “Turnagain” Nickel Sulphide project. It is located in strong, stable BC and has recently signed a binding JV with Mitsubishi at a valuation more than twice the current market cap. These characteristics make it an extremely compelling story for investors who are bullish on the long-term macro market for Nickel demand. An imminent PFS – expected at the end of July – is anticipated to have a positive impact on project economics, and investors can expect catalysts to continue to dot the calendar for Giga over the next 12+ months.
