Junior Resource Investing
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tl;dr:
Founders Metals keeps on building a world-leading gold discovery play. After a huge run of drill-led success, Founders has landed two major pieces the last week or two that look to fuel the next run of value creation for them:
1. A major increase in their land holdings (including significant alluvial mining and many similar traits to Upper Antino) going from 20,000 to 56,000 hectares.
2. A $50 million (and 10.6% stake) strategic investment from the 7th largest (by ounces) gold producer in the world, namely Gold Fields.
$50 million, a plethora of new discovery targets, and a world-leading technical team. This one remains a core pick for me for high-confidence success from here.
Tocvan Ventures: "Now's The Time to Be Pushing"
I took the trip down the #1 highway to Calgary a couple weeks back for some sit downs with a few clients and industry members. Below is one of those sit downs, an interview recorded with CEO Brodie Sutherland of Tocvan Ventures.
Good news continues to flow out of Tocvan’s Gran Pilar gold project in Sonora, Mexico - newly-discovered zones, historical workings, positive geochem and aeromag results, warrants exercising, positive permitting developments, and aggressive future drilling plans (some 15,000-20,000m before end of 2026). It takes news flow to get noticed in this industry, and Tocvan promises to deliver a lot of it over the next 12-18 months. Add in gold doing what it’s been doing (trading sideways at $4000 of all prices currently) and that’s a pretty powerful combination.
Kodiak Copper is in the middle of a critical milestone, having released part one of their maiden resource for their MPD project (with part two due before end of year). Including inferred tonnes, the resource for the first 4 zones reported is nearly 300Mt of 0.35% CuEq. The remaining three zones will be reported before the end of the year. With peer valuation comps favourable to Kodiak and copper pushing steadily higher, the timing appears good for existing Kodiak investors and others new to the story.
"We Want to Demonstrate Scale": An Update from Fathom Nickel as it Grows its Gochager Project
The second and final interview out of my time in Calgary. This one with Fathom Nickel (FNI.CN) CEO Ian Fraser. Ian catches me up on progress at their Gochager Lake nickel+ project with some pretty compelling above ground work that 1. Has opened up a trend of at least 3.5km of favourable (mineralised) host rock for high-grade zones within it and 2. That the historic Gochager deposit itself is surrounded by anomalies (across multiple data sets) that meet and exceed its own signature.
Part 1: The Interview
Part 2: The Companion Article
Part 3: The Written Summary
Aggressively Advancing to Further Production Amidst Gold's All-Time Highs: Contango Ore
Here’s an October update from Contango Ore (CTGO.NYSE). Contango continues to produce high-grade, high-margin gold alongside gold’s historic march to over $4000.
CEO Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse joins me to discuss numerous topics - shifting mine plans, debt payments, future plans, and why his company opted to go to the market for more cash despite their healthy revenue this year.
CTGO continues to shed itself of its remaining debts and hedges as quickly as possible while still advancing both Lucky Shot and Johnson Tract to short term production.
With spot at these unprecedented levels, the time to move is now, and Contango is moving aggressively forward.
Thesis Gold’s (TAU.V) significant upward movement this year (+236% ytd) still hasn’t brought it to fair value by my estimation, as I demonstrated in my recent infographic. With the first 3 holes now back from the ongoing 2025 drill campaign, including 89.3m of 1.1 g/t Au and a PFS at significantly higher spot prices due imminently, Thesis looks poised to further ride this unprecedented wave as gold continues to sharply rerate.
See below for my interview, companion article, and written summary.