BREAKING NEWS: Calibre Mining to Acquire Fiore Gold

Welcome to Mining Stock Daily. This is Trevor Hall

Today is Monday October 25th. 

On Friday gold shot up and over $1800 to as high as $1814. This occurred in the absence of explicit news that might have been gold-friendly. But Fed Chair Powell sprayed a fire hose at the price rally late morning when he stated during a speech that the Fed was on track to begin tapering, which took the gold price back below $1800, where it settled at $1794. 

Silver ran from $24.20 to as high as $24.95 before Powell's speech. Silver ended up settling the week at $24.42. The gold/silver ratio closed out the week at 73.47 and appears to be headed lower. 

The Mining Stock noted that, once again, Powell's taper threat lacks a firm commitment to when the alleged taper might begin. The newsletter also believes that the recent upward movement in gold and silver reflects a growing acknowledgement that the Fed has lost control of price inflation. 

The mining stocks spiked up on Friday with gold and silver. GDX nearly tagged its 200 day moving average and pulled back quite a bit to close up just 26 cents. The Mining Stock Journal noted that GDX is up 13.7% since the end of September and that a consolidation or pullback would be healthy, as it would set up the next big move higher. On that note, the newsletter commented that, not only do the precious metals charts look bullish, supported by continuously stronger fundamental factors, but sentiment toward the mining stocks is still tentative. This is a potential recipe for an explosive move heading into the last 10 weeks of the year.

We’ll get to the news out of the miners and explorers in a moment, but first a quick mention of today’s sponsor. 

This episode of Mining Stock Daily is brought to you by… Rio2

Rio2 is advancing the Fenix Gold Project in Chile, the largest undeveloped gold heap leach project in the Americas. Fenix consists of 5 million ounces in the measured and indicated resource category and 1.4 million ounces in the inferred resource category. With a robust PFS in place, Fenix is set up for fast-tracked construction and production. You can find a list of project and company information on their website, rio2.com.

And here’s what you need to know this morning.

Calibre Mining is to acquire Fiore Gold in a cash and stock deal valued at about C$178 million with a 44% premium to create a diversified, Americas-focused, growing mid-tier gold producer with targeted annual gold production of about 245,000 ounces. Fiore shareholders will receive 0.994 of a Calibre share and C$0.10 in cash for each Fiore share with an implied consideration of C$1.80 per share. Upon completion, existing shareholders of Calibre and Fiore will own approximately 78% and 22% of the combined company, respectively. Calibre will add Fiore's 50,000oz a year Pan Gold Mine, the adjacent advanced-stage Gold Rock project and the past producing Illipah gold project in Nevada to its existing production base in Nicaragua, with a resource base of 4.4Moz measured and indicated and 3.1Moz inferred. It will also have some $96 million in cash and no bank debt. Calibre Mining trades on the TSX under CXB and on the OTCQX under CXBMF. Fiore Gold trades on the TSXV under F and on the OTCQB under FIOGF. News release

Pretium Resources announced a new high-grade gold exploration discovery at the Golden Marmot Zone on its Brucejack property in British Columbia, some 3.5km north of its Valley of the Kings deposit. Assays have been received for the first nine drill holes of which eight holes intersected gold with a highlight of 53.5m grading 72.5 grams per tonne gold in hole SU-786 including 50cm grading 6,700 grams per tonne gold and 3,990 grams per tonne silver. The company said gold mineralization intersected at Golden Marmot occurs in the same host rocks and with the same alteration signature as the Valley of the Kings deposit, which is a strong indication it could be a new high-grade deposit. Its proximity and existing trail access would make it relatively easy to integrate into future mine plans as an independent source of ore to supply the Brucejack mill. President and CEO Jacques Perron said the, “initial results from Golden Marmot are exciting and affirm the district-scale potential of the Brucejack property.” Pretium Resources trades on the TSX and NYSE under PVG. News release

Talisker Resources announced it has expanded the new 227 vein at its Bralorne gold project in British Columbia, Canada as drill hole 074A at hit an intercept of 55cm grading 54 grams per tonne within a broader interval of 1.05m grading 28.3g/t. The company has completed 67,390m of drilling in 122 holes as part of a 100,000m drilling campaign. Although early in the modelling process for the new veins, Talisker expects them to be included in its resource base. The company is aiming to build its resource to more than 5 million ounces and be seen as a tier one gold deposit which could potentially be of interest to bigger gold producers. Earlier this year, New Gold bought a 14.9% stake in the company. Talisker Resources trades on the TSX under TSK and on the OTCQX under TSKFF.  News release

Solaris Resources said it extended its Warintza Central copper-gold deposit in Ecuador to 1,350m strike length and it now overlap’s its Warintza East discovery. Drilling highlights included 722m grading 0.69% copper equivalent in hole 33 drilled from Warintza Central into a partially open volume to the north, including 426m grading 0.85% copper equivalent. With the hits of long intervals of mineralization starting to come at Warintza East, Solaris said its drilling fleet has been reoriented to pursue an aggressive growth strategy via step-out and extensional drilling as it prepares to test more targets for further discoveries. Solaris Resources trades on the TSX under SLS and on the OTCQB under SLSSF. News release

Having just announced raising another C$48 million from Eric Sprott to bring its treasury up to about $150 million, New Found Gold is doubling its exploration drilling program at its Queensway project near Gander in Newfoundland, Canada to 400,000m from 200,000m. The company has completed about 102,000m to date and plans to increase the number of drill rigs on site from nine to 14. Queensway has delivered three high-grade gold discoveries at Keats, Lotto and Golden Joint to date over 2.6km of strike along the Appleton Fault Zone. The company continues to generate targets along +20km of strike on Queensway North. New Found Gold trades on the TSXV under NFG and on the NYSE American under NFGC. News release

Roscan Gold announced results from the metallurgical test work program completed on samples from gold prospects at Mankouke South, Mankouke Center- Kandiole and the Kabaya within the Company's land package called Kandiole Projects located in west Mali, Africa. All of the samples representing the deposits tested in this program exhibit non-refractory metallurgical features, indicating that a simple, industry-standard cyanide leach process provides excellent gold and silver extraction. Total gold recoveries by gravity, plus 48 hours of CIL on all prospects, have averaged 97% for oxide samples, 89% for a transition sample and 90% for fresh mineralization samples. The flagship Mankouke South achieved 97.6% in the oxide and 92.9% in fresh rock. The coarse ore leach tests in two Kabaya saprolite samples, to examine heap leach amenability, provided an average of 79% recovery of gold and 93 % silver after 8 days. Roscan trades on the TSX Venture with ROS and on the OTC with RCGCF. News Release

Great Bear also reported gold recovery test work this morning. Ten one kilogram representative samples were analyzed. All tested combinations of grades, host rocks, sulphide content and alteration styles recovered a very high percentage of total gold, within a four percent range from 95.2% to 99.2%. LP Fault gold mineralization is not refractory. All samples, regardless of grade, were described as "free-milling", indicating gold is not encapsulated in sulphide accessory minerals. Free gold mineralization has repeatedly been observed and reported by Great Bear. Great Bear trades on the TSX Venture with GBR and on the OTCQX with GTBAF. News Release

That concludes today’s morning briefing. We’ll be back later today with more market commentary and corporate updates. 

The Mining Stock Daily morning briefing is produced by Clear Creek Digital and Investment Research Dynamic’s Mining Stock Journal. It is distributed throughout the world through your podcast network of choice, and by our friends at the Junior Mining Network.