Morning Briefing: Barrick Looks to Expand Lumwana Mine

Welcome to Mining Stock Daily. I’m Trevor Hall. 

Today is Wednesday October 4th. 

Tuesday once again saw gold rally during the eastern physical gold trading market hours, trading as high as $1845 per ounce, before getting pushed down into the London morning price fix. After that the 15 minute chart of paper gold looked like the cardiogram of someone on meth, oscillating up and down until the afternoon Globex session settlement that ended with gold down $6 from Monday. Silver, interestingly, embarked on a different journey Tuesday. The silver price started to shoot higher shortly before midnight Monday after getting pushed temporarily to just under $21 per ounce. Silver shot higher when the NYSE opened to as high as $21.60, then bounced around before settling in the afternoon at $21.35, up 12 cents from Monday. The Mining Stock Journal said that it's not clear why silver diverged positively from gold yesterday but noted that it could be an indication that sell-off in the sector is reaching a point of exhaustion. 

Despite the decline in gold and sharp sell-off in the stock market, the mining stocks managed to close higher Tuesday, with the Amex Gold Bugs Index up 0.7%. The Mining Stock Journal commented that the positive action in the miners could also be indicative of potential bottoming action in the sector. In fact, New Gold rose 10.9% on no news Tuesday and on much higher than the recent average daily volume. This was likely a big mining stock-oriented investor or fund buying a lot of shares in the Company, which the Mining Stock Journal believes is quite undervalued and has been recommending as a buy to subscribers.

We will get to the news from the miners and explorers in a moment, but first a word about today’s sponsor.

This episode of Mining Stock Daily is brought to you by… Arizona Sonoran. 

Arizona Sonoran Copper Company (ASCU:TSX) is focused on developing its brownfield copper project on private land in Arizona, a tier 1 location. The Cactus Mine Project is located less than an hour's drive from the Phoenix International airport via highway i-10, and with grid power and the Union Pacific Rail line situated at the base of the Cactus Project main road. With permitted water access, a streamlined permitting framework and infrastructure already in place, ASCU's Cactus Mine Project is a lower risk copper development project in the infrastructure-rich heartland of Arizona.

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

Newcore Gold announced positive results from five additional column tests completed as part of the ongoing metallurgical program at the Enchi Gold Project in Ghana. An average gold recovery of 91.7% was achieved from column testwork on three composite samples from the Sewum Deposit and two composite sample from the Boin Deposit, representative of oxide mineralization from trenches, with a recovery range of 88.4% to 95.6%. All samples showed modest cyanide consumption with an average of 1.2 kilograms per tonne, with a 1.3 kg/t lime addition to maintain a pH above 10.5. Optimization continues and a pilot heap bench-scale test is underway, to be completed in Q4 2023. Newcore Gold (TSX-V: NCAU, OTCQX: NCAUF) news release

Barrick Gold is to invest almost US$2 billion to expand its Lumwana mine in Zambia to produce 240,000tpy of copper from a 50Mtpy process plant over a 36-year mine life, which it said would elevate this once-unprofitable operation into the front rank of copper producers. The project’s accelerated work program is targeting completion of the full feasibility study by the end of 2024, bringing expected expanded process plant production forward to 2028. Last year Barrick launched a Business Accelerator Program aimed at building business capacity for the Zambian contractors in Lumwana’s supply chain and to support them in effecting their own growth plans. Barrick Gold (NYSE:GOLD)(TSX:ABX) news release

Li-FT Power reported assays for 5 drill holes completed at the Fi Southwest, Shorty, and BIG East pegmatites within the Yellowknife Lithium Project. Highlights included 14 m at 1.50% Li2O, including 12 m at 1.73% Li2O in hole 49, 12 m at 1.11% Li2O in hole 48, and 15 m at 1.03% Li2O in hole 51. The company says that the pegmatite dyke system is much larger than anticipated based on the surface expression. They believe mineralization is plunging towards the northeast, which opens up an exciting new area to be drilled in the future which has little to no spodumene pegmatite on surface. (CSE: LIFT) (OTCQX: LIFFF) News Release

C3 Metals received assays for the first drill hole of the 2023 program at the Camel Hill copper-gold porphyry prospect at its Bellas Gate project in Jamaica. The hole returned 207.8m at 0.43% copper and 0.2g/t gold for a 0.57% CuEq from 22m, including 135m at 0.71% CuEq. Assays are pending for two further holes at Provost and Camel Hill, and two more holes are being drilled. The company said that it intends to systematically drill test the entire 4km porphyry footprint. C3 Metals (TSXV: CCCM) (OTCQB: CUAUF) news release

Goldstorm Metals completed the 2023 diamond drill program on its Electrum gold and silver property in the Golden Triangle region of British Columbia, with 2581m drilling in 11 holes. It reported assays from the first two drill holes with a highlight of 61.5m grading 1.13 g/t Gold and 6.02 g/t Silver in hole 1. The first two holes tested broad, intrusive-related stockwork zones of gold-silver mineralization. Goldstorm Metals (TSXV: GSTM) news release

American Pacific Mining says one drill rig has remained to test the Christmas/Red Creek Target area during demobilization of the 2023 mountain drilling program. The CRC Target is one of 12 known VMS showings at the Palmer Project outside the mineral resource envelopes of the Palmer and AG deposits. The CRC Target area is located approximately 3 kilometres east of the Palmer deposit. Completing one to two road-accessible drillholes will provide valuable data in this area, which has had limited exploration work previously. (CSE: USGD / OTCQX: USGDF) News Release

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