Morning Briefing: Lundin Mining and BHP Collaborate in $4.5B Deal for Filo Corp
Welcome to Mining Stock Daily. I’m Trevor Hall.
Today is Tuesday, July 30th.
Sunday evening the price of gold gapped higher when the Globex trading system opened, presumably on an escalation in the war going on in the Middle East. The prices spiked as much as $64 before trading sideways through mid-morning NY time. Gold retreated to as low as $2416 before bouncing to close the day at $2429, up $44 from Friday. The Mining Stock Journal notes that the price is once again back over $24. Silver was not as enthusiastic as gold but the price moved back over $28 and stalled out at $28.30. Silver was then pushed off a cliff that took it as low $27.46 before it bounced sharply to close in the afternoon at $28.02. The Mining Stock Journal pointed out that silver seems to be holding on to $28. The mining stocks were quiet albeit mostly in the red yesterday but then staged a rally late in the day driven by the large-cap miners. The Arca Gold Bugs index closed up 1% and outperformed all three broad stock market indices.
We’ll get to the news from the miners and explorers here in a moment, but first a quick word about today’s sponsor.
This episode of Mining Stock Daily is brought to you by… Vizsla Silver
Vizsla Silver is focused on becoming one of the world’s largest single-asset silver producers through the exploration and development of the 100% owned Panuco-Copala silver-gold district in Sinaloa, Mexico. The company consolidated this historic district in 2019 and has now completed over 325,000 meters of drilling. The company has the world's largest, undeveloped high-grade silver resource. Learn more at https://vizslasilvercorp.com/
And here’s what you need to know this morning….
More M&A news out last night. Lundin Mining and BHP have joined together as 50/50 partners to acquire Filo Corp in a four and a half billion dollar deal. Concurrent with the Transaction, BHP and Lundin Mining will form a Canadian joint venture into which the Filo del Sol copper-gold-silver project and the Josemaria copper-gold project, which is currently 100% owned by Lundin Mining, will be contributed, allowing for the joint development of the Vicuña district. The price tag represents a share price of C$33 in cash per Filo Share. Filo shareholders will be able to elect to receive the consideration as either (i) C$33.00 in cash per Filo Share or (ii) 2.3578 Lundin Mining shares per Filo Share, or some combination of cash and shares, subject to proration. There is a concurrent private placement also involved in this deal. Both Lundin Mining and BHP have entered into a subscription agreement for 3 and a half million shares of Filo for total consideration of C$115M to allow Filo to have enough working capital for expanses while this acquisition transaction is being finalized and closed. (TSX: FIL) (OTCQX: FLMMF) News Release
Metals Acquisition provided an update on exploration and resource development at the CSA copper mine. The company published a load of drill results out, including 22.1m of 9.8% Cu, 24m of 7.8% Cu and 12.8m of 8.1% Cu. These results came from QTS North. At QTS Central, drilling returned 5.5m of 10.4% Cu. Underground exploration continued to focus on the down dip and along strike extensions of the QTSN and QTSC deposits, as well as the shallower, up dip portions of the East and West deposits and QTSS Upper A. (NYSE: MTAL; ASX: MAC) News Release
American Pacific Mining provided an update on the two drill programs occurring at its Madison project in Montana and the Palmer project in Alaska. The Madison drill program was expanded from five to seven holes based on positive visual observations and real-time modeling updates that supported additional drill holes. A total of 1,050 metres were drilled and the Phase I program at Madison is now complete. The company says native copper was observed in several drill holes. Drilling is well underway at Palmer with nine holes of a fourteen hole program completed to-date. The two programs are fully-funded. (CSE: USGD) (OTCQX: USGDF) News Release
Kenorland Minerals has entered into a definitive purchase and sale agreement with Evolution Nickel for Evolution to purchase the South Thompson Nickel Project. Evolution has agreed to issue Kenorland 26,000,000 common shares of Evolution and grant Kenorland a 2% net smelter return royalty over the entirety of the South Thompson Project at closing of the transaction. Closing is conditional upon Evolution completing an equity financing for gross proceeds of not less than C$4,000,000. (TSXV: KLD) (OTCQX: KLDCF) News Release
FPX Nickel provided an update on its value engineering studies that have the conceptual mine plan and facilities for the Baptiste Nickel Project in British Columbia. Optimization of the Baptiste mine plan and application of trolley-assist haul truck systems has improved operability and reduced overall diesel consumption by approximately 50%, which has also reduced its carbon intensity to the lowest decile of current global nickel production and 50% below the amount reported in the 2023 preliminary feasibility study. FPX has received funding support from BC Hydro that will enable Baptiste to commence interconnection studies in the second half of 2024, advancing electrification of the project and supporting BC's and Canada's critical minerals strategy. (TSXV: FPX) (OTCQB: FPOCF) News Release
Sierra Madre Gold and Silver announced their first shipments of silver and gold concentrates from its Guitarra Mine Complex. the Company shipped 90.68 dry metric tonnes which contained approximately 3,000 grams of silver and 30 grams gold per DMT. The Company has approximately 90 dry metric tonnes of additional concentrate that is expected to ship later this week. (TSXV: SM) (OTCQX: SMDRF) News Release
Victoria Gold provided an update on the management of the heap leach facility incident at the Eagle Gold Mine which occurred June 24th. Victoria is actively sampling water daily from multiple sample locations at the Eagle Mine. Several of these sample locations are located downstream from the location of the HLF incident. he majority of samples tested by the Company downstream of the HLF have not detected any cyanide. in order to further manage contact water at the Eagle Gold Mine, the Company is completing the expedited construction of additional lined water storage on site. This additional storage will supplement pre-existing lined water storage capacity at Eagle. The Company, in consultation with independent third-party experts, has evaluated a number of water management strategies to minimize environmental impacts, with the safety of employees as a foremost priority. Victoria has also augmented its water treatment capacity on side to establish capacity to safely discharge water in compliance with its water use license. Investigations are underway to determine the cause of the incident. The Company has engaged with its engineer of record for the HLF and has retained multiple independent industry leading experts to conduct a Root Cause Analysis. In addition, the Company is cooperating with third-party technical experts retained by the Yukon Government and the FNNND. (TSX-VGCX) News Release
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