Morning Briefing: New Drill Results from Arras Minerals and Meridian Mining

Welcome to Mining Stock Daily. I’m Trevor Hall. And I’m Paul Harris.

Today is Wednesday October 19th. 

Tuesday both gold and silver were range-bound, with gold trading between $1666 and $1652, settling at $1657 and silver bouncing between $18.85 and $18.55, settling at $18.68. The primary driver of early strength in the metals was a report that the Bank of England would refrain from selling the billions in Gilts it bought over the last few weeks to prevent its public pensions from collapsing. The BOE later denied the reports but so far has sold the Gilts back out to the market. The implication of course if it doesn't sell is that the Central Bank is unofficially pivoting from its Quantitative Tightening policy which would be bullish for the precious metals. Stay tuned on this matter. The reports juiced the stock market once again today along with the mining stocks. The Amex Gold Bugs index jumped 1.3% and GDX rose 0.68%. The Mining Stock Journal noted that the performance disparity showed that capital flows were more directed at the largest cap mining stocks. The newsletter noted that the sentiment toward mining stocks turned negative again last Friday and more negative on Monday, with the Hulbert Gold Newsletter Sentiment Index dropping to -6% Monday from -3% on Friday. It remained unchanged from minus 6% yesterday.

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 Copper.

ASCU is an early-stage copper developer and explorer of the Cactus Mine and its satellite project, Parks/Salyer, both situated on a 4km mine trend on private land in Arizona’s porphyry copper district. Opportunity for significant growth and scale exist along the mine trend, while future capex requirements outlined in the Cactus PEA benefit from significant onsite and nearby access to infrastructure. The Company is led by an executive management team and Board which have a long-standing track record of successful project delivery in North America. For more information, please visit www.arizonasonoran.com.

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

Meridian Mining reported more assays from the Cabaçal gold-copper VMS deposit this morning. Down-dip resource drilling has intercepted new strong gold-copper trends within the CNWE area, while infill drilling has continued to confirm the high-grade near-surface gold trend within the Indicated Resource envelope, designed to enhance its level of confidence in the evaluation of high-grade starter pits. Extension drilling returned 13m of 3.4 g/t gold, .9% copper and 5.1 g/t silver which the company is calling a new gold-copper rich trend within the localized gold overprint. Drilling at the Cabaçal's Northwest Extension returned 8.8m of 4.8 g/t gold, including a .35m interval of 70.1 g/t gold. This is a new down-dip high-grade gold trend drilled at the limit of the Indicated Resource. These assay results will be included in the 2023 resource update. Meridian Mining trades on the TSX with MNO and on the OTCQB with MRRDF. News Release

Arras Minerals shared assay results from two holes this morning from the ongoing exploration drill program at the Beskauga copper-gold deposit and surrounding area. Results reported today were 1,124.1m of .61% copper equivalent, which included 136m of 1.01%CuEq and 70m of 1.4% CuEq. The other hole reported today returned 568.7m of .39% CuEq. In addition to Beskauga, the company has also recently drill tested targets at “Beskauga South”, located approximately 3.2 kilometres to the south of the Beskauga deposit. The company says visual confirmation of sulphide mineralization in these holes demonstrates the size of the copper-gold mineralizing system in the Beskauga area. Arras Minerals trades on the TSXV with ARK. News Release

Surge Battery Metals reported that the  the first hole of an eight-hole reverse circulation drill program has confirmed the potential for a lithium deposit existing at the Nevada North Lithium Project located north of Wells, Nevada. Six representative and randomly selected samples of silty clay, taken from varying depths in drill hole NN22-01, range from a low of 1,790 ppm to high of 4,500 ppm lithium. Drilling in all holes encountered similar silty clay units ranging in drilled depths of up to 91.5m in most holes and up to a depth of 160m in drill hole NN22-07. The maiden drilling program was implemented to test an area of about 1,700 meters east-west occurring in two bands, each about 300 to 400 meters wide that outlined a highly anomalous zone containing abundant sample points greater than 1,000 ppm lithium. Full drill results will be announced once received from the lab, expected in two to three weeks. Surge Battery Metals trades on the TSXV with NILI and on the OTC with NILIF. News Release

Equinox Gold provided the results of a  Feasibility Study for an expansion at the Company's 100%-owned Los Filos Mine Complex located in Mexico. Current Los Filos operations consist of both run-of-mine and crushed ore heap leach facilities. With continued development of the Bermejal Underground deposit and construction of a 10,000 tonnes per day carbon-in-leach processing plant, the Los Filos mine life would be extended to 14.5 years with life-of-mine average annual production increasing to 280,000 ounces of gold at all-in sustaining costs of $1,081 per oz. Total LOM production is estimated at 3.97 million oz of gold. Peak production during 2025-2030 averages 360,000 oz of gold per year. Using the base case $1,675/oz gold price, the expansion project has an after-tax net present value discounted at 5% of $625 million with an internal rate of return of 26%. Equinox Gold trades on the TSX and the NYSE American with EQX. News Release

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