Morning Briefing: Rio2 Provides Fenix Construction Update

Good morning and welcome to the Mining Stock Daily Morning Briefing. I’m Trevor Hall

Its Monday, January 13th.  

Gold closed the week with a stellar performance on Friday following the hot jobs numbers, testing trend resistance at $2,735, and falling to close the day and the week at $2,715 per ounce on the front month. 

Silver followed the same path as gold, reaching a high of $31.84/oz and falling to close the day and the week at $31.31, up for the 7th straight day. The dollar rallied while U.S. stock futures fell sharply after the jobs data as trader expectations on fed rate cuts in 2025 were diminished. 

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 375,000 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….. 

Rio2 provided an update on construction activities at the Fenix Gold Mine in the Atacama Region of Chile. Bulk earthworks at the plant site have been completed and concrete bases for the footings of the processing plant have been poured. Earthworks have commenced on the leach pad stability platform, which forms the base of the Phase 1 leach pad. Excavation earthworks for the pregnant leach solution pond have commenced adjacent to the ADR plant. In February, the Company will commence a 12,000m grade control drilling program focused on the first three years of production planned from the Fenix South and Fenix North pit areas. Fenix South will be the first area drilled during the months of February, March and April, and Fenix North will be drilled in October and November. The Fenix South pit will be the principal source of ore for the first year of mine production. A preliminary internal study completed by the Rio2 technical team has indicated that the Fenix Gold Mine has the potential to be expanded from its first phase 20,000 tonnes per day ore mining rate to around 80,000 tonnes per day. Increasing the ore mining rate to this level could see gold production rise from an initial rate of approximately 100,000 oz per annum to a target range of 250,000 to 300,000 oz per annum. (TSXV: RIO; OTCQX: RIOFF) News Release

Banyan Gold reported new intercept results from a 21-hole diamond drill program at its Powerline deposit as part of the Aurmac project in Canada’s Yukon.  The headline result of hole 582 returned 32.6 m of 2.13 g/t gold from 14.0m.  Other holes returned results running between .35 and 1.05 g.t gold, mostly from surface or near surface. Banyan CEO Tara Christie noted "This year's program has confirmed areas of consistent higher-grade mineralization within the Powerline Deposit, while strengthening geological controls on the Resource model." Banyan trades on the (TSX-V:BYN) (OTCQB:BYAGF. News Release

Ivanhoe Electric provided initial drill results from the company’s 50/50 joint venture with Saudi Arabian Mining Company’s Ma’aden from the Umm Ad Dabash prospect, near Ma’aden’s existing Al Amar gold-copper-zinc mine. Utilizing Ivanhoe’s Typhoon Technology, the company drilled three holes into copper mineralization beyond 700m ad depth. Results included 13.1m of 1.31% copper and 4.5 g/t silver from a depth of 717.9m. Drilling to date has defined a mineralized system extending over 250 meters in strike length and 400 meters down dip. (NYSE American: IE) (TSX: IE) News Release

Vista Gold announced the final drill results for its 2024 drilling program at the Mt Todd gold project. Highlights include hole 32, part of the South Cross Lode or SXL, which returned 3.0 meters at 4.13 g/t gold from 121.1 meters downhole and 1.1 meters at 16.00 g Au/t from 142.9 meters downhole.   Drill holes 33 & 34 returned 43.3 meters at 0.82 g Au/t and 29.0 meters at 1.55 g Au/t, respectively. The company believes these results further delineate the wider veins with high gold grade intercepts that are consistent with previous drill results in the South Cross Lode. President and CEO Frederick Earnest commented, “The holes announced today were an excellent way to finish our drilling in the South Cross Lode. We are most excited about the wider and higher-grade vein intercepts that we continued to encounter at depths beginning just 100 meters below surface.”  Vista Gold trades on the NYSE American and TSX: VGZ. News Release

Aurion Resources published results for five holes and two extensions drilled at the Kaaresselkä area. Highlights at the Vanha prospect within the Kaaresselkä area were 8.08 g/t Au over 6.75m and 3 g/t Au over 16.25m. The gold mineralized system at Vanha is interpreted to extend over 800 m along strike and to at least 200 m depth. The gold mineralization is open along strike and at depth. Scout holes on the western part of the Risti property returned 3.33 g/t Au over 1.55m. (TSXV: AU) (OTCQX: AIRRF) News Release

FPX Nickel published results of an economic impact study for the Baptiste Nickel Project in British Columbia. The study shows a total gross domestic product of $45.6 billion and total direct, indirect and induced tax revenues of $15.5B. Baptiste would offer approximately 1,100 direct and 3,400 indirect jobs created per year from construction to the end of operations. (TSXV: FPX) (OTCQB: FPOCF) News Release

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That’s it for today everyone. Have a great day. Stay safe. 

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