Nickel Reaches $100,000/ton
Welcome to Mining Stock Daily. I’m Trevor Hall. And I’m Paul Harris.
Today is Tuesday, March 8th.
Gold rose another US$27 per ounce from Friday's close, settling at $2,001 in the afternoon Globex session while silver was flat compared with Friday's afternoon Globex settlement at $25.85 per ounce. Early Monday gold was as high as $2,007 and silver hit $26.21. The Mining Stock Journal said that Comex trading data shows that, between the off-exchange trade products like Privately Negotiated Transactions and Exchange For Physical agreements, plus a big jump in paper gold open interest accompanied by the soaring short position of the Comex banks, there's heavy official opposition to the upward movement in the metals.
The mining stocks diverged positively from the rest of the stock market with the GDX up 2.6%. Several junior micro-cap stocks were up anywhere from 10 to 17%. The Mining Stock Journal noted that the Hulbert Gold Newsletter Sentiment index hit 72 on Friday. A reading this high is always accompanied by a big pullback, though the indicator is not useful in terms of the timing of the eventual sell-off. For now, the events in eastern Europe will dictate the directional movement in all of the markets.
On a side note, nickel rose this morning to $100,000 per ton before retracing a bit. The London Metal Exchange suspended trading in its nickel market after an unprecedented price spike left brokers struggling to pay margin calls against unprofitable short positions
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… Integra Resources.
Integra Resources is advancing the past-producing DeLamar Project in southwestern Idaho. The Company has continued to demonstrate resource growth and conversion through greenfield and brownfield exploration to further de-risk and advance the project towards permitting. Integra Resources trades on the TSX-V under ITR and the NYSE American under ITRG.
And here’s what you need to know this morning….
Nighthawk Gold reported an updated mineral resource estimate on its Indin Lake gold property in Northwest Territories, Canada, with a substantial expansion in pit-constrained mineralization. The indicated open pit resource is now 46.4 million tonnes grading 1.38 grams per tonne, with the contained ounces increasing 121% to 2 million ounces from 933,400oz compared to the 2021 estimate, although the grade decreased from 1.62g/t previously. The global indicated resource grew to 58.2Mt grading 1.44g/t for 2.7Moz up from 2.2Moz previously. The company said its shift in strategy last year towards higher-grade, pit-constrained mineralization, combined with a much more accelerated and aggressive approach towards exploration, resulted in a significant expansion in the open pit mineral resource. Nighthawk Gold trades on the TSX under NHK and on the OTCQX under MIMZF. News release
Liberty Gold entered into an agreement with National Bank Financial and BMO Capital Markets to act as lead underwriters on a C$30 million bought-deal financing of 27.3 million shares at a price of $1.10, about a 9% discount over its close at $1.20. The proceeds will be used to fund exploration and development of the Black Pine and Goldstrike oxide gold development assets in the Great Basin in Idaho and Utah, USA. Liberty plans 85,000m of drilling at Black Pine this year as well as engineering and permitting programs and further de-risking activities. At Goldstrike, a 25,000m drill program, engineering, de-risking, permitting and baseline studies are planned for 2022 to continue advancing the asset towards a pre-feasibility study decision. Liberty Gold trades on the TSX under LGD. News release
Calibre Mining announced assay results from the ongoing resource conversion and expansion drill program at the newly acquired Pan mine in Nevada. Numerous results outlined indicate the potential for resource expansion while focusing on converting known zones of mineralization. Results included 1.02g/t Au over 50.3m and 0.83g/t Au over 34m. These initial results indicate that several targets previously identified by the Nevada exploration team have the potential to add to the overall Pan resource and extend the mine life. Calibre’s 2022 drill program will continue to advance near mine resource conversion and expansion opportunities and test new targets that have not been drilled within the Pan exploration concession. Calibre Mining trades on the TSX with CXB and on the OTCQX with CXBMF. News Release
Argonaut Gold is a headless chicken no longer as it announced the appointment of Larry Radford as president and CEO March 21. Radford brings over 35 years of technical and operations experience in the mining industry. Most recently, he served as the COO of Gold Standard Ventures, where he led the development of the South Railroad project. Prior to that, he was SVP & COO of Hecla Mining where he was responsible for managing several underground mines, which is the experience Argonaut needs as it builds out Magino in Ontario, Canada, which saw the company’s previous president and CEO fall on his sword after announcing a massive capex blowout to C$800M. Argonaut Gold trades on the TSX under AR. News release
Scottie Resources reported additional new assays on the Blueberry Contact Zone at the past-producing Scottie gold mine near Stewart in British Columbia, Canada, which extended the strike length of the mineralizing structure to more than 720m. The company reported intercepts of 11.86m grading 34.6 grams per tonne and 10.3m grading 4.43g/t, which it said indicates that the contact zone is developing into a significant gold zone with size and grade potential. The company’s 2022 drilling program aims to significantly increase the size of the zone with aggressive step outs along the structure with more than 15,000m planned. In 2021, the company developed a new geological model for the Blueberry Contact Zone as a property scale structural feature. Scottie Resources trades on the TSXV under SCOT and on the OTCQB under SCTSF. News release
The competition for biggest and best porphyry intercept continues to draw contenders with Los Andes Copper reporting an intercept of 1,177m grading 0.43% copper and 198 parts per million molybdenum, or 0.5% copper equivalent, in hole CMV-001B at its Vizcachitas project in central Chile from 64m depth. Assays for silver are pending. The company said it plans to systematically look for the limits of Vizcachitas with some 6,000m of the current 30,000m drilling program completed. Los Andes Copper trades on the TSXV under LA and on the OTCQX under LSANF. News release
Surge Copper announced complete assay results for three holes from the Berg deposit located on the Berg property in British Columbia. Thos results were 325m grading .42% copper equivalent from 15m downhole, 162m of .69% copper equivalent from 20m downhole and 357m grading .59% copper equivalent from 24m downhole, with this hole ending in mineralization. The drilling completed in 2021 at Berg was the first program undertaken by Surge at the Berg Property and adds to the existing database of approximately 53,754m over 215 holes completed by prior operators. The Berg deposit forms a ring-like shape around a central intrusive stock, and is characterized by an extensive supergene enrichment blanket in the upper portions of the deposit. The Company has a right to earn a 70% interest in Berg from Centerra Gold. Surge trades on the TSX Venture with SURG and on the OTCQX with SRGXF. News Release
That concludes today’s morning briefing.
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