The Maven Letter: 13 March 2024

Sorry I did not publish a letter last week but it was…an interesting one. I was supposed to take both kids to Toronto for the Metals Investor Forum and PDAC. Had a detailed schedule of work, childcare, and together time involving a nanny and family and friends.  Then…Porter cancelled my flight 5 hours before departure, the baby broke out in a contagious rash (hand foot mouth) last minute and had to be left at home (rendering the carefully-arranged nanny unnecessary), Lillian came down with the virus two days later in Toronto, all of our plans with family and friends were cancelled, getting in touch with Porter took 6-hour waits two days in a row, my computer died, and I got a hernia. So it wasn’t the trip I had planned!!! (Lillian and I still managed to have a good time, I promise.) In terms of work, it was also interesting. Heading into PDAC, sentiment in the metals and mining space was horrible; it was as terrible as I have ever seen it. In stark contrast, the rest of the markets were soaring, led by big tech (still) and speculative arenas like crypto. Then gold broke out. From February 29 to […]

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Maven Premium: West Red Lake Gold – gold linked notes

Hi Premium, A different opportunity today. West Red Lake Gold Mines needs to spend roughly $50 million this year to get the Madsen mine ready for restart. And by ‘ready’, I really mean ready – after this investment, which will add important areas and connections underground, develop a bunch of new stopes for mining flexibility, drive a short tunnel under the public road that’s between the portal and the plant (so they don’t have to change the ore onto public-road-allowed trucks, a transfer that costs money and likely drops free gold on the ground), fix a few parts of the plant, and build some missing infrastructure like an on-site office building (rather than leasing a dozen trailers!), WRLG should be just about ready to turn the mine on. I say ‘just about’ because the company is working on the official, detailed mine restart plan. That will come out in about 6 months. It’s a bit backwards that the official document won’t be out until a good chunk of the work is already done or underway, but that’s just how much time it takes to prepare such a document. Since the document isn’t out, I can’t know the full costs or […]

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The Maven Letter: 28 February 2024

I’m off to Toronto early tomorrow for the back-to-back Metals Investor Forum and Prospectors and Developers Convention (PDAC). PDAC is the largest mining conference in the world, with more than 20,000 people usually attending to discuss everything from dump trucks and mining automation systems to indigenous relations to project partnerships to government supports or challenges. It’s a doozy of an event. I have hours of work ahead today to create a talk for MIF and then to pack, which is not simple as I’m taking both kids with me. We have lots of family and friends in the Toronto area so it’s a good chance for a visit…as long as I survive the plane ride (15 months is just about the worst age to ask a kid to sit still for multiple hours!). So the letter is out early today! I start with uranium, a topic I haven’t covered in several weeks. The spot price dropped in that time; I explain why and why I am unfazed and very bullish. Then it’s time to introduce the discovery-focused company I mentioned last week: Strikepoint Gold. We owned Strikepoint many years ago when it was focused on Yukon. Today’s Strikepoint is very […]

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Maven Premium: Emperor Metals (CSE: AUOZ)

Financing: raising up to $3 million by selling units for $0.125 apiece. Each unit comprises a share and half a warrant exercisable at $0.25 for 2 years. I am participating in the financing. If you would like to participate, please let me know your desired allocations by end of day Monday February 26th.   Emperor Metals is about two things: the Duquesne West project, which is the prolific Rouyn-Noranda gold belt in Quebec, and John Florek. Florek is a geologist who has worked for several major and mid-tier miners. The thread that connects the work he did at those companies is making better use of data to (1) find more ounces at known deposits, (2) create more accurate resource models, and (3) as a result make mines more profitable. One key example is the work Florek did with Detour Gold, which was struggling to break even at its Detour Lake gold mine. By creating an AI model of the data and then following the targets it pointed to, Florek’s team was able to increase the ounce count through the mill by 20%, which generated $90 – $150 million in additional revenue annually. Kirkland Lake Gold acquired Detour shortly thereafter for the profits this […]

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Maven Premium: Strikepoint Gold (TSXV: SKP)

Financing: raising up to $2 million by selling units for $0.04 apiece. Each unit comprises a share and half a warrant exercisable at $0.07 for 2 years.   I am participating in the financing. If you would like to participate, please let me know your desired allocations by end of day Monday February 26th.   Strikepoint Gold is about to start drilling the Cuprite project for the first time. To summarize the evidence that Cuprite hosts a gold system in three points: Three independent investigations – geologic mapping, geophysics, and soil sampling – all generated precisely the evidence you want to see when looking for this kind of gold system and the evidence all points to the same large target area The project covers the intersection of a series of east-west faults and the western edge of the Stonewall Mountain Caldera. There are half a dozen major gold systems in the area that exist where a major structure crosses a caldera rim Geologists have long eyed this ground because of the obvious alteration across white hills almost beside the highway, but for decades the ground was not available for staking because of its proximity to a rail line that runs […]

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Silver Stock Investor: February 2024 Midmonth

February 20, 2024 I’ve been trying to get a read on the near-term economic outlook, but it’s not easy. One economic indicator is positive on one day, the next day it’s another indicator that’s negative. Take last week for example. U.S. January CPI was reported, up 0.3% for the month and 3.1% for the year. That was up from December’s 0.2% gain, though down from December’s annual 3.4% gain. Meanwhile, economists had expected a 0.2% gain for month of January, and a 2.9% annual increase. Ok, so now let’s strip out volatile food and gas. What we have is “core’ inflation, which was actually worse, with January prices up 0.4% and 3.9% for the year. That (naturally) caused gold and silver to tank, with gold dropping from $2,030 to $1,990. Silver dropped from $22.80 to $22, but quickly recovered to $23.40 over the next few days. That sudden weakness was not a surprise, because the market was starting to price in later Fed rate cuts, rather than sooner. What was a surprise was the much stronger bounce in silver over the second half of the week as consumer sentiment rose to its highest in about 2.5 years. I think that’s […]