Eric O's Favorite Gold Miners

We've crossed back into Ontario now.  Ontario Hwy 101 will take us all the way to Timmins.  

There is 5-6 million ounces of past production along the next 60 miles or so, and the name of ​St Andrew Goldfields ​will come up repeatedly.  They have properties spread out all along this stretch of the Break.  Market cap is running around $320m.  

First up, along the south side of the road, we hit St Andrew's Holt and Holloway Mines.  These two mines are just a stone's throw apart, and combine for a total of about 65,000 ounces per year.  Costs are currently running high (north of $1000/oz), and this is therefore high on the to-do list of things to work on.

We've got another 5-10 miles of driving through St Andrew's properties before we get to what I think is a very interesting stretch of road.  First up is the Garrison Property of ​Northern Gold Mining.  ​This consists of a 1.2 million ounce open pittable resource at Garrcon, and another 300,000 ounces of deeper, higher grade ore at Jonpol.  These are just a few hundred meters apart so it's not hard to imagine some kind of combined operation here someday.  Northern recently completed a PEA for Garrcon alone that envisions up to 130,000 ounces per year, with a capex estimated at $156m.  Not too shabby.  Market cap sitting at $35m.  Another interesting thing about Northern is that Insiders own 40%, Sprott owns 15%, and Valgold owns 15%.  That only leaves about 30% of the stock floating around.

On strike a couple of miles from there, we've got ​Moneta Porcupine Mines.  ​They are working on what they call their Golden Highway Project.  Several targets involved, but the main ones are Windjammer South and the Southwest Zone.  Windjammer South has 43-101 compliant resources of about 520,000 ounces.  Grades are amenable to an open pit.  The Southwest Zone is just a few hundred meters away.  Barrick worked on it in the 1990's and calculated (pre 43-101 days) 625,000 ounces.  This is a higher grade, underground target.  Interestingly, Moneta recently drilled a hole drilled in the "gap area" between these two targets and came up with 1 gram over 117 meters.  Seems like things could get bigger here.  Market cap of about $40m.

Sitting smack in between the properties of Northern and Moneta, is a little strip of land owned by St Andrew.  It's their Garrison Creek Project.  Earlier stage, but they are pulling long intervals of open pit grade ore.

This whole zone, Northern to St Andrew to Moneta is only about 5 miles of strike length.  If someone was thinking big around here they could joint venture them all together and come up with something pretty huge.

Back closer to the highway now, we pass the Fenn-Gib project.  Recently optioned from Barrick by Lake Shore Gold.  ​Lake Shore thinks they can come up a 2-3 million ounce open pit there, but Barrick retains some back-in rights if it goes north of 5 million.

Next up is the Hislop Mine of ​St Andrew (there's that name again).  This smallish open pit should produce about 20,000 ounces this year.  Expansion exploration is ongoing, including some adjoining ground recently optioned from ​Stroud Resources.  

Very close by, and along strike from Hislop is the Black Fox Mine of ​Brigus Gold.  ​This combined open pit/underground operation is currently ramping up and should hit 100,000 ounces next year.  They are getting some encouraging exploration results southeast of the mine in what they call the "147 Zone", which lies just a couple of kilometers from Hislop.

We'll pass through the town of Matheson next.  Population of 2,600 so I'm thinking there might be somewhere to stop for lunch.  The Cozy Diner sounds about right for me. 

Once past Matheson, we hit the Taylor Project of St Andrew.  ​This is probably their most advanced project, with a lot of drilling this summer.  Currently reporting 560,000 ounces of total resources, in an underground type target.  Further down the road comes St Andrew's Clavos Mine.  A former small producer, it has recently been optioned by little ​Sage Gold.  With their little $7m market cap, they think maybe they can get Clavos back up and running.

Next along the road is the Aquarius Project of St Andrew.  There is supposed to be over 1 million ounces here, but St Andrew hasn't done anything with it for years.  Don't know the back story on that one.

Nearby Aquarius, ​Moneta Porcupine ​is back to work on their Nighthawk Lake property.  Early days on this one, though one hole did hit 2 g over 57 m.

Take a breath!   We are almost to Timmins now, where we'll really get into the big stuff!

Part III to follow...

Sudden pop in Maudore right out of the blue.  No news, no nothing.  Whazzz Up?

I took a peek at it.  Yes, those look like fabulously high grade drill results.  And yes they look to be doing all the right stuff.  But.....

Unless I'm missing something, I can't find a 43-101 compliant resource calculation, nor any kind of seat-of-the-pants resource calculation at all.  They say they are under construction but I can't find what the total capex budget is.  They say they expect to be producing in 2013, but I can't find any estimate as to what they expect for annual production.

I hang my hat on the fundamentals, and I've just got nothing to work with here.  No way for me to proceed.  

Tom L is our technical guy, but to my amateur eye, just looking at the chart I see nothing in particular to get excited about.  It's a yawner.  Perhaps worse than a yawner, with lower highs and lower lows.

Sorry, but there are way too many juicy looking opportunities out there right now for me to want to take a flyer on this one.