Daniel T. Cook
What?…
On April 6 Cartier Resources (ECR, TSX-V) announced that its board of directors has approved a 50,000-m drill program to be conducted over the next 15 months.
“This is a significant investment intended to demonstrate the depth and lateral extensions of the existing Gold mineralization and historical resources on the projects,” commented Philippe Cloutier, President and CEO. “Our objective is to have these assets graduate to the next level towards new resource estimates and believe this will reward our shareholders.”
Cloutier and his team capitalized on the industry’s worst downturn in decades by acquiring 4 advanced Gold projects, including the past producing Chimo mine (an estimated 379,012 ounces) just east of Val d’Or in a Camp the BMR team is intimately familiar with. Agnico Eagle validated Cloutier’s moves by making a strategic investment into Cartier last December, acquiring 19.75% at 20 cents per share.
Notably, half of Cartier‘s drill program, or 25,000 m, will be focused on Chimo. Drilling will commence in June.
Cartier has already demonstrated continuity of high-grade Gold mineralization up to 650 m east of the former Chimo mine. Drill result highlights included 9.9 g/t Au over 4 m and 17.7 g/t Au over 3 m.
So what?…
A 50,000 m drill program!
Cartier has a market cap of $30.8 million. I’m not aware of any explorers of Cartier’s size that are drilling so extensively on 4 advanced Gold projects (all within the Abitibi). Here’s the breakdown of what to expect:
- Wilson project – 1 rig will be drilling 18 holes for a total of 7,000 m. The program is scheduled to be completed by June. Recent channel sampling results returned 21.3 g/t Au over 5 m;
- Chimo mine project – 2 drill rigs will complete a total of 25,000 m (June through December);
- Benoist Project – 10,000 m of drilling will target 16 anomalies early in 2018. A previous operator intersected 5.6 g/t Au over 53 m.
- Fenton project – with partner SOQUEM, 8,000 m are planned with the drilling starting in 2017 or early 2018.
If you know of any explorers in the $25 million to $50 million range that are doing this amount of drilling, please let me know – Cartier seems unique in the sense that it’s punching way above its weight class!
Now what?…
By this time next year Cartier could have 2 projects (maybe more) that are advancing toward an impressive NI-43-101 resource estimate and/or the feasibility stage.
Catalyst alert(s)!…
Nothing moves the price of an exploration stock like drill results and, importantly, the anticipation of drill results. Given the extensive 50,000 m program underway, one could only expect Cartier will be a news release powerhouse over the next 12 months. Expectations have been building into the stock price but I don’t believe they’re fully baked in at this point.
Clearly, ECR is in a well defined uptrend and the volume is really beginning to pick up. Notice the +2 million volume bar from the first week of April – it pushed ECR from 20 to 23 cents. Any weakness down toward that level would create an excellent entry point for those looking for an aggressive drilling play selling for a reasonable price.
About the writer: Daniel T. Cook, the newest member of the BMR team, is from the great state of Texas and now resides in beautiful Arizona. Daniel has a strong passion for the junior resource sector and has followed the Venture and broader markets with great interest since he bought his first stock 18 years ago at the age of 12. He’s also a licensed investment professional who was a Bright Future’s Scholar at the University of Central Florida, graduating in 2010 with a major in Finance. We know our readers will enjoy his material and benefit from his wisdom and insight. We welcome him aboard!
Daniel,
I like that you mentioned 20 – 23 cents as a potential buy range. ECR seems like a gem.
I couldn’t help but notice ECR’s longer term chart (5 years) looks very much like BEX.V, except that BEX has moved back down and hit it’s uptrend line around 10 cents. Any Comments regarding BEX as a buying opportunity at this price?
Thank you!
Comment by Charles — April 15, 2017 @ 1:36 pm
Charles, BEX looks great to me. Benton’s land position along the Cape Ray fault, SW of Marathon (and now Altius) is still under-appreciated in my opinion. Insiders have been buying on the way up. They even have 1 project adjacent to Goldcorp’s Red Lake Mine that could make for an interesting story, if Benton decides to tell it. Other wildcards would be the JV w/ Rio Tinto and Bedivere. $7.5M Mkt cap with approximately $2.5M worth of cash and securities, what’s not to like? If I recall, John called for a pullback to the 9 or 10 cent level (which we just had). BEX should be moving up from here.
Comment by Daniel — April 17, 2017 @ 6:46 am
Mr. Chris Lodder reports
BGM INTERSECTS 19.20 G/T AU OVER 54.40 METRES AND 11.42 G/T AU OVER 28.55 METRES AT SHAFT ZONE; TWO WIDE MINERALIZED STOCKWORKS DISCOVERED AT ISLAND MOUNTAIN
Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. has made a new discovery from the continuing 130,000-metre phase 2 Island Mountain and Valley zone exploration drilling program at the company’s flagship Cariboo gold project. Detailed drilling results are presented at the end of this release.
New high-grade stockworks intersected at Shaft zone
The Company is very pleased to announce that Island Mountain Shaft Zone drillhole IM-17-072 has discovered a formerly unidentified wide network of high tenor veining grading 19.20 g/t Au over 54.40 metres including 32.06 g/t Au over 30.70 metres. This new intersection consists of several higher-grade intervals including 272.00 g/t Au over 0.50 metres, 760.00 g/t Au over 0.85 metres, 64.20 g/t Au over 0.50 metres, 42.80 g/t Au over 0.50 metres, 65.40 g/t Au over 1.50 metres and 15.80 g/t Au over 1.15 metres. An intensely silica altered and pyritized sandstone package hosts this dense network of mineralized veining. Located 250 metres vertically below surface in the Shaft Zone, this auriferous occurrence is untested by drilling above and below the intersection and is open for expansion. In addition to the aforementioned intersection, IM-17-072 also established auriferous veining grading 25.00 g/t Au over 2.85 metres located 25 metres below surface, 16.55 g/t Au over 5.45 metres 100 metres vertically below surface, followed by 9.41 g/t Au over 3.30 metres 110 metres below surface.
Additional High Grade Stockworks Intersected at Shaft Zone
Situated 180 metres vertically below drillhole IM-17-072 which intersected 19.20 g/t Au over 54.40 metres including 32.06 g/t Au over 30.70 metres, drillhole IM-17-078 has discovered another broad occurrence of sandstone hosted stockwork veining averaging 11.42 g/t Au over 28.55 metres including two subintervals of 30.76 g/t Au over 6.60 and 12.10 g/t Au over 8.15 metres. These new intersections occur at vertical depth of 420 metres below surface, and are open for expansion in all directions due to the extremely limited drilling at this depth.
Because these standalone drillholes constitute two widely separated intercepts that cannot be confidently corroborated by additional drillhole pierce points, the geometry and hence true width of the potential mineralized zone cannot be assuredly concluded at this time.
Chris Lodder, President and CEO of Barkerville Gold Mines, comments, “These intersections are some of the best to date on Island Mountain that continues to produce new zones of higher grade, wide zones of gold mineralization. We will be following up with both wide spaced step out and closer infill drilling in this area to better determine dimensions of this potentially strongly mineralized vein corridor”.
About the Phase II Program
The 130,000 metre 2017 Phase II exploratory and delineation drill program on Island Mountain is intended to determine the extent of the vein systems that were historically never explored, and is aimed at discovering new vein systems and sulphide replacement bodies that will ultimately inform a maiden resource at Island Mountain. Seven drill rigs are currently operating on Island Mountain, with an eighth rig testing for additional mineralization below the former Aurum and Cariboo Gold Quartz Mines which have never been explored since mining operations ceased circa 1960.
Comment by Jon - BMR — April 17, 2017 @ 7:36 am
Daniel,
Thanks for the insight. Benton looks good to me too, especially with its market cap like you pointed out.
All of you at BMR rock.
Comment by Charles — April 17, 2017 @ 7:25 pm