Iskut, British Columbia – 7:20 am Pacific
There are discovery opportunities up here in northwest British Columbia as far as the eye can see, and this morning we have some interesting maps and information to share from an area just under 100 km west-northwest of Iskut that is beginning to heat up and should really ignite when Pete Bernier’s Prosper Gold team (PGX.H, TSX-V) hits the ground running in the coming weeks – perhaps sooner if Doubleview Capital (DBV, TSX-V) has a winner in Hole #6…yes, there’s much more to the story up here than just Colorado Resources (CXO, TSX-V) and its North ROK Copper-Gold discovery which is looking exceptionally promising…from Victory Ventures (VVN, TSX-V) to West Cirque (WCQ, TSX-V), to a host of other companies in the general North ROK-Red Chris area, and all the way out to Telegraph Creek, investors will have plenty of opportunities this summer to benefit from intense exploration of ground that has been under-explored and is highly prospective for the discovery of new mineral deposits…the results of last month’s last provincial election in B.C. have also given some life to an industry that was bracing for a potential disaster with what appeared to be a certain NDP victory…
Gold has traded in a range between $1,362 and $1,385 so far today as a very important 2-day Fed meeting begins…the FMOC meeting will conclude tomorrow not only with the Fed’s usual post-meeting communiqué but also a summary of economic projections and a news conference by Chairman Ben Bernanke…as of 7:20 am Pacific, Gold is down $18 an ounce at $1,367…Silver is off 22 cents to $21.62…Copper is down a nickel to $3.15, thanks in part to news that China’s home price rises have slowed for a second straight month in a sign that Beijing’s attempts to bring stability to a frothy property market are having some effect…Crude Oil has reversed to the upside this morning and is now 46 cents higher at $98.23 while the U.S. Dollar Index has gained one-tenth of a point to 80.76…
The Dollar Index has been hit hard during the last few weeks while Gold has stabilized…however, the greenback appears ready for a comeback according to John’s 6-month daily chart below – and what that might mean for Gold is an important question…the Dollar Index landed on very strong technical support yesterday…of course there’s a chance it could break support – we may get the answer after the Fed meeting – but at the moment it appears to be in a good position to reverse to the upside…
U.S. Dollar Index-Gold Comparative Chart
Below is a comparative chart showing how Gold has performed over the last 6 months in relation to the U.S. Dollar Index…
Today’s Markets
The Dow is up 77 points through the first 50 minutes of trading while the TSX has gained 68 points…the Venture is off 2 points at 932 while the TSX Gold Index has declined 4 points to 187…Asian markets were quiet overnight with Japan’s Nikkei average falling 26 points to 13007 while China’s Shanghai Composite gained 3 points to finish at 2159…European markets are generally positive in late trading overseas with traders citing talk of possible monetary easing from the central bank of China and better-than-expected economic data from Germany…
Telegraph Creek – The Next North ROK?
A few weeks ago, an enterprising individual put together a web site (www.ColoradoAreaPlay.com) highlighting companies active in the general area of Colorado’s North ROK discovery…as useful as that site is, it tells only part of the story of what’s happening up here as there’s no mention of the important Telegraph Creek area which some investors have just started to hear about after last Thursday’s news from Doubleview and the possibility of a “hit” on hole #6 of its Hat Property…we first brought Telegraph Creek to our readers’ attention when Prosper Gold entered into an option agreement with Firesteel Resources (FTR, TSX-V) on its Copper Creek Property May 7…the deal constitutes Prosper’s qualifying transaction…what we found so interesting was that after a couple of years of searching the globe for another project after Blackwater that took Richfield Ventures from pennies to a buy-out in the hundreds of millions by New Gold Inc. (NGD, TSX), Pete Bernier and his team settled on Copper Creek…”What makes you think something is there?”, we asked Bernier several weeks ago…”Dirk”, he replied…Dirk, of course, is renowned geologist Dirk Tempelman-Kluit who uncovered the geological secrets of Blackwater…in previous exploration, Firesteel got some very interesting results from Copper Creek including one drill hole that assayed 0.44% Cu and 0.32 g/t Au over 242 metres…the Prosper team are experts, among other things, at data compilation and interpretation…they have reviewed a lot of historical data from the area and are hugely bullish on the opportunity to discover a world class Copper-Gold deposit at Copper Creek, and for the potential of the area in general…this, of course, bodes well for Doubleview but there’s another company with a massive and valuable land position (17,500 hectares) contiguous to the western and southern boundaries of Copper Creek that investors have overlooked – Garibaldi Resources Corp. (GGI, TSX-V) which has been trading around a nickel for the past few months…GGI has a skilled management/geological team and the ability to seize opportunities…
There is some fascinating information on GGI’s Grizzly Property in a technical report on the company’s web site, so we encourage our readers to check it out as part of their due diligence…we don’t have time to summarize the report for our readers just yet but we will in the coming days (one quick note – an airborne magnetic survey completed by Garibaldi confirmed that the rock units and structures associated with mineralization at Copper Creek continue to the southeast onto the Grizzly Property)…suffice to say, this is a property of serious merit and over the past year or so Teck Resources Ltd. (TCK, TSX) has staked ground right up to the southern boundary of Grizzly…Garibaldi has some interesting options – they can elect to continue to explore this property on their own, or the Grizzly could get optioned to the highest bidder – and rest assured, there is interest in it…Garibaldi’s main focus has been on Mexico, where they have some promising projects, and they hold over 2 million shares of Paramount Gold and Silver (PZG, TSX)…but with the activity and excitement up here in northwest B.C., we suspect their Grizzly Project is going to very much come into play in the near future…
A picture tells a thousand words, so we have 4 maps this morning (3 from the Garibaldi web site, 1 from the Doubleview web site) that our readers should find very helpful…
The first map helps explain why this entire area is so prospective for deposits…we have placed a white star on Mount Kaketsa in the northwest corner of Grizzly…one theory is that this is the intrusive body that’s driving fluids…to put it in layman’s language, it could very well be the “heat engine” that has cooked up the rocks at Grizzly, Copper Creek and the general area…
Map #2 is a regional geology map that extends from just west of the Grizzly Property all the way east to the Red Chris and a little beyond…
Map #3 shows Garibaldi’s Grizzly claims, Firesteel’s Copper Creek Property (optioned by Prosper Gold), and Doubleview Capital’s Hat Property…
Map #4 is from the Doubleview web site, showing prospective areas for mineralization at the Hat Property…we don’t know for sure at this point, but we suspect that DBV’s first 5 holes were drilled around Zone A which was their initial target area…the company reported last Thursday that hole #6 was collared about 800 metres south of the first 5 holes, so that would put hole #6 either in Zone “B” or Zone “C”…
After 2 strong trading sessions, Doubleview has weakened slightly in early trading today…as of 7:20 am Pacific, it’s off a penny-and-a-half but on light volume…Colorado is unchanged at 75 cents while Victory Ventures is unchanged at 13.5 cents…more on Colorado, Victory and the Iskut River region tomorrow…
Encanto Potash (EPO, TSX-V) Chart Update
Encanto was starting to look quite bullish last week which is why John did an “awareness” chart…below is an updated chart as John is waiting for confirmation of a breakout…through the first 50 minutes of trading, EPO is up a penny at 30.5 cents…
Note: John, Jon and Terry do not hold share positions in EPO. John and Jon both hold share positions in VVN while Jon also holds share positions in CXO, DBV and GGI.
