Metallic Minerals – Update On Klondike Alluvial Gold Royalties And First Phase Drill Program At La Plata Copper-Silver-Gold-PGE Project In Colorado
Scott Petsel, President of Metallic Minerals (TSX.V:MMG – OTCQB:MMNGF), joins us from the Invest Yukon conference in Dawson City after giving a series of investor property tours out to its Australia Creek gold alluvial royalty property in the Klondike Gold District. Currently the primary operator working these claims towards production is Little Flake Mining, a company owned and operated by Parker Schnabel of Discovery Channel‘s top-rated television series, “Gold Rush.” Work is well underway with initial production and first royalty payments anticipated to start August. This ties into a larger discussion on how there could be room for 10 operators along their vast alluvial land claims, resulting in more future royalties, which could bring in more revenues to fund exploration at both the Keno Silver and La Plata Projects.
On July 11th the Company announced the start of the 2023 exploration and 5,000 meter drill campaign at the La Plata copper-silver-gold-PGE alkalic porphyry project, located in southwest Colorado. Scott outlined how the exploration work will be following up and stepping out from last year’s successful deeper drill hole# 22-04 hole which intersected 816 meters of 0.41% Cu Eq (0.30% Cu, 2.47 g/t Ag, 0.038 g/t Au, 0.055 g/t Pd and 0.093 g/t Pd) from surface and ended in 5.39% CuEq over 5.2 m (2.44% Cu, 18.7 g/t Ag, 5.0 g/t Au+PGE). This hole generated more interest in this project from larger companies, and lead to the announcement on May 18th of the $6.3 million strategic equity investment by Newcrest Mining Limited to further advance the La Plata Project.
We wrapped up reviewing the key news catalysts on tap, where Scott mentioned the upcoming resource update and ongoing drilling and assays to report over the next few months at La Plata, the royalty production and revenue updates due out later in the summer from Australia Creek, and the coming inaugural resource estimate at the Keno Silver Project later in the year.
If you have any follow up questions for Scott on Metallic Minerals, then please email me at Shad@kereport.com.
- In full disclosure, Shad is a shareholder of Metallic Minerals.
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Click here for a summary of the recent news out of Metallic Minerals.
Yeah, I’ve had Metallic Minerals filed under the “Silver” category for a long time, due to their high grade and additional lower-grade bulk tonnage exploration results at the Keno Silver project (next door to Hecla’s soon to be producing mine… now that they acquired Alexco).
However, the Gold royalties in the Klondike and significant Copper resources in Colorado have made MMG a much more complex story, with 3 legit projects now all advancing.
There aren’t many exploration companies that have a cash-flowing gold royalty (like Metallic Minerals will have starting in August), so that in itself is unique…. especially if they can get a few more operators on-board and producing from their alluvial claims for a basket of cash-flowing royalties down the road.
What is becoming more clear is that the La Plata Project, may start emerging as their new flagship, above and beyond the silver resources at Keno, and it is why Newcrest came in for the strategic position…. They want to see how the copper-gold-silver-platinum-palladium resources continue to expand. Later in the summer they intend to update the resources at La Plata with just the one deep drill hole they reported last year, to show just how significant it was.
Now that they have 5,000 more meters to drill this year (4-5 more deep holes, or a few deep holes and a few other shallow holes…. yet to be determined for this year’s program) they should be able to update the La Plata resources again next spring. At that point it may get more investor’s attention as a solid Copper & PM project in the US in the 5th best mining jurisdiction on the planet (according to the Fraser Institute’s most recent rankings).
Right now at a $51 Million market cap, I don’t think they are even getting full credit for their Silver discoveries in Keno (which will have a Maiden Resource Estimate coming out in Nov/Dec of this year), much less the emerging gold royalties assets in the Klondike. At this valuation, investors can basically pick up all the over 1 billion pounds of Copper equivalent resources in Colorado for free, and it may become the main value once more people wake up to what’s going on at La Plata.
There are a number of drill-plays trading at higher valuations, that don’t have any resources defined yet, that don’t have producing gold royalties, that don’t have Newcrest (now Newmont) as a key stakeholder, and that aren’t going to be featured on television on the show Gold Rush.
I’m a biased shareholder, of course, but there are a lot of good things going on for Metallic Minerals that I don’t see happening in most of the cash-starved drill-plays all waving their arms for investors attention. By this time next year, once the updated resources are in for La Plata, the maiden resource is in for the Keno Silver Project, and once the gold royalties at Australia Creek start paying off, I’d anticipate a rerating to substantially higher levels from where things are trading today.
Added a few more today
I need to add. Sometimes I forget why I own something. I have been wanting another copper project and I already had it.