Good post @Mujo - I totally agree that gold producers and gold companies in general have underperformed the rising gold price, however most of them usually do, even though they SHOULD be a leveraged play on gold. Rick Rule believes the reason is that most of them are poorly run and spend too much on G&A - General and Administrative expenses - and do not add enough value via exploration drilling and finding more gold that can be viably (profitably) mined - see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THyCUvUwMMI&t=1757s [16-March-2024]

Why is there such a discount in gold companies compared to the gold price? Because: "The Industry has Earned it!"

Johnny Mac also had a bit to say on that, suggesting that according to one of his spreadsheets when he last updated it a few years back there were only two (2) gold producers listed on the ASX who had produced more profit than they had spent - meaning total spending, including on M&A, Capex, Opex, all of it. Just Two!!

https://youtu.be/HG6W6DlsvyI?t=4292 [16-Feb-2024]

Prior to Silver Lake buying Sugar Zone (in Canada) in late 2021/early 2022, SLR were one of only two gold producers on the ASX (Perseus - PRU - is the other one) that "made more out of mining than it put back in" according to Johnny Mac - click on his nose above to hear his thoughts on that. He adds that SLR are probably still in front, even after what they've put into Sugar Zone, and so are PRU. I would not have picked SLR to be one of those two!! NST are close. CMM would be in front, except for the money they are investing in Mt Gibson currently, so would likely be back in the red until Mt Gibson pays for itself through gold produced. John does say that companies do need to invest, so you can't expect them to be on the black (or green) side of the ledger all of the time, but I get the impression that he likes to see them get out of the red every now and then at least.

So, what happened today (Tuesday) - well this did:

BGL-High-grade-shoots-identified-at-Deacon.PDF

They've had a reasonable run since I added them to my SMSF recently:

BGL have been a bit of a rollercoaster - more ups than downs more recently however:

This probably helped:

UBS Mid & Emerging Resources Presentation [19-March-2024]

Have a look at them apples @Pheadrus - and they're already in production and have a $2 Billion m/cap now, so I'm thinking they're a way safer bet than M2M ($4.5 million). This is what I mean about good gold hits being OK, but they need to be repeated and over a wide area that indicates a LOT of mineable (profitably, i.e. viable) gold. This (Bellevue) will be the highest grade gold mine in Australia over the next few years.

And of course, that brings us to today's MoM podcast:

Bellevue RAISE vs NO-RAISE - YouTube [19-March-2024]

"We ripped into the show with a chat on Bellevue’s (BGL) grade control drilling and asked the question – will they rattle the tin again?"

"Next, we delved into some intriguing posts by Develop (DVP) and Global Lithium (GL1) after MinRes’s announcement yesterday, then we talked copper with MAC & SFR getting a turn."

"Australian Vanadium (AVL) also got a mentioned before we discussed what the potential ramifications of disruptions to South32’s (S32) Groote Eyslandt manganese operation could be."

"We rounded off discussing a leadership change & a prediction at Poseidon Nickel (POS)."

CHAPTERS

0:00:00 Introduction

0:01:08 Will Belleveue raise again?

0:15:51 What are Develop & Global Lithium playing at?

0:21:13 Metals Acquisition Corp's big hits

0:25:31 Sandfire refinance their debt

0:28:34 Is all well at Australian Vanadium?

0:31:21 Will S32's Groote Eyslandt disrupt manganese markets?

0:38:00 Poseidon roll in the changes

DISCLAIMER

All Money of Mine episodes are for informational purposes only and may contain forward-looking statements that may not eventuate. The co-hosts are not financial advisers and any views expressed are their opinion only. Please do your own research before making any investment decision or alternatively seek advice from a registered financial professional.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/@MoneyofMine

Yeah, they probably will. Or maybe not. We shall see.

[Disclosure: I hold BGL shares both here and in a real money portfolio. I do NOT hold SLR or PRU - mentioned earlier.]

Source: https://wcsecure.weblink.com.au/pdf/BGL/02786335.pdf [19-March-2024]

Source: https://goldprice.org/gold-price-chart.html

Thanks Bear, I did like the comment from Rick at the start re Resource Companies:

"You are either a contrarian or you are going to be a victim"

Legendary Analyst John Macdonald on Spotting Company Lies & Calling It How It Is - YouTube [16 Feb 2024]

MoM's Show Notes:

We had the great privilege of sitting down with John Macdonald, a legendary mining analyst.

In our conversation we delved into the conflicts of staying true to your views and not being swayed by outside pressures, the common tricks that companies get up to, how he spotted richly valued as well as promising businesses, what the real costs that investors should follow are and a whole heap more.

CHAPTERS

0:00:00 Introduction to John Macdonald

0:02:47 Charting to the next Extreme

0:09:58 Welcoming Johnny Mac on MoM

0:11:37 Some of the big calls (Perseus, Ramelius + Dacian)

0:22:56 The downfall of Sons of Gwalia

0:33:08 Banking commitments for Liontown

0:34:36 Reflection on being an Analyst

0:37:41 Using the CAIC (Corporate All-In cost)

0:45:36 Red flags in company reporting

0:47:49 How to assess management teams

0:52:21 The discount in valuation for African miners

0:59:14 Forecasting commodity prices

1:01:18 Any surprise with recent Lithium movement?

1:03:06 Gold vs base metals miners

1:04:41 Thoughts on M&A in the mining sector

DISCLAIMER

All Money of Mine episodes are for informational purposes only and may contain forward-looking statements that may not eventuate. The co-hosts are not financial advisers and any views expressed are their opinion only. Please do your own research before making any investment decision or alternatively seek advice from a registered financial professional.

Tribeca's $300M Bet: Going Activist on Glencore (Ben Cleary) - YouTube [15 March 2024]

MoM's Show Notes:

This is a bonus episode today Money Miners. Matty managed to come into the studio early on his birthday for it too. It's juicy - Tribeca has gone activist on Glencore and Ben Cleary has dialled in.

Ben is portfolio manager of the natural resources fund at Tribeca Investment Partners and outlines why they’ve launched an activist campaign on mining & trading giant Glencore (GLEN).

He pulls apart the thesis, centred on not demerging any assets, listing on the ASX, revitalising capital returns via dividends & selling a minority stake in the trading unit.

CHAPTERS

0:00:00 Tribeca going Activist on Glencore

0:00:55 GLEN's multiple compression

0:02:41 Retaining the Coal Assets

0:09:57 Listing on the ASX

0:13:22 Why Australia makes sense for dividends

0:19:50 Realising the trading unit's value

0:30:19 Is Glencore coming to the party?

DISCLAIMER

All Money of Mine episodes are for informational purposes only and may contain forward-looking statements that may not eventuate. The co-hosts are not financial advisers and any views expressed are their opinion only. Please do your own research before making any investment decision or alternatively seek advice from a registered financial professional.

--- end of excerpts ---

Source: https://www.youtube.com/@MoneyofMine

V. Interesting stuff!!

Saturday 16th March 2024:

If you HATE a commodity, Rick Rule is probably buying it - YouTube

"We got the big man Rick Rule on to take the temperature on explorers, numerous commodities and where there’s value in the market."

"Our conversation covered some of the nuances in the uranium market, whether lithium is hated enough yet, his thoughts on gold & gold companies, why raising capital is harder in North America vs Australia for resource plays, whether platinum group metals are attractive, what’s going on in nickel and plenty more."

CHAPTERS

0:00:00 Preview and introduction

0:01:37 How's uranium shaping up

0:04:06 Is lithium hated enough

0:06:40 Has nickel structurally changed

0:12:55 What's different in uranium this time

0:22:56 Forgotten lessons in uranium

0:24:20 How have ETFs changed the game

0:29:17 Is there value in gold

0:36:19 Bitcoin vs gold

0:40:13 Rick's thoughts on mean reversion

0:42:28 Is Rick looking at Rare Earths?

0:46:56 Is the TSX & LSE broken?

0:54:39 Are PGMs an opportunity

1:00:52 Is Uranium Enrichment a bottleneck?

1:03:24 Under-rated vs Over-rated

DISCLAIMER

All Money of Mine episodes are for informational purposes only and may contain forward-looking statements that may not eventuate. The co-hosts are not financial advisers and any views expressed are their opinion only. Please do your own research before making any investment decision or alternatively seek advice from a registered financial professional.

The PGM segment is pretty interesting. Rick shunning all the PGM producers/developers for physical platinum and palladium which seems like a boring but safer bet. And echoes well with Nero Resource fund director Russell DelRoy.

II've actually been mulling at physical platinum and palladium ETFs as well.

I reckon there are a few issues with those producers and where they produce PGMs as well @edgescape as both Rick and Rusty have explained. Plenty of sovereign risk and plenty of individual company risk. It's a very concentrated sector compared to gold it seems.

Further Viewing:

Hybrid adoption ramifications for Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) [12-Mar-2024] [Rusty Delroy]

Are PGMs an opportunity [16-Mar-2024] [Rick Rule]

Came across this earlier this evening - Section-8-Abbreviations-Acronyms-and-Glossary.pdf (evolutionmining.com.au)

It's from 2015, so 9 years old, and a fair chunk of it is applicable only to the Cowal Gold mine in NSW owned and run by EVN (formerly run by Barrick Gold), but there are a lot of common abbreviations and acronyms there that we see in a lot in reports and presentations from various gold miners, so a good reference for the uninitiated.

I also came across this: Aussie slang words and phrases - Current Students (csu.edu.au) which is actually an "official" guide to Aussie slang for International Students attending Charles Sturt University in Australia.

And this one had me chuckling at times: The Ultimate Guide To New Zealand Slang (brenontheroad.com)

Well worth a read! Quite a few I'd never heard of, but I'm all clued up now for whenever I cross the ditch. That was from me finally figuring out what Matty at Money of Mine means when he calls everybody a GC. Aussies/Kiwis and their terms of endearment... ;-)

13-Mar-2024: Here's that announcement from M2M that allowed them to resume trading today: High Grade Near Surface Gold Confirmed at Golden Crown

Their SP is +13.33% so far this morning on the back of that (3 cps to 3.4 cps). Here's Page 1 of the announcement:

Those gold grades aren't massive, but they're decent, if there's enough ore there worth processing. Interesting the way they're evolking "Wild West" (WA) vibes there.

@Bear77 back in the days when I was sweating in the bottom of the pit word was that anything above 4.5g/t was worth processing. Looks like they have a few sites that are well above that. The best grade ore that we ever extracted was 36g/t - some people a lot further up the chain than me were very happy at the time!

True that @Pheadrus - There are plenty of mines making money processing ore with around one gram of gold per tonne of ore (down to about half a gram per tonne actually), as long as the ore is easy to get at (open pit) and reasonably cheap to process (get the gold out of it efficiently and cost effectively). Over 4.5g/tonne would be excellent if it was sustained. The problem is that these drill results from M2M are mostly 1 or 2m of good grades and in this latest assay results announcement there are a few highlights of double digit gold (ounces per tonne) in between 3 and 10m of drill core, which is better, but it needs to be spread over a wide area to make it a really good prospect - worth developing or selling. There are some positives however, including their proximity to Leonora, meaning that if they prove up this deposit, there's a very good chance that Raleigh Finlayson's Genesis Minerals will be interested in either buying the project (which is what he's been doing with KIN Mining's best gold projects lately - buying the projects rather than the whole company) or the whole company - have a look at where M2M's tenements are:

These high grade drilling results were from the Golden Crown area just north of the Leonora-Laverton Rd, about 10 or 11 km ESE (east-south-east) of Leonora on that map above, and pinpointed in the one below:

Those different coloured tenements are all owned by M2M, and you can find out more about each of them here: Malcolm Gold Project - Mt Malcolm NL

Have a look at where they sit in relation to all of Genesis' (GMD's) other gold assets in that area:

Those squiggly brown lines are those tenements from the previous 2 maps. Genesis own the Sons of Gwalia Mine and Mill (acquired from St Barbara mid-2023), and the Mt Morgans Mill (GMD acquired most of Dacian Gold in 2022, moving to 100% ownership in early 2023, so all of Dacian has now been absorbed into GMD). Apollo Hill (owned by Saturn Metals - STN) and the M2M tenements shown above are now the only significant gold projects between Leonora and Laverton that Genesis do NOT already own - see the map below:

Everything there in dark blue is 100% owned by Genesis Minerals (GMD) now. KOTH ("King of the Hills" Gold Mine), NW of Leonora is in brown because it's NOT owned by GMD, it is owned by Red 5 (RED) who are currently merging with Silver Lake Resources (SLR). There is a proposal in place that needs to be voted on, but that's the plan. Incidentally, SLR do not own any gold projects in this area of WA, SLR's gold mines are a long way north west of these maps. M2M's tenements are not shown because they haven't yet been proven up to be a commercially viable gold deposit of note, although these latest results from M2M's Golden Crown prospect are certainly moving them towards that. On that last map above, Golden Crown would be directly between the Gwalia/Leonora Mill and the Bruno-Lewis deposit that GMD recently acquired from KIN, but closer to Gwalia than to Bruno-Lewis, and just above (north of) the Leonora-Laverton Rd, probably directly above the letter "e" in the word Raeside (but on the other side of the road); Raeside being the other gold project that GMD recently acquired from Kin Mining.

Golden Crown is 100% abso-friggin'-lutely within easy trucking distance of GMD's Gwalia gold mill, but note the words below that map - "Growth focus pivoted from inorganic to ORGANIC", suggesting that we shouldn't expect much more M&A from GMD - that map was on slide 5 of this presentation: Genesis-Minerals-Corporate-Presentation---Ready,-set,-grow---BMO.PDF which was presented on Feb 23rd (3 weeks ago) at the BMO Capital Markets  33rd annual Global Metals, Mining & Critical Minerals Conference in Miami, Florida, USA.

But if M2M keep hitting gold at similar grades or better, we might see some interest from Raleigh Finlayson at GMD.

I note that these results are from RC (reverse circulation) drilling, which is a lot cheaper and quicker than diamond drilling, but now that they know they have some serious gold there, if they did some diamond drilling they would get higher-quality core samples that preserve the original rock structure, texture, and mineralogy. Those core samples would provide more information, as the core can be measured, logged, photographed, and tested for various parameters. You can also go a lot deeper with diamond drilling - up to 2,000 meters (2 km of vertical depth, which is how deep the Gwalia mine is) or more depending on the geology and the rig capacity (source: https://www.linkedin.com/advice/0/what-advantages-disadvantages-reverse-circulation)

Stockhead had an article about these M2M drilling results today: Mt Malcolm soars to record heights with a whopping 61.39g/t gold intersection at Golden Crown - Stockhead

However, as it panned out, it didn't end up being a great day for an announcement like that to be fully embraced by the market:

Gold was the WORST sector today by a fair margin.

Interestingly, M2M opened at 3.5 cps (cents/share) today (Wednesday), were trading at 3.4 cps when I wrote that forum post (i.e. up +13.33% from their previous/prior-day close of 3.0 cps), and they traded as high as 4 cps during the day (i.e. +33.33%) before closing back at 3 cps, the same price as before the announcement - so they actually closed flat...

Source: Commsec.

Which might mean that the hype around the grades wore off as the day went on, and people realised this is still a tiny little $4.4m (yes, UNDER $5m market cap) nanocap precious metals explorer with zero income, that spent $549K (just over half a mil) in the December quarter and had just $378K of total available funding as at 31-Dec-2023.

Source: Pages 4 & 5 of Appendix 5B in: M2M Quarterly Activities & Cashflow Report (Dec 2023 Qtr)

As you can see, they haven't even been able to pay their own directors' fees, and they were looking to pay $550K owing to their directors in shares instead of cash. They need positive drilling results to be able to raise enough money to do more drilling. Risky proposition. They could go 10x or better, or they could go into voluntary administration and then GMD or another company could buy their assets from the administrators and leave ordinary retail shareholders with a 100% loss on their investment.

Saturn Metals (STN) - who own the Apollo Hill gold project (shown on the GMD map above and also on the last M2M map above) look better - their market cap is $34.7m, so about 8 x bigger than M2M - and here is the same section of their Appendix 5B report for the December Qtr:

Saturn Metals (STN) are spending more, but they have more money to spend, and they are also doing DD (diamond drilling) in addition to AC (Air Core) drilling:

Source: STN-Quarterly-Activities-and-Cashflow-Report-(Dec-2023-Qtr).PDF

Note that the final letters of the hole identifiers before the numbers indicate the type of drilling used - so near the bottom of that page above there are results from AHAC1863 and AHAC1839, and they are both Air Core holes, hence the "AC" in the name of the holes. Near the top of that page there are results from AHDD0018 and AHDD0017 which are both Diamond Drill holes (DD).

Here is where STN's Apollo Hill Gold project sits in relation to other gold mines and gold projects in the area:

Here's the map they use on their own website (below) - the one above is from that Dec'23 Quarterly Activities and Cashflow Report (link above) that was released on the last day of January this year.

This one is a bit out of date in terms of ownership of assets and needs to be updated - the first one (two maps up, from their Dec Qtr report) is up-to-date in terms of Mt Morgans and Gwalia now being owned by Genesis. It (second map up) also has a few extra mines and gold projects added in, like RRL's Garden Well (top right), Genesis' Ulysses project (below Gwalia) and KIN's Cardinia project between RED's KOTH and GMD's Mt Morgans mill.

Importantly, STN has done enough drilling already to have an estimated Resource there of 1.84 million ounces of gold, as shown on that up-to-date map (2nd one up) and in their 07-Aug-2023 PEA for Apollo Hill: UPDATED PRELIMINARY ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT (17 August 2023) on page 5 - shown below:

Source: https://saturnmetals.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/230817-Updated-PEA-Appendix.pdf

Came across this tonight also: Tony Locantro 2024 Mining and Energy Stocks to Watch (mailboxmoneyman.com)

Plain Text Link: https://mailboxmoneyman.com/tony-locantro-2024-mining-and-energy-stocks-to-watch/

Excerpt:

Tony Locantro is an investment manager and small-cap expert. He is the Eddie McGuire of small-cap mining and energy stocks. He’s on almost every show going and in his 2023 wrap-up, Tony discussed his top mining and energy picks for 2024. And he even declared two as his best stocks for 2024. Let’s take a look at some highlights from various presentations and say “Lock it in Tony!”.

Contents 

2024 Mining and Energy Stocks to Watch

Tony’s Trifecta for 2024 – Gold, Silver and Copper

The Tony Award – Best Stocks of the Year

1. Red Metal (ASK: RDM)

2. Maronan Metals (ASX: MMA)

3. Saturn Metals (ASX: STN)

4. Lion Selection Group (ASX: LSX)

5. Pac Gold (ASX: PGO)

6. Mako Gold (ASX: MKG)

Final Thoughts

2024 Mining and Energy Stocks to Watch

Tony Locantro has been a busy man leading into the end of 2023. When he wasn’t hosting his special webinars with CEOs and MDs of various companies, he was a regular on various shows, delivering his distinct take on the markets. Usually peppered with great one-liners and his world-famous “truth bombs”.

In this post, we take a look at some of Tony’s Top mining stocks for 2024. We take a look at the inaugural “Tony Award”, which is not awarded for excellence in live Broadway Theatre. This Tony Award is for the big man’s two best stocks which we cover in detail.

Let’s take a look at some market insights before we get stuck into the specific stocks.

Disclaimer: Please note that these are not Stock recommendations or personal information. This is an account of the Tony Locantro Mining and Energy stocks for 2024 webinar that was held on November 21, 2023. Along with some additional personal research, and quotes and notes from subsequent presentations captured in the References section below.  

Tony’s Take on Gold in 2024

Tony believes that Gold has time to run in 2024.

Gold stocks have underperformed the gold price by a long way. The Junior gold sector has been “poleaxed” and has struggled to raise money. It is unbelievable that companies with a million ounces are capped at under 10 million dollars. But Tony believes that this will change.

Tony suggests that a focus on individual companies that can turn into a gold producer regardless of the gold price will do well. There is no fever like gold fever, and when the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) kicks in, it will “take a small increase in the participation rate to see gold fly”.

The Tony Award – Best Stocks of the Year

The prestigious and Innagural Tony Award for Best Stocks of the Year was a tie between two stocks Tony is super excited about. The winners are tied between Red Metal (ASX: RDM) and Maronan Metals (ASX: MMA).

The Annual Tony Award is not a trophy or a medal, it’s a Vegan Pizza delivered at 2 AM. Congratulations to the Big Winners – Red Metal and Maronan Metals.

Dear Reader, please continue to discover why Tony likes these companies and why they may be worth considering in 2024.

3. Saturn Metals (ASX: STN)

Saturn Metals (ASX:STN) is a Gold exploration company in Western Australia. It is developing the 1.84M ounce Apollo Hill Gold Project. It is projected to deliver robust financial outcomes as a stand-alone large-scale open pit mine and heap leach processing facility. It also has joint ventures in NSW. The share price is currently trading at 18 Cents, down from a high of 88 Cents in 2020.

Reasons to Like Saturn Metals

Saturn Metals has a very elegant story where it’s a simple deposit with a simple processing circuit. The gold doesn’t have a beautiful grade, but there’s no copper and there’s no arsenic. It’s just gold in quartz that is easily liberated with cyanide which is very economical.

The deposit has 1.84 million ounces in a single, simple pit. The value proposition of Saturn Metals represented in their preliminary economic assessment has been likened to the trajectory of Capricorn Metals (ASX: CMM) which has a market cap of 1.82 billion, which Tony sees as a benchmark in the gold sector. And Saturn Metals just received a $3 million investment from Lion Selection Group (ASX: LSX).

Tony’s Take on Saturn Metals

“Speaking of undervalued gold stocks, …I’ll go back and I’ll look into one of the gold companies I missed in Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM). Look at a chart of that one, they started with a low-grade deposit then they moved on. So I say high risk… I can’t reiterate that enough. But this is quality”

--- end of excerpts ---

Source: https://mailboxmoneyman.com/tony-locantro-2024-mining-and-energy-stocks-to-watch/

Interesting... Might take a small bite of STN soon-ish. I'll keep M2M on the watchlist for now...

Further Reading:

Home - Mt Malcolm NL

Home | Saturn Metals