Strickland Metals drill results were a miss sending shares down 47.5%

But management did try and make an vain effort to highlight some positives.

Firstly the bad news.

Diamond drill results were a big miss being drilled too far east but with one minor hit (MWD002)

Results have not come back for MWRC001 which is the one that should have been done before any DD started.

I believe this is the only drill result that matters which will confirm the Marwari discovery from the initial AC drilling.

In summary a big mismanagement on the drilling and maybe a case of too much money and sqaundering and not enough checks.

Only good news is the RC results for below but was not enough to arrest the decline:

•HWRC003: 24m @ 7.4g/t Au from 19m, including 5m @ 28g/t Au from 29m; and

• HWRC007: 3m @ 8.9g/t Au from 71m

Not all is lost, there are still results waiting on Great Western and Rabbit Well targets.

So bad news overall and pretty frustrating but that is the exploration game. Share price has responded appropriately with a big fall despite management trying to dress up the news in a positive light. Nevertheless there are still other potential targets to look forward to.

[held]

Could see some results in a few weeks according to the latest exploration update

They also disclose why they extended the drill depth as they saw prospective alteration and veining

Announcement - Exploration update

[held]

Going back in time to find out why NST bought Millrose

Pre STK 2021

MRE 300K Oz

Post STK 2022 (November 2022 Presentation)

MRE to be updated 2023

Post STK 2023 (Jan 2023 Presentation)

New west corridor

In summary this was a fairly big system and was going to be much larger than the 300K Oz MRE when it was purchased by Northern Star (NST) in 2021. NST knew this and saw the potential

[held]

Ok not really financials but some big orders went through late in the afternoon and totally dwarfing my holding.

STK still in play at the moment. See the transaction for 3:27:51 pm

Either they know something and they will be rewarded or those on the sidelines will be proved correct (like me) when news is below expectations

And this isn't some sexy AI, SaaS, PaaS or IaaS or Semiconductor AI sound chip stock. Or even Lithium

This is only Gold. Who said Gold is dead?

Get the popcorn out :)

[held]

Going back on some announcements I found Strickland is opening up another exploration assault on a couple of other targets. They appear to be Great Western Prospect and Rabbit Well Iroquois Prospect .Firstly they need to obtain heritage clearance which looks like it will take a couple of weeks

I believe this news is also what got investors excited and caused the spike to 11c last week.

From the 10 October 2023 Heritage Survey Announcement

Close up of Great Western

Close up of Iroquois / Rabbit Well. Rabbit Well is also along trend from Rumble Resources Zn-Pb-Ag discovery.

Given the above, we could see additional announcements and newsflow around the beginning of November.

A minor negative is all the above work will make cash burn increase perhaps to $2m, so cash runway could be down to 4 years. But then the payoff could be significant if the results are a success.

[held]

What I like

Management:

One name that stood out on this slide was Peter Langworthy. Peter Langworthy was behind the discovery and scoping studies of the Karlawinda and Bibra Discovery at Capricorn Metals before Mark Clark took over. He is only however serving as a Technical Consultant so not sure of his contribution to the recent work and progress.

I am not sure about the track record of the other names on the list with some from Silver Mines Ltd. I don't rate Silver Mines (SVL) very highly. But it does appear that there is a highly capable team running the show which culminated in the development of Millrose and sale to NST

Finances

The sale of Millrose to NST for 41m in cash and 1.5m shares gives Strickland a comfortable financial buffer to pursue exploration. The 1.5m shares also means the company will receive dividends of 750K pa. Current cash burn is about $1.6m from the recent quarter. So roughly there is about 5 years of cash runway. Seems like also a good proxy for holding NST shares too.

Exploration

The latest exploration update at Horse Well in Marwari shows some clue of upside potential with a 700m target. Most of those dots are aircore drilling which only touched the surface. They are now going to drill deeper into Horse Well with a RC rig.

And below is a map of prospect locations for Horse Well. Arguably some of the best ground near a Tier 1 operator.

What I don't like

Share structure

Number of shares is about 1.6b so past history of draining shareholder wealth. So there will be obvious holders looking for a way out which appeared to happen in the last few days.

Valuation

Currently sitting at an EV (enterprise value) of 100m. So this is still overvalued given there is only a resource base of 260K at Horse Well and Dusk to Dawn.

Other Prospects

Iroquious Base metals, Earaheedy Basin, Western Australia. There was plans for a spin out but has been shelved since the sale with NST. Probably a wise move given the cash and they can put the money to good use to add value to the project.

Bryah Basin copper gold, Meekatharra, Western Australia, WA

Summary

Lots of newsflow but it is still early days and still some risk of disappointment given the past history in addition to being overvalued.

I've recently taken a holding. It's either buy NST again but I prefer to take the chance for hopefully higher expected return. Or expected loss!

Very risky and not for everyone and not a recommendation, but I believe I've done enough research so happy with this.

[held]

Am surprised no one is talking about this company which had a ASX please explain on Friday

Up 11% from 8.9c to 10c

Sold a mining project to NST as noted above. Very flush with cash at the moment.

I checked the holdings and one of the sub holders is Netwealth (???)

Worth a look nonetheless.