And Go Away...

The old saying, “Sell in May and go away” is just that, an old saying. In the junior resource sector seasonality is, of course, a factor. In much of Canada, “spring breakup” - when the ground unfreezes and turns to muddy soup - puts a lot of exploration activity on hiatus for a few weeks. But the lengthening days mean that helicopter borne exploration efforts, especially in the North, have longer operating hours.

What certainly does happen is another phenomena, “summer doldrums” in the markets as investors wait for news from the exploration programs. No news and the markets drift, usually downward. To fight against that tendency, where possible, smart CEOs try to develop a news flow across the summer months.

Cartier Resources (ECR.V) looks set to resume its cadence of new results every two to three weeks. Its last hard news release was April 23, 2006. Cloutier was just back from an around the world (literally) marketing and funding trip and was able to announce the discovery of “new high-grade gold zone near surface in the unexplored Pontiac sediments. The intersection is located south of the Cadillac Fault and 50 m south of the Porphyry #2 intrusion, which opens an entirely new exploration target.”

At the moment Cartier has two drill rigs operating on its Cadillac project. That’s what Cloutier budgeted for on the 100,000 meter, 18 month, program. However, as the program’s short (roughly 300 meters a hole) holes are proving up, there are a lot of somewhat unexpected gold zones turning up. Cloutier raised $11 million for this program, would it make sense to raise 11 million more and double the number of rigs operating?

In a recent interview for Motherlodetv.net, Cloutier told me that he was looking to do something “transformative” for Cartier shareholders in the relatively short term. Adding ounces to the Cadillac gold inventory is important, but it is not “transformative”. Now, Cloutier brought Glenn Mullan, an experienced M&A guy and a royalty specialist, on to the Cartier Board. Spinning out a royalty company, financed by “new money” (the global tour was all about that) with shares going to existing ECR shareholders might be the transformative move here. And it could finance doubling the drill program in a non-dilutive way.

Meanwhile, in the Yukon - and how I miss it - Tara Christie’s Banyan Gold (BYN.V) goes from strength to strength. I took a tiny position in Banyan back in 2022 and the stock went nowhere for three years. Tara kept putting out solid results but the gold market and the bad after taste of Victoria Gold sat on the share price.

Last summer Banyan got off the mat. The price of gold broke $2500 and all of a sudden Banyan caught a bid. And it has been catching the bid ever since. From $0.30 to a high of $1.60 in late April of this year. Yes, it is the gold price: $4534 USD as I write. But it is a lot more than that.

The gold on Christie’s patch of ground is abundant but until February of 2025, consistently low grade. Less than a gram a ton. But in February Banyan put out a release in which it stated it had:

“15.9 m of 9.32 g/t Au from 65.7 m

Including AX-24-590: 3.7 m of 33.43 g/t Au from 77.9 m

As Christie stated in the release:

With intercepts such as 15.9 m of 9.32 g/t, including 3.7 m of 33.43 g/t, we continue to delineate notable high-grade zones within the AurMac gold deposits,” stated Tara Christie, President and CEO. “These new results, combined with previous high grades and tenor from our 2024 drill program, have significantly enhanced the profile of the AurMac deposits. Not only do these results reaffirm the potential of the AurMac Project, but also highlight the strategic value of our 2024 drilling campaign to the understanding of the deposits. Banyan is well positioned for continued exploration and poised to take the next major step with our Preliminary Economic Assessment in 2025.

We’ve yet to see the PEA but we have seen extensions of the high grade gold plus rather a lot of silver including “3,408 g/t silver over 1.4m, within 352.64 g/t Ag over 13.7m”. (That’s 120 ounce rock, USD $9240 in situ at today’s silver price.)

Christie puts the silver into context in the release:

“The ongoing discovery of new high-grade Keno-style silver mineralization demonstrates that the AurMac project remains underexplored with high discovery potential,” said Tara Christie, President and CEO. “Our plans for 2026 will provide meaningful catalysts for Banyan to continue to re-rate, with our upcoming MRE, PEA, and 40,000 m strategic drill program at AurMac, along with 10,000m focused on our regional targets.”

Banyan will be drilling up a storm this season. It has completed a number of raises and is fully funded for a 40,000 meter drill program. There will be news with four drills on the project.

I’m up a bit over 4X on BYN and I am happy to hold as Tara drills and gold finds its natural level.

In Idaho, Hercules Metals (BIG.V) continues its drilling program. It has upsized its raise to $31.5 million Canadian and has published its ambitious 2026 drill plan. When BIG announced its discovery hole in 2023 its shares popped from about $0.20 to a high of $1.50 when Barrick took a position in the company. Visions of copper porphyries will do that for a stock.

However, the results of two “step out holes”, released in early January 2024, disappointed/sobered up the market. I wrote about that in an article entitled “Plop!”. The BIG reality is that finding and defining what it hopes is a copper porphyry (and maybe a porphyry system is not going to happen overnight. An explorationist pal of mine suggested that it would take ten years and a hundred million dollars in drilling to develop the Hercules property assuming there is, in fact, a copper porphyry.

Which may well be true, but there are nearer term catalysts which might well goose the share price. Back in March, Hercules released results from drill hole HER-25-18. “670 m of 0.45% Copper, 4 g/t Ag and 95 ppm Mo, including 213 m of 0.67% Copper, 10 g/t Ag, 128 ppm Mo” and, most importantly, that long interval begins 171 meters down hole. One of the criticisms of the Leviathan project is that the deposit, if it exists at all, is too deep to be economic. If some of the new step out drilling reveals mineralization closer to surface the market may pay attention.

The other potential catalyst is the too often ignored near surface silver potential on the property. Hercules started out as a silver explorer drilling the Bayhorse rhyolite which occurs. There are, in fact old silver workings going back a century and there is every prospect of significant silver in the Grade Creek section of the property.

Chasing the copper porphyry system seems to be the main focus of BIG, but the current price of silver makes drilling out enough of the rhyolite for a silver targeted MRE an attractive opportunity. With the raise in hand, mobilizing a drill to do, say ten, closely spaced, shallow holes to define a mineable silver resource might make a lot of sense. Building a silver mine may not have been attractive at $25 silver, at $75 an ounce it is a blindingly obvious move. As importantly for investors, the prospect of a near term producing silver mine would send the share price higher.

Drill results from BIG should begin to flow in the next few weeks. Go away and you might miss them.

(Disclaimer: I own shares in Cartier Resources, Banyan Gold and Hercules Metals. I may sell at any time. This is not investment advice. Do your own due diligence. Call the CEO.)