Ebbs and Flows: Q1 2025 Conferences and News
I am writing this right after New Years when, frankly, the junior resource world is effectively shut down. No news likely. Almost no trading. Executives stretching the point on the Christmas holidays. Drillers taking time off.
The Christmas lull combined with “tax loss selling season” creates a bit of a buying opportunity in early January, especially for shares in companies which have lost significant value in the preceding year. Which, on the Venture, means almost all of the junior resource companies. 2024 was, as they say in hockey, “a building year”.
That said, news should start to flow in the next couple of weeks. People will be back at work on the 6th and pending assays from companies like Hercules Metals (BIG.V) are anticipated. CEOs like to have something to talk about at the upcoming Vancouver Resource Investors Conference January 19 and 20th. VRIC was cancelled during COVID but was back and well attended last year.
VRIC is part of the muscle memory of junior resource companies and investors and well worth attending if you can get to Vancouver. In some ways, with the advent of Zoom and other internet enabled communications, actual physical conferences seem antiquated. However, actually talking to CEOs, geos and IR folks in person is worthwhile. For one thing, face-to-face, an enthusiastic CEO will often be more expansive about what is actually happening at their project. For another, it is a lot of fun to spend time with your fellow investors. Misery loves company and all.
To a degree there is seasonality to exploration programs. In some situations, winter drilling is unpleasant if not downright impossible. It is not so much the cold and snow as the ground conditions. Drill rigs have to be moved around a property which is quite possible when the ground is hard frozen but dicey where freeze/thaw turns the ground to soup. Not many companies enjoy the advantage Bayhorse Silver (BHS.V) has of drilling from a cozy (60F) underground drill station.
Of course, if you are in the Southern hemisphere as Eloro (ELO.T) is in Bolivia the seasons are reversed and right now is prime drilling season. Eloro put out positive assay results for the first hole of a six hole program on November 26. More assays can be expected in the early New Year. Interestingly, all of the holes in this program are being done with a wide bore drill for a more representative sample. Eloro is drilling to expand and define the silver/lead/zinc/tin resource in its proposed starter pit at Iska Iska. It is drilling into what the company describes as an “intrusion breccia” which has already proven to be mineralized.
In the November release, Dr. Osvaldo Arce, P.Geo., Eloro’s Executive Vice President, Latin America states “The on-going definition diamond drilling at the Santa Barbara zone confirms the occurrence of large high-grade mineralized shoots. It corroborates that systematic, more tightly spaced infill drilling at Iska Iska can produce very positive results that could significantly enhance the mineral resources. The breccia pipes host much of the high grade silver-tin values, as well as Zn polymetallic bodies in the deposit. They are likely the main feeders of the mineralization at Iska Iska. The breccia bodies intersected in the upper zones are widening at depth over a vertical interval of over 500m.
The forthcoming assays will, I expect, confirm Dr. Arce’s assessment. Eloro will not be at VRIC but the company is listed as an exhibitor at PDAC March 2-5 in Toronto and I would expect the assays on most of the holes drilled in the current program will be in hand by then.
Being an exhibitor at one of these conferences makes a lot of sense at a certain stage of a company’s development. Being able to show core and things like mine plan diagrams to investors and institutions makes the fees and the time commitment very worth while. However, at earlier stages taking a booth does not make a lot of sense. Instead a thrifty CEO with a story to tell can do well simply attending.
That’s Bayhorse Silver’s CEO Graeme O’Neill’s plan. He’ll be attending VRIC and meeting with investors and interested parties on the sidelines of the event. With luck, the first hole of BHS’s underground drill program will have been completed by the 19th and work should be underway on the second hole. As I write, the Bayhorse drill is deep in brecciated rock. Assays are not back but BHS geos are logging and analysing the core retrieved to date. Again, with luck, there may be a corporate update release prior to VRIC so Graeme will be able to talk about what the geos are seeing. Assays will follow.
Cartier Resources CEO, Philippe Cloutier will not be at VRIC so far as I know. Annoying as he has promised me a beer. Instead, he and the ECR.V Directors and other interested parties will be meeting in early January to plan the financing and execution of Cloutier’s “Go Big or Go Home” 500 hole program at its Abitibi East Cadillac property in Quebec. I discussed this large scale drilling program with Cloutier over at motherlodetv.net. Part of the logic of this sort of intensive program is that there will be hard news every couple of weeks as ECR tries to expand its nearly 3 million gold ounces out towards 10 or even 15 million ounces. $2700 gold makes companies very ambitious indeed.
I’ll be going to VRIC. See some pals, gauge the “mood”. Look for interesting stories.
(Disclaimer: I hold small positions in Hercules Metals, Cartier Resources and Eloro. I own shares in Bayhorse Silver and may purchase or sell at any time. This is not investment advice. Do your own due diligence. Call the CEO.)