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Kaiser Media Watch Blog - February 1, 2021 to February 28, 2021
KRO Blog Overview
The KRO Blog is where unrestricted content of a time sensitive nature is posted. It includes the Kaiser Media Watch Blog which features content involving John Kaiser produced by third parties such as the Discovery Watch series by HoweStreet.com, interviews by outfits such as Investing News Network, SDLRC related commentary, the KRO Monthly Summaries, and just about anything else John writes that is not intended exclusively for the fee based KRO Membership.
Discovery Watch is a weekly 15-30 minute audio show produced by HoweStreet.com where Jim Goddard interviews John Kaiser about resource juniors with projects that have caught John's attention. The projects will not be limited to companies he has covered through the Spec Value Rating System. Jim and John will periodically circle back to review the projects and if necessary close them out as no longer worth watching. Check out the catalog of KRO Free Stuff. KRO offers a USD $450 Annual Individual Membership. This Discovery Watch session is available via YouTube or Podcast.
Discovery Watch is a weekly 15-30 minute audio show produced by HoweStreet.com where Jim Goddard interviews John Kaiser about resource juniors with projects that have caught John's attention. The projects will not be limited to companies he has covered through the Spec Value Rating System. Jim and John will periodically circle back to review the projects and if necessary close them out as no longer worth watching. Check out the catalog of KRO Free Stuff. KRO offers a USD $450 Annual Individual Membership. This Discovery Watch session is available via YouTube or Podcast.
NioBay Metals Inc was introduced to DW in February 2019 after the junior was granted a drill permit for the James Bay niobium deposit in northern Ontario near the First Nations town of Moosonee. This didn't solve the problem that the tribal council chief was opposed to mining in principle and refused to consult with NioBay as required, and, when the Ontario ministry granted the permit anyway, filed for a judicial review of the decision claiming that NioBay never consulted with the Moose Cree FN. That pissed off the other MCFN tribal council members who resigned and forced an election in July 2019 rather than as scheduled in 2020. The anti-mining chief was not re-elected and most of her anti-mining allies on the council were replaced by members prepared to listen NioBay. That process finally led to a "protection agreement" which plugged the MCFN into NioBay's exploration plans and gave them comfort that this was not going to wreck their backyard. It allowed NioBay to conduct a drill program in Q1 of 2020 which it got done before Covid-19 shut down everything. The drilling deepened and extended the footprint of the carbonatite which led to an updated resource estimate in early July 2020 that boosted the indicated+inferred resource 19% to 63.5 million tonnes at a grade of 0.52-0.53% N2O5. That, however, is not so important because the critical milestone is a PEA which describes a plausible mining scenario and what its economic value might be. The niobium market is dominated by supply from Araxa in Brazil which is five times richer and five times bigger than James Bay. Niobium is a $3 billion market controlled 85% by the CBMM family which has set the niobium price at a level which allows 2 other mines to be viable, one in Brazil owned by ChinaMoly and Niobec in Quebec owned by Magris. Niobium demand has being growing at a CAGR of 6.5%, though this will be lower during the pandemic. But James Bay wouldn't be in production until 2025 or beyond. The deposit was discovered during the 1960's and taken to feasibility by Bechtel, but never developed because of its remote location. NioBay's goal is to make it the world's fourth major primary source of niobium and to do that James Bay needs to be viable at the price set by CBMM. NioBay is working on a PEA it hopes to have out before October 2020. It will present an underground only as well as open-pit/underground hybrid scenarios with a 6,000 tpd processing facility. The market has a hard time quantifying the size of a niobium prize, so I have created a SC 6,000 tpd UG scenario OV within the ShareCollective using a resource of 40 million tonnes at 0.53% N2O5 and the spot ferroniobium price. Its after tax NPV outcome is USD $576 million which translates into a potential future stock price of $13.19 if there is no further dilution. That is quite an impressive target even when you assume 100% dilution to drive James Bay through feasibility. The 43-101 PEA will thus be a critical milestone for the market's perception of the upside for NioBay, and it will also become the basis on which the MCFN will have to decide on what terms, if any, they support a major niobium mine in their backyard. (Jul 15, 2020)
Discovery Watch is a weekly 15-30 minute audio show produced by HoweStreet.com where Jim Goddard interviews John Kaiser about resource juniors with projects that have caught John's attention. The projects will not be limited to companies he has covered through the Spec Value Rating System. Jim and John will periodically circle back to review the projects and if necessary close them out as no longer worth watching. Check out the catalog of KRO Free Stuff. KRO offers a USD $450 Annual Individual Membership. This Discovery Watch session is available via YouTube or Podcast.
NioBay Metals Inc was introduced to DW in February 2019 after the junior was granted a drill permit for the James Bay niobium deposit in northern Ontario near the First Nations town of Moosonee. This didn't solve the problem that the tribal council chief was opposed to mining in principle and refused to consult with NioBay as required, and, when the Ontario ministry granted the permit anyway, filed for a judicial review of the decision claiming that NioBay never consulted with the Moose Cree FN. That pissed off the other MCFN tribal council members who resigned and forced an election in July 2019 rather than as scheduled in 2020. The anti-mining chief was not re-elected and most of her anti-mining allies on the council were replaced by members prepared to listen NioBay. That process finally led to a "protection agreement" which plugged the MCFN into NioBay's exploration plans and gave them comfort that this was not going to wreck their backyard. It allowed NioBay to conduct a drill program in Q1 of 2020 which it got done before Covid-19 shut down everything. The drilling deepened and extended the footprint of the carbonatite which led to an updated resource estimate in early July 2020 that boosted the indicated+inferred resource 19% to 63.5 million tonnes at a grade of 0.52-0.53% N2O5. That, however, is not so important because the critical milestone is a PEA which describes a plausible mining scenario and what its economic value might be. The niobium market is dominated by supply from Araxa in Brazil which is five times richer and five times bigger than James Bay. Niobium is a $3 billion market controlled 85% by the CBMM family which has set the niobium price at a level which allows 2 other mines to be viable, one in Brazil owned by ChinaMoly and Niobec in Quebec owned by Magris. Niobium demand has being growing at a CAGR of 6.5%, though this will be lower during the pandemic. But James Bay wouldn't be in production until 2025 or beyond. The deposit was discovered during the 1960's and taken to feasibility by Bechtel, but never developed because of its remote location. NioBay's goal is to make it the world's fourth major primary source of niobium and to do that James Bay needs to be viable at the price set by CBMM. NioBay is working on a PEA it hopes to have out before October 2020. It will present an underground only as well as open-pit/underground hybrid scenarios with a 6,000 tpd processing facility. The market has a hard time quantifying the size of a niobium prize, so I have created a SC 6,000 tpd UG scenario OV within the ShareCollective using a resource of 40 million tonnes at 0.53% N2O5 and the spot ferroniobium price. Its after tax NPV outcome is USD $576 million which translates into a potential future stock price of $13.19 if there is no further dilution. That is quite an impressive target even when you assume 100% dilution to drive James Bay through feasibility. The 43-101 PEA will thus be a critical milestone for the market's perception of the upside for NioBay, and it will also become the basis on which the MCFN will have to decide on what terms, if any, they support a major niobium mine in their backyard. (Jul 15, 2020)
Disclosure: JK owns NioBay and Yorbeau; NioBay is a Good Spec Value rated Favorite, Forum Energy is a Fair Spec Value rated Favorite and Yorbeau is a Bottom-Fish Spec Value rated Favorite.
Discovery Watch is a weekly 15-30 minute audio show produced by HoweStreet.com where Jim Goddard interviews John Kaiser about resource juniors with projects that have caught John's attention. The projects will not be limited to companies he has covered through the Spec Value Rating System. Jim and John will periodically circle back to review the projects and if necessary close them out as no longer worth watching. Check out the catalog of KRO Free Stuff. KRO offers a USD $450 Annual Individual Membership. This Discovery Watch session is available via YouTube or Podcast.
Azimut Exploration In was introduced to Discovery Watch in September 2016 due to its minority stake in the Eleonore South project in the James Bay region of Quebec which covers the southern half of the Cheechoo intrusion where Sirios Resources Inc caught the market's imagination in early 2016 by rethinking a low grade bulk tonnage gold optionality into a potential high grade underground mineable system. Sirios started drilling the intrusion with NE oriented holes instead of SW holes and while initially this seemed to deliver high grade intervals more consistently, after several years it became apparent that the Cheechoo intrusion did not host coherent high grade zones that would lend themselves to underground mining. Sirios has since reverted to a bulk tonnage model and published a resource estimate in late 2019. Azimut's CEO Jean-Marc Lulin became the champion for Eleonore South which it had staked during the early days of the Eleonore discovery by Virginia. Work by Goldcorp and Eastmain failed to deliver a discovery because it was focused on the margins of the Cheechoo intrusion. JML focused on potential high grade zones such as Moni, but that effort grounded out just like that of Sirios. Today it is clear that Eleonore South and Sirios' Cheechoo needs to be consolidated as one property with a large open pit operation which has the support of Newmont (after acquiring Goldcorp), which is also a major shareholder of Sirios. The stick in the mud resisting a win-win proposal has been Azimut, which stopped funding its share of Eleonore South in 2018 when it decided to violate the PGFO strategy by drilling the Chromaska chromite target with its own money. Chromaska died quietly, and it looked like Azimut was a DW bust on two fronts. But in early 2019 when Midland's Mythril copper discovery ignited hopes for a base metals area play in the James Bay region Azimut's Pikwa project to the west became a DW focus after Azimut was able to swing a deal with SOQUEM to earn back a 50% interest. Mythril fizzled in H2 of 2019 when it became apparent that the very high grade copper mineralization was restricted to thin margins of dykes that weren't spaced closely enough to deliver a bulk mineable resource similar to that of the Aitik copper mine in Sweden. During 2019 Azimut focused on mapping and sampling the 20 km Copperfield Trend which projects SWW from the 10 km trend on Midland's Mythril project and established that there were major copper anomalies in the western and eastern ends of the anomaly. The middle seemed to be a dead zone though it did contain 2 prominent EM conductors, the only such anomalies within this trend. The geochemical dead zone may be due to the presence of a giant esker of glacially transported debris that obscures the bedrock. An IP survey in the East Copperfield portion yielded chargeability highs similar to those on the Mythril property to the east, which raised the question of whether Pikwa hosted more of the same marginal copper mineralization. Azimut decided to extend the IP survey west to include the EM conductors, because these could be part of a "center of gravity" for the mineralizing system where bigger zones may have evolved in this Archean setting. We are still awaiting the outcome of this IP survey and what Azimut plans next for Pikwa. Since December 2019, however, the DW focus has been on the Elmer project in the James Bay region where Azimut has demonstrated that the small 200 m by 80 m Patwon outcrop hosts 3 sets of mineralized gold veins: a set of short NW oriented Riedel type dilational veins, a set of sub-horizontal veins, and a set of NE-SW oriented veins, all occurring within what appears to be a 7 km NE trending shear structure. The high grades within the Patwon zone attracted market attention in January 2020 and Elmer was shaping up as a Discovery Watch success story. The association of pyrite with the gold prompted Azimut to conduct an IP survey which generated multiple chargeability highs of the sort associated with sulphide mineralization. Drilling resumed in late May 2020 with the first update occurring in late June after 29 new holes were drilled. Although the market initially responded positively, driving the stock as high as $3.50, the cautious wording by Azimut and the shifts in the drill location sequences of the two rigs suggested that expansion drilling was not playing out as expected. On July 27 Azimut disclosed results for holes close to Patwon which extended the strike 350 m and confirmed mineralization persists to a depth of 200 m. But it is disrupted to the SW and in the NE direction where holes not discussed are pending and where the IP chargeability anomaly is low rather than high. In fact, early holes drilled in ELM-1 where the IP anomaly is strong were not prioritized for assaying. During July Azimut drilled only 7 more holes, most of them in the other ELM IP anomalies. 18 holes were still being logged and assays are unlikely before September. The DW premise was that the Patwon zone would repeat itself along the 7 km shear, most of which is covered by swamp or overburden, with IP anomalies highlighting targets. It now looks like IP is not highlighting gold zones, so until we learn more about the geology and gold controls, the Elmer play is focused on definition drilling of the Patwon zone for a possible open pit scenario and chasing this style of mineralization deeper for an underground scenario. Elmer qualifies as a discovery, but for now it is not a game changing development for the gold potential of the James Bay region. (Jul 29, 2020)
