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Integra Tries for a Repeat

Fresh off the successful sale (generating a 100% return in 2017, if timed correctly) of its Lamaque Project to Eldorado Gold, the guys formerly in charge of Integra Gold are at it again. This time they have acquired the mothballed DeLamar Project from Kinross and will be developing it via the newly-capitalized junior Integra Resources (ITR: started trading on the Venture Exchange today). On brief review, the project looks ready to go for some enhancement and polishing by the Integra guys, and perhaps even represents a bona fide development opportunity. The shares should be going higher as the drill bit starts turning next year. The company is cashed up and sports under a US$50 million market cap (60 million shares fully diluted @ C$1.15/share).

They say DeLamar is "under the radar" as it has been sitting in Kinross' rehab portfolio for two decades. This characterization is correct ... I haven't heard the name crop up for many years although I did recently look up the project out of curiosity. This was after driving through desolate eastern Oregon in August on the way to see the total eclipse. I noticed the very extensive volcanic terrain, which stretches for literally hundreds of miles (from Oregon to Idaho and into Nevada). Based on this I was thinking there would be a lot of mining in this area but that's not the case. Grassy Mountain, operated by Paramount Gold Nevada, is one of a few projects that has seen modern activity. And there wasn't a huge amount of historic mining either. The volcanic fields appear to have a lot of flow cover so not a lot of mineralization has eroded and is poking through to surface. That doesn't mean there aren't deposits ... just that historic prospecting methods were not adequate to find them. Two significant ones that have been found are Grassy Mountain and DeLamar.

I went through the corporate presentation of Integra Resources and found the material to be reasonable and somewhat conservative. I haven't reviewed the technical report so there may be something there that warrants discussion but otherwise the presentation makes a good case for the speculative opportunity: in the short term they will be drilling and some of the holes should intercept wide intervals of lower grade bulk tonnage gold/silver near surface while other holes could intercept high grade epithermal veins at depth.

I'll be looking at the company and project more closely and perhaps will do a site visit in the coming months. An initial small position established around the current price (C$1.00/share) might be warranted for risk-averse investors or speculators, although I believe there is still some time before things heat up (in the Spring-Summer of 2018). With some marketing, drilling and/or development progress I'd be looking for the shares to approach the C$2.00 to $C3.00 range within the next 12-18 months.

P.S.: Found a good Stockhouse Article published a couple days after I wrote the above ... Integra 2.0: This Time in Idaho

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, just an opinion. Consult your own expert.

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