Mining Analyst

Garibaldi Resources is drilling a nickel copper magmatic sulfide system at its Nickel Mountain project in the Golden Triangle of British Columbia. I've discussed it in a recent blog post. My position has been that so far they haven't drilled any new areas not already known from exploration conducted between the 1960's and 1990. Yes, they have intercepted massive sulfides over significant intervals that exceed the results of historic drilling. This could be for various reasons including poor drilling with lots of core loss in the historical programs. More likely, they have encountered the thicker sequence of mineralization within the historic zones.

In a video titled "Grade is King" , a newsletter writer posts an interview excerpt with Dr. Peter Lightfoot, a pre-emintent geologist in the field of Ni-Cu-PMG magmatic sulfide deposits and consultant to Garibaldi Resources. Garibaldi has recently drilled several intercepts of massive sulfide nickel-copper mineralization at Nickel Mountain in the Golden Triangle of British Columbia. Dr. Lightfoot is duly excited about tenors and grades and expresses his expectation that exploration success will make Nickel Mountain an economic deposit.

In the past 3 months, we've had not one, not two, not three, but at least four supposedly world-class discoveries by junior exploration. What are the odds any of these, or more than one, actually works out, and what are the implications for the rest of the junior exploration market? The odds are not good. Even questionable "world-class" discoveries are exceedingly rare and many of them are made by the mining companies themselves (not explorers). Junior explorers do make such discoveries sometimes but even more rarely. Think Voisey's Bay, Pierina, Ekati, Fruta del Norte, Cerro Negro, Brucejack, etc. Out of those not every one is even world class although each has achieved valuation in the billion dollar range along the way.