Sieht so aus als hätte Marc Davis den selben Optiker wie Sway und ich :-)
smallcapmedia.com/articles/...ls-exploration-june-12-2007.html
NEW Silverado Gold Mines Ramps Up Its Placer Gold Production and Now Believes It has the Prolific ‘Mother Lode’ Source Within its Reach
By Marc Davis
June, 2007
Corporate Overview
Silverado Gold Mines Inc. (NASD OTCBB:SLGLF) (Frankfurt: SLGL) (Berlin: SLGL) is a diversified natural resources company that is riding the crest of two major trends – one involving a sustained bull market for gold prices and the other being the imperative to develop innovative new forms of inexpensive ‘green energy.’
For more on Silverado Green Fuel Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary, please refer to Part II of this investment assessment.
All told, Silverado (www.silverado.com) has spent about a quarter of a century developing prospectively world-class gold projects in mineral-rich Alaska – home to some of North America’s most prolific gold mines and developmental stage gold deposits.
Moreover, Silverado’s progress has thus far been quite lucrative. In fact, while hunting for major ‘lode’ deposits, the Company has carved a profitable business niche for itself in the placer gold mining business. And all of this placer gold is known to have originated from nearby buried concentrations of gold that represent the ultimate prize or ‘mother lode.’ Specifically, the placer gold has leached out of rich proximal gold vein/shear structures into river drainage systems, where over the millennia it has become part of ancient gravel beds.
While Silverado continues to use sophisticated geo-scientific sleuthing technology at its Nolan Property to zero-in on the exact location of the buried lode treasure trove, the Company is also building considerable intrinsic value into its share price by way of its steady stream of gold revenues.
This gives Silverado a pronounced competitive advantage over legions of other gold exploration juniors that have no gold production to sustain them. Instead, they have nothing but grandiose dreams of winning the mineral exploration jackpot to justify their much-hyped share prices. By comparison, Silverado is still very modestly priced.
To date, the Company’s tangible gold assets have generated over U.S. $20 million in sales since the 1980’s – much of it in gold and silver bars and the rest in sizeable gold nuggets which are highly sought after for Alaskan jewelry.
In essence, this placer gold mining business serves as a financial backstop for a ‘best of both worlds’ business mode. One that provides meaningful and consistent cash-flow, as well as a commitment to finding the lode source of all of its placer gold.
Notably, more than half of all of Silverado’s gold revenues were generated in 2006, alone. This resulted from the recommencement of underground mining at the Company’s wholly-owned Nolan Mine. This suggests that Silverado may be starting to tap into remnants of very rich lode vein systems along a prolifically mineralized trend or horizon. This represents the culmination of 16 years of systematic exploration of the expansive Nolan Property for the source of the placer gold.
All told, an estimated 354,686 troy ounces of gold resources have so far been delineated by mining and drilling on Silverado’s Alaskan properties, according to independent geological reports.
Canadian investors should note that this mineral resource estimate is not National Instrument 43-101 compliant as Silverado does not operate its gold projects in Canada. (In other words, this resource figure does not satisfy guidelines that constitute a Canadian federal government recognized standard for a “mineral reserve.”)
The Emerging Nolan Gold Deposit/Mine: An Overview
Some of Silverado’s gold resources have to date been outlined at the developmental stage Nolan Gold Mine. Located 280 road miles north of Fairbanks in the state’s Arctic Circle region, it is the site of an extremely cost-efficient and profitable surface mining operation for gold-bearing gravel. In the winter, underground mining of frozen gravels also takes place, allowing for year-round revenue generation.
In the summer months when the gravel has thawed, snow melt water is available for gold recovery by sluicing. Environmentally conscious investors will be happy to learn that the sluicing process uses only gravity and water within a closed circuit, ensuring that there is zero discharge to the environment. Also, lands disturbed by the Company’s mining activities are fully reclaimed.
Most of the gold found at the Nolan Mine is in nugget form. This offers a distinct advantage over conventional mining methods that typically involve crushing and grinding large volumes of rock to extract gold particles. Instead, Silverado’s nuggets can be easily and inexpensively extracted from the gravels and sold for a hefty premium to their melt-down value (averaging about 33% above bullion’s spot price).
For instance, one nugget recovered at Nolan weighed 41.35 ounces and sold for U.S. $50,000 – a 212% premium above its melt-down value. Another weighing 13.78 troy ounces was taken from the floor of the Nolan Mine’s Mary’s East Tunnel after a controlled blast as recently as February of this year.
Tapping into a Rich Vein of Opportunity: 2006 Nolan Exploration Highlights
Silverado believes that the increasing frequency of sizeable gold nuggets being found at the Nolan Property suggests that the Company is zeroing-in on their lode source. This is where gold in water flows through fissures or the spaces between cracks in rocks, where it precipitates out. In turn, this forms ‘ore-zones’, or rich quartz gold veins, such as the ones that Silverado has encountered during last season’s drilling and trenching programs.
During the fall period of Silverado’s 2006 exploration program, Silverado also carried out a total of 920 feet of backhoe trenching to investigate gold bearing antimony-quartz vein systems. Ones that are part of the Solomon Shear, a five mile long gold bearing shear zone (which is a geologically favourable structure for the emplacement of significant gold deposits).
Such developments constitute a major exploration breakthrough for Silverado. This allowed the Company to announce that it was beginning to outline the parameters of what it describes as a “significant gold/antimony deposit.” A discovery that Silverado CEO Garry Anselmo says may be a “potentially huge source of gold.” One that will be aggressively explored in 2007.
That said, the discovery of high-grade gold zones is now a function of the methodical development of the sizeable Solomon Shear Trend, which may prove to host many rich gold zones, each with multi-million ounce potential.
An airborne geophysical survey published by the State of Alaska is also being used in conjunction with on-going ground geological, geophysical, and geochemical surveys to pin-point the exact location of such enriched gold zones
Meanwhile, of the three mineralized zones identified to date by trenching, the ‘main zone’ was revealed to host 16 gold veins across a zone of alteration 192 feet wide. A total of 71 combined chip and channel rock samples were collected during the trenching program and submitted to ALS Chemex in Fairbanks for analysis.
Out of these 71 samples, 32 show values higher than 0.01 ounces of gold per ton (opt) and ranged from 0.01 opt to 0.83 opt. These results offer clear confirmation that high-grade lode gold mineralized quartz veins exist in the Solomon Shear Zone, according to Silverado’s geological team.
Drilling at Nolan Reveals a High-Grade Antimony Discovery
Another notable coup for Silverado in 2006 was the discovery at the Nolan Deposit of rich antimony values, running from 1% to 46% in rock samples. To put this in dollar terms, rock containing 46% antimony would be worth about U.S. $2,300 per ton (at the current antimony price of $2.56/lb). By comparison, the same ton of rock would have to contain roughly 3.5 ounces of gold per ton (at $656/ounce) to be of the same monetary value.
Preliminary metallurgical tests on Nolan’s antimony samples showed combined lead and arsenic present in amounts less than 0.1%, which constitutes some of the purest antimony in existence, according to Silverado. This is very important since antimony contaminated with over 0.5% combined lead and arsenic has to be shipped overseas to be processed.
Antimony Prices Are Poised to Spike Higher
Antimony is a silvery-white metal with a very low melting point and is used in North America primarily in chemicals. It is most commonly used to impregnate plastics, textiles, rubber and other materials as a flame retardant. Antimony is also mixed with other metals to increase their hardness and strength, such as batteries and the lead in bullets, and it is also considered a military strategic metal. It is also used to seal the fire sprinklers which when heated melt and allow the water to flow.
As an aside, China produces 82% of the world’s antimony, Russia 8%, South Africa 3%, Tajikistan 2% and Bolivia 2% (for a total of 97%). In November 2006, China indicated that it would cut its export quotas of antimony and tin by 30%, which will likely create a supply squeeze.
In turn, antimony prices are almost certain to surge higher, which is nothing but good news for Silverado. This is particularly the case since North America accounts for only a fraction of global production, while it accounts for most of the world’s industrial usage.
Other Key Developments
In 2005, the Company began underground mining on the Swede Channel portion of the Nolan Mine, involving the implementation of extensive infrastructure and mining equipment and other support facilities. This gold-rich zone yielded 939 ounces of gold last year, 785 of that being high premium nugget gold.
However, that figure only represents a portion of the gold that has already been outlined in the Swede Channel. In fact, only about 30% of the Swede ore zone was removed in 2005/06. The balance of the ore, along with a newly discovered extension to the Swede Channel, was mined out in the winter of 2006/07. The resultant 18,000 cubic yards now await gold extraction, which will begin later this month.
Widespread Regional Gold Potential Including Silverado’s Hammond Property
The Company has also optioned property that covers the adjoining Hammond River placer deposits. The Hammond Property adjoins the Nolan project to the northeast. It contains the Slisco Bench, a prime placer prospect and one of Silverado’s future exploration targets.
Silverado therefore plans to conduct drilling to delineate additional gold resources, while also gaining geo-technical and engineering data for potential mining of this ancient riverbed.
The Hammond River is historically and currently a rich gold producer in the district. Exploration to date, including 103 drill holes, reveals that the Slisco Bench is an attractive underground prospect which may prove to be a significant gold producer in the future.
Notably, the Company drilled 33 holes on this bench in 2006 with 15 of them hitting significant gold values. These values ranged from 0.01 to 0.5 ounces of gold per bank cubic yard of gravel.
Other Key Assets
In addition to the Nolan Gold Deposit, the Company also owns the Ester Dome Gold Project, as well as the Eagle Creek Project, both of which are located close to Fairbanks, Alaska. Significantly, they are also part of the same gold belt where Kinross is operating its huge Fort Knox Gold Mine. Likewise, Kinross’ True North Gold Deposit is also in close proximity to both of these geologically very prospective projects.
Historically, the Eagle Creek Property was Alaska’s second largest antimony producer. In the late 1980’s, Silverado built a 100-ton-per-day gravity plant and processed the old mine dumps, successfully selling all the antimony produced. Although Silverado originally studied this property for its antimony potential, the constant discovery of gold soon changed the property status from antimony to gold/antimony.
In addition to the high-grade gold bearing quartz veins found on Silverado’s large Eagle Creek property, the Company also made a significant new gold discovery at the project area in 2006. This new discovery area shows gold dissemination throughout intrusive rocks and will be better investigated at a future date.
At the Ester Dome Property, Silverado has sporadically worked the area since 1978 to present. This includes the development of lode gold deposits on the Grant Mine portion of the project area. All told, this has in the past yielded some U.S. $10 million in high-grade gold bullion bars.
An extensive exploration program in the mid 1990’s at the St. Paul Shear Zone on Ester Dome resulted in the discovery of a potentially large lode gold ore body. Since then, only a small but representative part of the property has been drilled to very limited depths on gold mineralized zones which are “open” (continuous) to a vertical extent at depth and along a lateral plane (strike length).
This is also the case with the O’Dea and Ethyl-Elms mineralized zones on this highly attractive Ester Dome Property where a recorded four million ounces of placer gold have been taken from around the base of this small mountain.
The Company therefore believes that it has only just ‘scratched the surface’ of what remains a potentially very rich gold property with plenty of ‘blue sky’ potential. However, Silverado has strategically decided to focus the bulk of its near-term exploration activities at the Nolan Property.
Moreover, an outdated 300-ton-per-day gold processing facility is the legacy of a highly productive lode mining era at the Easter Dome Property. This mill complex is worth at least U.S. $6 million in 2007 dollars and is being relocated to Mississippi to provide valuable processing infrastructure for the Company’s fledgling Green Fuel business.
Investment Summary
Shareholders of Silverado Gold Mines are in an enviable position. They have considerable exposure to a rising tide market for gold prices, as well as for antimony. Not only does this come in the form of the ‘blue sky’ potential for finding a prolifically rich ‘mother lode’ style gold deposit at the Nolan Property; but it also can be measured in more tangible terms by way of the Company’s small-scale but very lucrative placer gold mining operation.
Then there’s an additional dimension to the Company by way of Silverado’s radically non-linear diversification into the 21st century alternative energy business. This involves its wholly owned subsidiary, Silverado Green Fuel Inc.
The Company’s ‘green’ alternative fuel source heralds a major breakthrough in inexpensively solving North America’s addiction to dwindling foreign oil reserves. And it could substantially help mitigate carbon dioxide emissions, nitrous oxides, sulfur dioxides and particulate matter throughout the industrialized world, as well. With a much sought-after business model for the wide-scale commercialization of this clean fuel initiative, Silverado certainly has a tiger by the tale.
SmallCapMedia therefore believes that a convergence of powerful value drivers is now setting the stage for a very bright and dynamic future for Silverado. One that promises to reward patient investors with considerable ‘home run’ potential.
Hence, SmallCapMedia believes that the share price of this enterprising, up-and-coming Company will continue to establish a sustained upwards trend during the balance of 2007. And the advent of plenty of ‘blue sky’ potential at its gold projects and its green energy venture should provide a powerful springboard for Silverado’s share price in 2008 – a time when SmallCapMedia expects to see the Company’s stock trading at many multiples of its current price.