Read the article “Strathcona Minerals responds to Pretium’s bulk sample result” if you haven’t already.
Originally I thought that there was either (A) fraud or (B) Strathcona screwed up. In a totally bizarre and unexpected turn of events, Strathcona is right but there is no fraud*.
(The synopsis of this post is that I still haven’t been able to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together.)
Today, Pretium dropped a bomb of a press release: Bulk Sample Surpasses Target of 4,000 Ounces of Gold; Processing Continues. The preliminary results are that there is 4,215 ounces of gold in the 8,090 tonnes processed so far. It looks like the bulk sample results will exceed the resource estimate; this would be strong evidence that there is more gold in the deposit than originally thought. I’d be curious as to how much gold should have been in the 8,090 tonnes processed so far (according to Snowden’s resource model) as the press release does not say. Anyways, here are some possible scenarios for the current results:
Cliffs has announced that it is pulling out of the Ring of Fire and has no plans to restart its activities (press release). I think that Cliffs is making the right decision because its own investors presentation showed that its chromite project was uneconomic (with the spot prices back then). This is very unfortunate for me because I own shares in Noront and KWG Resources.
