Montage Gold (MAU.TO) has released a resource update on its higher grade satellite deposits at its flagship Koné gold project in Ivory Coast. The total resource increase at those satellite deposits is quite remarkable as they grew from just 0.52 million ounces in the measured and indicated category in the 2024 feasibility study, to a total of 2.5 million ounces in all categories (including 1.7 million ounces in the measured and indicated resource categories and an additional 0.8 million ounces in the inferred resource category) at a grade of 1.51 g/t and 1.34 g/t respectively.

These resource additions have also pushed the total Koné resource to 6.3 million ounces gold in the measured and indicated categories (with an additional grade boost to 0.8 g/t gold) while the total inferred resources increased to 2 million ounces gold at a 36% higher grade of 0.68 g/t gold.

Additional resource updates are expected given the company is currently working on a 90,000 meter drill program (and a total of 330,000 meters has already been drilled since the publication of the feasibility study). Meanwhile, the first gold pour at Koné is expected in late Q4 2026.

Disclosure: The author has no position in Montage Gold. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Generation Mining (GENM.TO) has completed another piece of its financing puzzle as it has announced the Canada Infrastructure Bank has received internal credit approval for a subordinated debt facility of C$200M. This amount is structured in a C$110M to help fund the development and construction costs while the remaining C$90M is specifically earmarked for project cost overruns.

Combined with the previously announced senior debt facility, streaming deal and equipment leasing, Generation Mining has now secured C$969M of the approximately C$1.14B capex as per the 2025 feasibility study. As the pieces of the financing puzzle are now falling into place pretty fast, we hope to see the remaining elements of the full construction financing package in the next few weeks so the company can finally kick off the actual development of the copper-palladium mine in Ontario.

Disclosure: The author has a small long position in Generation Mining. Generation Mining is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Tungsten Mining (TGN.AX) has recently started its Reverse Circulation program on the Mt Mulgine project in Western Australia. The RC drill program will consist of 40,000 meters of drilling in 130 holes, and will be important towards realizing its exploration target of 165-200 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.10-0.12% WO3. While that grade wouldn’t have been very viable when the tungsten price was trading at just $300-400 per mtu, the situation on the tungsten market has changed pretty dramatically with prices coming in at $3000/mtu in the recent past.

This means we likely are in a ‘new world’ for tungsten. While it would be wrong to use $3000/mtu as long-term price, it also doesn’t look like the tungsten price on the markets will drop back to $300-400 per mtu. And even if you would use $750 or $1000/mtu, a resource with an average grade of 0.10-0.12% WO3 could be viable (1% represents 1 mtu, so 0.10% represents 0.1 mtu before taking recovery rates and payability percentages into account). So at a tungsten price of $750/mtu, 0.10% WO3 mineralization has a gross rock value of $75 per tonne before recoveries and payabilities.

Additionally, 37 PQ diamond holes will be drilled for a total of 4,700 meters. The purpose of this drill program is to collect more material for metallurgical test work, and to gather data for the potential pit design at Mt. Mulgine.

Disclosure: The author has no position in Tungsten Mining. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Although we are getting close to wrapping up the second quarter of the year, we think it’s perhaps a good opportunity to take a moment and have another look at Heliostar Metals’ (HSTR.V) results for the first quarter of the year. As the company is strongly cash flowing at the current strong gold price, Charles Funk and his team are in an excellent position to continue to unlock value at Heliostar. The existing assets, recently acquired assets and potential new acquisitions will allow Heliostar to keep its pipeline filled.

In a previous update that was published in April, we reviewed the company’s acquisition of the Goldstrike project in Utah so we won’t spend that much time on that acquisition and project. Instead, we will focus on the cash flow generated by the operating assets and explain why a gold price of $4500/oz or $4000/oz has no material impact on the Heliostar thesis.

A quick review of the Q1 results

In the first quarter of this year, Heliostar Metals produced just under 11,750 ounces of gold, in combination with almost 44,000 ounces of silver. Unfortunately a substantial portion of the production was not sold during the quarter (only 9,980 ounces and 10,610 ounces respectively were sold), with the remainder held in inventory (and those ounces were likely sold off in the first few weeks of the current quarter). The company’s strong balance sheet allowed it to avoid selling metal into the brief downturn in metal prices near the end of the Q1.

As anticipated, the cash cost and the all-in sustaining cash costs decreased versus the one time high costs in Q4 to bring San Agustin online. They’re now at a more reasonable level of just under $2,000/oz on an AISC basis. The main driver of the production (and operating expenses) was the La Colorada mine in Mexico’s Sonora state which where Heliostar operates a 12,000 tonnes per day plant. These operations yielded 6,900 ounces of gold at an AISC of $1,703/oz with San Agustin providing the balance of the production. At San Agustin, the total production was 4,853 ounces of gold of which just over 4,400 ounces were sold at an AISC of $2170 per ounce sold.

This resulted in a total generated revenue of US$54.4M and mine operating earnings of just under US$31M (it goes without saying that due to the low-cost nature of these projects, the margins are very good). The reported operating income was $21.4M and looking at the bottom line result, Heliostar reported a net profit of $14.1M or US$0.05 per share. At the current exchange rate, this represents approximately C$0.07 per share.

Two key elements to isolate from the income statement. First of all, the bottom line result included $4.6M of expensed exploration. Rather than capitalizing the exploration efforts, the company elected to expense them. There’s something to be said to expense the $3.3M that was spent on Cerro del Gallo, Unga and San Antonio, but it is interesting to see the $1.3M in exploration expenditures on the producing assets was expensed and not capitalized. While these assets are producing, the exploration efforts here were focused on new, incremental resource targets that still need to be worked into a future mine plan. The infill drilling at Ana Paula was expensed as the company is de-risking ounces already planned to be put into production (as shown in the PEA)

Secondly, the low operating expenses include a $5.8M contribution from changes in inventories from the one time sale of gold bearing carbon fines that had built up through 2025. While this did have an impact, we should not exaggerate that impact, especially given it’s approximately the same magnitude as the expensed exploration efforts. If you would remove both from the equation, the bottom line result would not be materially different.

Given the very low-capex nature of the two existing mines, we were expecting Heliostar to continue to generate a substantial amount of free cash flow. While the reported operating cash flow (shown below) is just $1.4M, keep in mind this is entirely related to a build in the working capital position. There were a large number of ounces sold right at the end of the quarter for which cash had not yet been received by March 31^st – about $11M worth. There was a net cash outflow of $18M that was invested in working capital elements, including $3M in taxes paid that were not owed based on the H1 results. And it goes without saying we should see a reversal of the working capital cash flows  next  quarter as for instance the increased amount of receivables will be converted in hard dollars.

The main takeaway: on a normalized basis, and excluding the impact of changes in the working capital (which we expect to be reversed anyway), the operating cash flow was $19.4M of which $0.7M was required for capital expenditures and an additional $5M was spent on capitalized exploration at Ana Paula.

So if you would take the capitalized exploration into consideration as well, Heliostar generated approximately $13.5M in net free cash flow, (which is approximately C$18.5M using the current exchange rate). And keep in mind this includes almost US$10M (C$13.5M) in exploration efforts which should add value to the existing assets.

The net cash didn’t increase (due to the aforementioned investments in working capital items) but the working capital position increased to approximately US$70M (about C$95M using a fixed exchange rate of 1.35 CAD per USD, and slightly higher at the current exchange rate of 1.42 CAD per USD).

Despite the lower gold price, Heliostar will still provide superior cash flow

While the Q1 results were achieved based on an average gold price of $4750/oz, even at the current lower gold and silver prices, we would continue to see a very robust earnings and cash flow profile. After all, keep in mind a low single digit percentage of the gold and silver production was not sold during Q1 and thus was not included in the revenue calculation.

Let’s take a step back and have another look at the official guidance for this year.

As indicated above, the company plans to produce 50-55,000 ounces of gold and 290-320,000 ounces of silver at an anticipated AISC of $2025-2125 per ounce of gold (keep in mind a higher silver price compared to the company’s budget price of $47.50 will have a positive impact on the all-in sustaining cost per ounce of gold as the by-product revenue will come in higher). While the difference between a realized gold price of $4750/oz and $4000/oz will certainly make a difference, the main takeaway however is that Heliostar will still be hoarding cash thanks to its operational assets, and that cash will provide the required equity component (or at least a substantial part of the equity component) of its future growth projects.

The anticipated capex to lay back the La Colorado open pit can easily be covered by the current cash position, and future cash flows will only add to that cash pile. The Ana Paula initial capex is estimated at US$300M as per the November 2025 PEA, so assuming a 40/60 equity/debt financing structure would require Heliostar to put up US$120M in equity (read: retained earnings and available cash).

Ana Paula also has the potential to triple the company’s production rate, with an even higher torque on the cash flows (Ana Paula will produce twice as much as the two current operational mines, at an AISC that will be about 40-45% lower than what Heliostar is currently spending to produce an ounce of gold).

And then you are off to the races. Suddenly, with Ana Paula in production (and assuming the numbers from the 2025 study can effectively be achieved), Heliostar will be producing 150,000 ounces of gold at a blended AISC of $1500-1750/oz. Even if the AISC comes in at the higher end of that range, and even if gold retraces back to $3500/oz, the net margins (on a pre-tax and pre-overhead basis) would still be about $1750/oz, for a net cash flow of US$250M per year on the mine level. And even after deducting taxes and interest payments, Heliostar would still generate a triple digit amount of net free cash flow per year. And that’s what will fuel the next growth steps.

Heliostar started out as a three-step rocket with La Colorada, San Agustin and Ana Paula (subsequent to acquiring the Mexican assets after Ana Paula), but has evolved into what now appears to be a five-step rocket, where every milestone that is achieved will boost the next phase of the company’s growth profile.

The Veta Madre pit expansion will boost the output at La Colorada

Last week, Heliostar Metals also announced it received the final documentation for the change of use of soils permit for the Veta Madre pit expansion at its La Colorada Mine. This approval comes on top of the environmental permits for the pit expansion and the leach pad expansion already granted. The newly issued permits and approvals support both the current design of the open pit but would also be valid for the potentially larger Veta Madre Plus pit.

Heliostar recently also completed in excess of 8,400 meters of drilling in 44 holes focusing on the Veta Madre resource and reserve and stepping out into new areas around the existing pit. Not only did the drill program intersect higher grade mineralization within the current Veta Madre reserve pit pushback, it also encountered mineralization that could see the pit expand even further to the South (this would be the Veta Madre Plus pit mentioned in the previous paragraph). Some of the higher grade results can be found in the bullet points below.

• Veta Madre drilling:
  • 10.9 m grading 22.1 g/t gold from 187.7 m, including 1.3 m grading 174 g/t gold
  • 40.8 m grading 2.23 g/t gold from 51.3 m, including 17.45 m grading 4.55 g/t gold
  • 147.2 m grading 0.70 g/t gold from 32.65 m, including 10.7 m grading 1.98 g/t gold
  • 20.65 m grading 3.35 g/t gold from 337.4 m
  • 32.0 m grading 1.65 g/t gold from 52.5 m
  • 52.35 m grading 1.23 g/t gold from 50.3 m
• Significant intervals of mineralization outside of the current Veta Madre reserve pit
• Final approvals for Veta Madre pit expansion received from the Mexican permitting agency
• Engineering of Veta Madre Plus pit is ongoing with waste stripping on track to start in early Q3 2026

The company is now working on an updated resource model at Veta Madre and engineering of the larger Veta Madre Plus pit.These updates will include the recent drill results as well as the higher gold price since the previous resource and technical report was issued. The updated model will not be published in a new technical report, but the impact of the expanded pit and mineralization will become evident in the company’s 2027 (and potentially 2028) guidance. As pre-stripping activities are expected to start in the next quarter, Heliostar Metals will have a pretty good idea on its timelines by the time the 2027 guidance will be released.

Further growth opportunities

And although the company’s asset development pipeline is already quite well filled, Heliostar continues to be on the lookout for opportunities as it does have the right team in place and sufficient financial firepower to advance projects.

With the recent acquisition of the Goldstrike project in Utah, Heliostar has clearly shown it is willing to take on this type of development project outside of Mexico as well.

And we believe this will be the main value creating engine of the company as despite seeing a gold price that remains strongly above $4000 per oz, this type of projects are still available at a very reasonable cost with plenty of opportunity for the company’s technical team to add value. However with an already robust development project pipeline that stretches well into the 2030s, we expect the company to focus more on adding production assets.

Conclusion

When Heliostar acquired the Ana Paula project as its flagship asset, it was an interesting story. Adding two operating assets to the project mix has changed the picture pretty drastically considering both assets are generating more cash flow than Heliostar can currently spend. This will allow the company to strengthen its balance sheet by adding cash to its treasury ahead of its next (wave of) development efforts.

From a financial perspective, the company has never been in such good shape. Which means Heliostar now is an ‘execution’ story.

Disclosure: The author has a small long position in Heliostar Metals. Heliostar Metals is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read our full disclosure.

Nuvau Minerals (NMC.V) has commenced working on a new Preliminary Economic Assessment on its flagship Matagami project in Quebec. This project includes the past-producing Bracemac-McLeod mine where the company discovered an extension of the mineralization at depth.

The PEA will include an update to the existing resource beyond what was included in the 2023 PEA. This will now also include the Bracemac-McLeod extension, and this potential addition would be moved forward as the mine remains fully permitted with key infrastructure elements still in place as the mine only recently ceased production (in 2022). The PEA will of course also use the higher commodity prices as the 2023 study still used $3.74 copper in its base case scenario. Applying a higher copper price should help the economics, but the updated capex and opex remain important items as well.

Disclosure: The author currently has no position in Nuvau Minerals. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Generation Mining (GENM.TO) continues to make progress on the financing mix for its Marathon project. The lenders have now approved a US$310M (C$424M) senior secured project finance facility to fund the development of the project. Despite the weak palladium price, lenders are still willing to take on the financing risk, which further emphasizes the robust economics of the project.

Adding the C$200M streaming agreement with Wheaton Precious Metals and a C$145M equipment lease facility, the company has now secured approximately C$769M in funding for Marathon. This represents approximately 67% of the C$1.14B capex (as per the 2025 feasibility study – the C$992M reported capex is net of the equipment financing. Excluding the equipment lease financing from both sides of the equation would result in a 63% coverage ratio of the initial capex). Additional funding may come from subordinated debt and an equity component.

Generation Mining has also strengthened its team by appointing a new COO and VP Finance. The new COO formerly was the Operations Director at Wood Canada and has been a Technical Advisor to Generation Mining for the past few months, which ensures he is familiar with the project.

Anton Cukrov was appointed as VP Finance and has almost two decades of experience, most recently at Foran Mining, which was recently acquired by Eldorado Gold.

Disclosure: The author has a long position in Generation Mining. Generation Mining is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Blue Jay Gold (JAY.V) has kicked off its diamond drill program on its flagship Steller gold project in the Yukon Territory. The initial activities will focus on the Raca zone which is located just 300 meters away from the Skukum Creek resource. This initial round of drilling will follow up on earlier drilling (with results including 3.23 meters of 581 g/t silver and 0.76 g/t gold and 2.65 meters containing 489 g/t silver and 0.27 g/t gold) which intersected two apparent sub-parallel zones of gold/silver mineralization that remains open along strike and at depth.

This represents just the start of an anticipated 16,000 meter drill program at Steller. A second drill rig is currently being mobilized to take advantage of the drill season. Keep in mind the Steller project has been the subject of 120,000 meters of historical drilling, but the project itself has never been evaluated from a district-scale perspective. That’s exactly what Blue Jay now aims to do, and the data gathered from the 16,000 meter drill program will definitely enhance the understanding of the technical aspects of the project.

We expect the initial assays to roll in at the end of August, and the company’s news flow should be pretty steady from then on.

Disclosure: The author has a long position in Blue Jay Gold. Blue Jay currently is not a sponsor of the website, but could become one in the near future. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

When District Metals (DMX.V) acquired the Viken polymetallic deposit in Sweden, it didn’t come as a surprise to see that this alum shale hosted a multi-billion ton resource containing about a dozen elements from the periodic table. As the Swedish government still had a ban on exploring for and mining uranium, the project came out of the gate as a vanadium deposit but since the Swedish government has lifted the moratorium on uranium exploration and mining it has become clear that this project could become one of the most important sources of uranium in the European Union.

Subsequent to releasing an updated mineral resource estimate in April 2025, the company worked towards putting an updated Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) together as the moratorium on uranium mining has been lifted. As per the initial study, the Viken project could produce approximately 3.3 million pounds of uranium per year which would fully cover the domestic demand in Sweden. On top of that, as there are very few economically viable uranium projects in the European Union, the Viken project could play a pivotal role in the EU’s plan to increase its independency from non-EU energy sources.

In this report we will have a closer look at the PEA and the implications for District Metals as a company, and Sweden as a nation.

The PEA: a first look

The company released the results of its PEA on the Viken project earlier this month, and we have to say the results are better than we had anticipated. While we are still waiting to see all the details in the technical report, the initial publication already provides plenty of data.

In our previous reports on District Metals we mentioned that the Aura Energy economic study on its Haggan alum shale deposit would be a good reference for what we might expect from district. Fortunately District elected to go for a much larger production scenario and now anticipates an average annual production of 3.3 million pounds of uranium per year.

The economic study also takes a very substantial by-product credit into consideration as SOP ( fertilizer) and vanadium (in the form of vanadium electrolytes and ferrovanadium) turn out to be two very important byproduct credits. Additionally, the project will also produce some zinc, some nickel and molybdenum which we consider to be the ‘secondary’ byproduct credits. Still important and a contributor to the NPV, but less important than the Vanadium and SOP related revenue.

The PEA is based on a production scenario with a 10 million ton per year capacity for an initial mine life of just under 13 years. Given the multibillion ton resource statement on the Viken project, readers are cautioned that the total resource included in the mine plan represents less than 3% of the overall Viken mineral resource estimate on the property. So while the IRR and Net Present Value look great, District Metals is still just barely scratching the surface and we should consider the PEA to be a starting point and a stepping stone more than a ‘limited’ production scenario.

It also makes sense to keep the phase one mine life limited to 13 years. Using a discount rate of 8% indicates the cash flows in the 14^th year of the mine life would be discounted by almost 70%. This means that every $100M in net free cash flow would be discounted and only contribute $31M to the NPV.  So keeping the mine life to 13 years does not profoundly impact the NPV in a negative way.

A throughput of 10 million tons per year will result in an annual production of approximately 3.3 million pounds of uranium per year, as well as 16 million pounds of V2O5 equivalent. As the price for just vanadium pentoxide is pretty low these days, District Metals made the smart move to produce premium vanadium products. The company now expects to produce approximately 37 million liters of vanadium electrolyte per year as well as 6 million kilograms of ferrovanadium per year which would fetch prices of respectively $9 per litre and $38 per kilogram. This would result in a combined V2O5 received price of approximately US$15.70 per pound.

On top of that, the Viken alum shale project is expected to produce 250,000 tons per year of sulphate of potash (‘SOP’) which could be sold at approximately US$600 to US$700 per ton (the PEA uses US$650/t as the average sales price).

The project will also produce 4.5 million pounds of molybdenum per year, 1.6 million pounds of nickel as well as 2.1 million pounds of zinc. These three elements will definitely contribute to the overall economics of the project but they’re clearly not as important as the vanadium and the SOP production.

The initial capital expenditures are estimated at US$876M (which includes the investments required to produce value-add vanadium products), and given the abundance of byproduct credits, the net cash cost per pound of uranium (net of the aforementioned byproduct credits) is a negative US$121 per pound.

It goes without saying that a negative cash cost, let alone a triple digit negative cash cost, has a tremendously positive impact on the economics of the project. Using a base case uranium price of $85 per pound (perhaps a bit high, but in line with or even on the lower end of the base case uranium prices used by its peers in recent studies), the after-tax internal rate of return (‘IRR’) comes in at just under 46% while the after tax net present value (‘NPV’) discounted by 8% per year comes in at an astronomical US$2.9B, which is roughly C$4B at today’s exchange rate. And we would like to emphasize once again that the total amount of resources included in the mine plan represents under 3% of the total resource on the Viken project.

The company also provided a detailed sensitivity table allowing investors to have a look at what happens with the economics when the commodity prices decrease by 10%, 20% and 30%. As the table below shows, even in the conservative scenario with a 30% lower commodity price across the board (including a uranium price of approximately $60 per pound), the after-tax net present value discounted by 8% still exceeds US$1B (C$1.4B) while the after-tax internal rate of return comes in at 24%.

It is a pity that it’s a bit more difficult to isolate the impact of a price change per commodity as it would have been interesting to use a – 30% scenario for the vanadium but only a 10% lower uranium price as part of stress-testing the economics. As the press release obviously only offers just a summary of the economics, we expect the technical report to contain much more useful data including a better insight on the vanadium electrolyte and ferro vanadium products.

The company is cashed up after the recent raise

Earlier this quarter, the company raised C$10M in a no-warrant financing priced at C$0.68 per share. The vast majority of these shares are placed in Sweden while 100% of the offering appears to have been placed in Europe (as Pareto Securities earned a 5% finders fee and no Canadian brokers were mentioned). Not only does this provide the company with additional exposure to European investors and vice versa, not having to issue warrants is definitely a positive feature.

This financing will nicely top up the treasury which already had a positive working capital balance of approximately C$8.7M at the end of the first quarter. While we still have to wait for the company to file its financials for the second quarter, we estimate District Metals to currently have a positive working capital position exceeding C$16M.

It’s perhaps also worth noting that there are 6,045,500 warrants with a strike price C$0.30 due to expire in February 2027 that should bring in approximately C$1.8 million. The next expiry date for options are the 1.98 million options with an exercise price of C$0.25 expiring in approximately 4 months from now (shown above). If and when exercised, these will bring in an additional C$0.5M.

What’s next for District?

Completing the PEA was an important step for District Metals, but that doesn’t mean the company will sit on its hands. We can expect the Economic Impact Study to be published in the next few weeks, and this will highlight the positive economic impact the project will have on the local economy, as well as the Swedish economy. And within the next few weeks, we also expect/hope to see the Viken project to get the ‘project of national interest’ designation.

The company will also remain active on the technical front. Not only do we expect to see the company getting active on the other alum shale properties, we also expect to see a drill program on the Viken project.

And as the company announced earlier this week, the Österskälen alum shale project will be drilled before Viken. A drill permit has been received and a drill contract has been awarded, with the drill rig expected to arrive on site within the next few weeks. The total amount of holes and meters has not been disclosed yet and will depend on the actual exploration success.

The drill program will test a large MobileMT geophysical conductive anomaly that was identified in 2025, which, in combination with other elements, makes the project prospective for alum shale exploration. With a total size of 8 kilometers by 3.5 kilometers, this also represents a sizeable target which hopefully hosts a Viken-style mineralized system.

Once the Österskälen drill program will be completed, we hope to see more details on a Viken. That drill program will likely not focus on the existing resource and the area where the PEA was focusing on, but as the image above shows, a recent geophysics program has highlighted about half a dozen high priority targets, with some of those targets presenting larger opportunities than Viken. It’s our understanding CEO Garrett Ainsworth and his technical team are chomping at the bit to drill-test ‘Target Area A’.

Just to be completely clear, the Viken PEA includes just 3% of the total resource. No additional resources are needed to continue to advance Viken towards a feasibility study and a construction decision, but it would be interesting to have several resources on the Greater Viken area. After all, it would technically be feasible to simultaneously mine several areas if that would turn out to be the best approach. And with the recent positive political developments (see below), District Metals is in an excellent position to help Sweden unlock its raw materials potential.

Conclusion

Since the acquisition of the Viken project, District Metals has diligently worked towards an updated resource estimate which was published last year, and now the moratorium on uranium mining in Sweden has been lifted, the recently published PEA was the next logical step.

We are glad to see that the company is not just going to produce a ‘standard’ vanadium pentoxide product but it has elected to go the extra mile and invest the additional cash and produce vanadium electrolyte as well as ferrovanadium to ensure a higher pricing for these premium products.

Using the company’s base case scenario, the after tax net present value discounted by 8% comes in at approximately US$2.9B (which represents an excess of 4 billion Canadian dollars) and even in a stress test scenario whereby commodity prices are reduced by 30% across the board, the NPV8% still comes in at almost C$1.5B while the internal rate of return almost reaches 25%.

The results of the PEA confirm District Metals should continue to aggressively advance the Viken uranium-vanadium-potash project, as the project could help to reduce the EU’s reliance on imported commodities.

Disclosure: The author has no position in District Metals. District Metals is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read our full disclosure.

Arras Minerals (ARK.V) recently announced a C$15M bought deal financing on the back of its good drill results in Kazakhstan but due to strong investor demand, the total size of the offering was recently increased to C$21.7M.

The financing was priced at C$1.36 and as this is a no-warrant financing, this is a good way for Arras Minerals to top up its treasury. The underwriters are entitled to purchase an additional 1.47M shares as part of the bought deal financing, which would bring the total size to C$23.7M (before expenses and underwriting fees). This will of course be very helpful to continue to explore the copper assets in Kazakhstan, which recently yielded an interval of almost a kilometer at 0.71% copper-equivalent at Berezski North.

Disclosure: The author has a long position in Arras Minerals but recently sold approximately a quarter of the position. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Quimbaya Gold (QIM.C) has confirmed it has started a 5,000 meter drill program on its high-priority Tahami Center porphyry target. The company will focus on three targets where the convergence of magnetic, radiometric and geochemical anomalies will be drill-tested. These convergences (the data from four different data sets were used to pinpoint the location of the convergence) appear to be located at a depth of 200-400 meters below surface.

The company emphasized in its update the Tahami Center drilling in fact is not just a single event. The company remains committed to testing the full Tahami Center system as the 2,400 meter by 1,300 meter porphyry corridor definitely requires the attention it deserves.

As explained in our previous report (which you can read HERE), we are looking forward to seeing the drill results at Tahami Center, as this porphyry target could be more exciting than the high-grade gold veins at Tahami South.

Disclosure: The author has no position in Quimbaya Gold. Quimbaya is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

West Point Gold (WPG.V) has now completed its 21,000 meter drill program at its flagship Gold Chain project. 1/3^rd of the assays are still pending, so we can look forward to a few additional weeks of drill results to come out.

Earlier this week, the company released the results of two holes that were drilled at the NE Tyro Zone, and as both holes encountered a thick layer of high-grade gold mineralization. Hole GC26-134 encountered almost 20 meters of 9.06 g/t gold while hole GC26-137 intersected almost 36 meters containing 3.2 g/t gold, including a higher grade zone of 10.2 meters running at 10.23 g/t gold.

Not only the encountered grade is important, but the location of these two holes. They were designed to drill-test an area of high-grade mineralization that was encountered in RC holes, and a core hole obviously returns more precise and detailed geological information to the technical team.

With drilling now completed and 2/3^rd of the assays received, the attention will now shift to seeing the final drill results and the completion of a maiden resource estimate at Tyro Main and NE Tyro. We still anticipate to see a high-grade open pit resource and the company’s official exploration target of 19.5-31.2M tonnes at 2-3 g/t gold (for a range of 1.25-3 million ounces of gold contained) provides a good guidance of what we may expect. Based on the results to date, we think it is fair to assume West Point Gold’s resource may very well come in above the midpoint in terms of tonnage which would result in a resource of 1.6-1.7 million ounces of gold. But we of course wouldn’t mind to be positively surprised if the maiden resource would come in closer to 2 million ounces of gold.

Disclosure: The author has a long position in West Point Gold. West Point is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Arras Minerals (ARK.V) has released the assay results of two holes, drilled on the Berezski North target, part of its Elemes copper-gold project in Kazakhstan. While hole EL26033 yielded an interesting 52 meters of 1.75% copper-equivalent within 181 meters of 0.66% copper-equivalent, the attention was drawn to EL26032 which likely is the company’s best hole yet in Kazakhstan.

Arras intersected a continuous gold-copper interval starting at surface, running over 935.9 meters with an average grade of 0.71% copper-equivalent (consisting of 0.19% copper and 0.51 g/t gold), including a higher grade interval of just under 215 meters containing 1.42% copper-equivalent (consisting of 0.41% copper and 1.01 g/t gold) with a high-grade breccia zone of 55 meters containing 4.41% copper-equivalent (1.22% copper, 3.27 g/t gold) included in that interval.

The two holes were designed to drill-test the shallow breccias and to determine the extents of the underlying porphyry mineralization that was discovered in the 2024 and 2025 drill program. These two holes represent just the first two holes of the eight that have been completed so far at Berezski North, and the initial impression is that the porphyry system remains open in multiple directions and to depths exceeding 900 meters, as shown in hole 26032. While the drill rigs have now left the area, Arras Minerals expects to bring them back to this zone after the assay results of the remaining six holes have been received and interpreted.

Arras now has four drill rigs on site, and we can expect the news flow to be quite continuous over the next few weeks and months.

Disclosure: The author has a long position in Arras Minerals but sold 1/4th of the position to take a profit off the table. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.