Balmoral Resources (TSX: BAR) Currently Drills Aggressively, Exploring Nickel-Copper-PGE Project in Québec, Located near Their Current Gold Project
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By Dr. Allen Alper
on 3/27/2015
Balmoral Resources (TSX: BAR), under the leadership of Darin Wagner, has done exemplary work in the Abitibi greenstone belt. Besides making substantial gold discoveries, Balmoral has discovered, and is currently delineating an important new large nickel-copper-PGE discovery located 40 kilometers away from their current gold project. The PDAC and AEMQ have recognized the Balmoral team for outstanding discoveries.
Darin Wagner, the President and CEO of Balmoral Resources (TSX: BAR) at PDAC 2015
Balmoral's exploration team has been recognized, for the second consecutive year, as the "Prospectors of the Year" in the Province of Québec. The Company was recognized in 2014 for the discovery of the Grasset Ni-Cu-PGE system, after winning the award in 2013 based on the Bug Lake and related gold discoveries on the Company's nearby Martiniere Property. Balmoral is the first company to receive the award in two consecutive years, and only the second two time winner of the award. The award was presented at the annual Association De L'Exploration Minière Du Québec (“AEMQ”) awards ceremony in Montreal, Québec
Darin Wagner, the President and CEO of Balmoral Resources (TSX: BAR; OTCQX: BALMF), updated the Metals News team at PDAC 2015 on the progress Balmoral has had with their gold projects and their new nickel-copper-PGE project located in Québec.
Said Wagner, “This season is a busy time for us. We have three drills currently turning on our project. We started those in January; so literally, we are only a few weeks away from getting those first results from the winter program. With the new Ni-Cu-PGE discovery at Grasset and continued strong results from Martiniere we are focused on delineating two very promising assets located about 40 km apart. Expect results from both discoveries and from a series of holes designed to test additional targets along the Grasset Trend over the next couple of months.”
With the growth of the company, Wagner has added more personnel. He said, “We have supplemented our team with a couple of new, experienced bodies – one on the geological side with nickel expertise and added a new member to our IR staff to focus on institutional markets for gold and base metals. When a lot of companies are shrinking, we are growing. We are very active and getting ready to fill inboxes with drill hole results. We are in fairly rarefied air with two active projects and we have been very busy at PDAC talking to investors and other companies in the space about our projects. It’s nice to see the high level of interest in the projects.”
In a challenging market, Balmoral is seeing opportunities. Wagner said, “I think part of the key to what we are doing is where we are located. Unlike a lot of new discoveries, we are on a road system, we are in central Québec, we are less than 20 km from the hydro grid, and we are near rail. So our projects have considerable logistical advantages both during the exploration phases and should they reach development. Québec is one of the best ranked mining jurisdictions in the world for a reason.”
As well, we offer the investor diversification across metals with our gold and nickel discoveries. At Martiniere, you have a high-grade to locally spectacular grade (the fall program produced an intercept of 9,700 g/t gold or almost 1%), gold project in a belt renowned for this kind of discovery. Then 40 km away you have a new nickel-copper-platinum-palladium discovery which is geologically somewhat unique and the first of its kind in the belt – where we hold all the land. Grasset was a strong value driver for us in 2014, producing thick mineralized intervals with a very high-grade core. It has grown very quickly and we are hoping to produce an initial resource from it later this year. With drills active on both fronts it will be another exciting year for Balmoral.
Wagner feels that there is potential in their nickel find. He said, “Nickel finds are fairly rare. You never find a lot of nickel players in the space and new nickel sulfide discoveries, especially with copper and palladium and platinum credits are exceedingly rare. The most recent example of what a high-grade Ni-Cu discovery can do for a Company would be Australian explorer Sirius, who has gone from tens of millions to over a billion in market cap on the back of their Nova-Bollinger discovery. The other nice thing about Ni-Cu-PGE discoveries is that they tend to cluster. We own 100% of the host sequence to the Grasset discovery along a trend which extends for roughly 20 km. In the Canadian context the discovery of nickel camps like Thompson, Sudbury, Raglan and Voisey’s Bay create “generational opportunities” for local communities, investors and miners. It would be very cool if a discovery like Grasset was the first link in that kind of chain. But, we will only know that over time as we begin to assess the potential of the rest of the belt.”
For now the Balmoral team is focused on the work ahead. Wagner said, “It is tough out there both on the exploration and market side and I am very proud of our team. On the project it’s -40 degrees in Québec and our exploration staff and contractors are working through those tough conditions to move things forward and provide us with more exciting results to talk about. They are out there working so that we have something to talk about at PDAC. We work very hard to ensure that we communicate well with our investors and travel to seek out new investors. Discovery at Grasset and continued strong results, from Martiniere, strengthen our story on the marketing side as well. We have a tremendous core of retail shareholders that have had a lot of faith in the work we are doing. They have given us the time to do the exploration work that we needed to do to make discoveries like Martiniere and Grasset. They have been incredibly loyal in a very tough market. We have made every effort to use their capital intelligently and get the dollars into the ground where they can have maximum impact on our share price. That success brings other people to the story. We have begun to make in-roads into the institutional side of the market as the assets have grown and that should increase with additional success.
We enjoy a strong treasury with over $13.5 million in in available capital. That leaves us in a very strong position in comparison with a number of our peers. We have the capital and we are not sitting on it. We are doing what we are supposed to be doing. We are turning drills and expanding the discoveries and looking to drive value at the end of the drill bit. Ultimately our job is to make money for our shareholders, through the discovery and delineation process, and in 2014 we have been extremely successful at that. If you will pardon the pun that sets the “BAR” very high for 2015 but that’s a change we accept willingly, and if Mother Nature will continue to do Her part we will give it our best effort to reproduce that success in 2015 – or hopefully even surpass it.
http://www.balmoralresources.com/
Balmoral Resources Ltd.
Suite 2300 - 1177 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6E 2K3
Telephone: 604-638-3664
Fax: 604-648-8809
Toll Free: 1-877-838-3664
Investor
Inquiries:
John Foulkes
Vice President, Corporate Development
Tel: 604-638-5815
Cell: 604-614-2999
email: jfoulkes@balmoralresources.com
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