This article is a sponsored feature from Mining.com.au partner iMetal Resources Inc. It is not financial advice. Talk to a registered financial expert before making investment decisions.
There is no better place to be hunting for gold and critical minerals than in a 2.6-billion-year-old, 650km-long belt that has yielded numerous major deposits of several different minerals.
The Abitibi Greenstone Belt in Canada runs from Wawa in Ontario to Val d’Or in Québec and is one of the largest endowments of gold in the world.
The belt has produced over 200 million ounces of gold and hosts over 100 producing mines and 21 deposits with more than 3 million ounces of production/reserves. It is home to some of the world’s biggest gold producers like Newmont (NYSE:NEM), Agnico Eagle (NYSE:AEM), Osisko Mining (TSX:OSK) and Iamgold (NYSE:IAG).
Major operations in the region include Agnico Eagle’s Detour Lake Mine, with reserves of 14.5 million ounces and resources of 2.9 million ounces, and the +24-million-ounce Kirkland Lake Camp – also owned by Agnico Eagle via the takeover of Kirkland Lake.
Junior explorer iMetal Resources’ (TSX-V:IMR) priority target, Gowganda West, sits just 5km west of Agnico Eagle and Newmont’s Holt Mine, which has over 3 million ounces of past production.
Gowganda West also borders Aris Mining’s (TSX:ARIS) Juby deposit, which so far hosts 800,000 of measured and indicated resources and 1.5 million ounces of inferred resources.
iMetal Resources says the structures hosting the Juby deposits trend onto its ground.
Drilling at Gowganda West delivered an initial discovery hit of 48.5m @ 0.85 grams per tonne gold starting at 316.5m, which included 20m @ 1.56g/t and 8m @2.97g/t.
While the Juby deposit and initial drilling results at Gowganda West focused on shear-hosted, quartz-carbonate vein-hosted gold, typical of the Abitibi Greenstone Belt, the new zone discovered at Gowganda West displays a different style of mineralisation.
iMetal Resources notes this opens up more of the property as prospective for gold mineralisation.
The belt that built billionaires
CEO Saf Dhillon tells Mining.com.au that a quick back of the envelope calculation following the initial drill results at Gowganda West could suggest a starting point of 300,000-400,000 ounces on iMetal Resources’ side of the fence.
“We share a border with a company called Aris Mining. Now, Aris Mining has a C$1.5 billion ($1.7 billion), roughly, market cap. Most of that market cap is derived from a merger they did in the last two years with Gran Colombia Mining,” Dhillon explains.
“So they actually have high-grade gold production coming out of Colombia. But back in 2020, when they were called Caldas Gold Corp, they acquired Juby for approximately C$50 million.
“That’s when gold was trading at US$1,400 ($2,166) to US$1,500 ($2,321) an ounce. Gold has doubled in price. I’m not saying that the resource should be worth exactly double, but it does kind of give you a little ballpark that maybe that resource is worth a heck of a lot more than they paid for it.”
At the time of writing, gold was sitting around US$3,361 an ounce.
Given the gold potential at Gowganda West, iMetal Resources is keen to get rigs on the ground and start drilling. The company will first complete a capital raising and has lined up two local drillers, who are also shareholders in iMetal Resources.
“We’ve got a discovery hole, 50m of a gram basically, less than 700m from a multi-million ounce gold deposit that sits on the other side of our border, owned by a C$1 billion-plus market cap company, and we have a C$1 million market cap,” Dhillon tells this news service.
“So it’s more than just proximity. It looks like it could be a potential continuation of the same structure.”
While the Abitibi is very well known for its large gold endowment, it is also emerging as a particularly attractive region for graphite – a high-demand critical mineral.
iMetal Resources is exploring the Carheil Project, which is again located in close proximity to multiple major mines in the region.
“If you take a look at some of our neighbors at our graphite project in Québec, you’re looking at companies that have a C$300-billion-plus market cap, and they’ve been hitting some major polymetallic discoveries,” Dhillon says.
Emerging graphite province
While iMetal Resources’ Carheil Project is largely surrounded by gold and base metals operations, including BHP’s past-producing Selbai Zinc Mine, Nouveau Monde Graphite’s (NYSE:NMG) 100,000-tonne-per-annum Matawinie operation is also located in the region.
As is Nouveau Monde Graphite’s Uatnan Project, which is believed to be one of the largest graphite projects in development with a target production rate of 500,000 tonnes annually for nearly two and a half decades and an indicative net present value of over C$2 billion.
Uatnan sits about 100km north of iMetal Resources’ ground.
“This region is known for graphite, it’s known for gold. Québec and Ontario, and of course the Abitibi, are very, very prolific,” Dhillon explains.
“So all the majors are around us there. It’s a good location to be in.”
In 2016, iMetal Resources drilled into a graphite horizon at the Carheil Project that returned an intercept of 4.67m @ 1.67% graphitic carbon, including 1.1m @ 7.48%.
The company then hit an historical horizon and unearthed two new horizons in its 2023 drilling program that comprised 1,053m across three holes.
Results from this program delivered 3.9m @ 7.08% graphitic carbon, including 1.9m @ 11.5% and 4.65m @ 5.11%, including 1.2m @ 12.9% and 4.9m @ 1.93% from the historical Zone A.
Meanwhile, drilling into the newly discovered Zone B intersected 10.55m @ 2.89% graphitic carbon, while Zone C intersected 8.45m @ 2.53%, including 1.5m @ 7.05% and 5.3m @ 4.25%, including 1.2m @ 7.9%.
iMetal Resources now plans to undertake 2,000m of further drilling this year.
“We’re going to be looking to raise some money, get back to work, drill and prove out resources, potentially at both assets,” Dhillon says.
Tight structure, proven leadership
While iMetal Resources is one of many junior gold and critical minerals explorers, Dhillon, likening exploration to a Formula One race, says it basically boils down to who is driving the car, the assets in the race and the value upside.
“Driving the car would be our technical team and our management team, and we’ve actually had some successes in the past,” Dhillon says.
“We’re a team that, I think, is known for its honesty and integrity. We look for quality assets.”
In the driver’s seat is Dhillon, who has been involved in the development of public companies for over two decades. He was integral in the growth of Idaho-based US Geothermal from a US$2 million startup on the TSX to a US$450 million independent renewable energy producer that advanced to the NYSE.
He is also a founding director of Torrent Gold (CSE:TGLD) and a director of lithium explorer Lake Winn Resources (TSXV:LWR).
Dhillon’s co-driver, as a director and Chief Operating Officer, is Tim Henneberry who has 40 years of experience in Canadian and international exploration and production for base, precious and industrial metals.
iMetal Resources has just over 10 million shares on issue with insider and supportive ownership of at least 60%.
“So it’s an extremely tight capital structure and it’s poised for growth,” he concludes.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: Mining.com.au & iMetal Resources
