Source: Bob Moriarty for Streetwise Reports 04/24/2018
Bob Moriarty of 321 Gold discusses Bonterra’s latest gold recovery tests.
The value of gold as an insurance policy grows with each passing day.
The idiots in Washington, London and Paris known well for their gnashing of teeth and wailing while generating gallons of crocodile tears over a false flag attack in Syria are rolling the dice on a game of World War III. And while that’s not going to be any fun, it might be nice to have an insurance policy you can hold in your hands. In case something bad happens. Such as China and Russia defending themselves.
Meanwhile on the Gaza border our brave, courageous, stalwart warrior friends in the IDF are practicing their shooting skills on live targets to the tune of 30 unarmed protestors killed and 1500 more shot in the last month. It takes a very special kind of person to lay behind a rifle and shoot an unarmed fourteen-year-old kid in the head at a range of one hundred meters as he runs in terror from you.
U.S. taxpayers are paying for the bullets and no one gives a damn. After all, they are just subhuman Palestinians. One Zionist fingernail is worth the lives of ten thousand Palestinians. Not a single crocodile tear is shed. The world has gone insane. London, Paris and Washington have a broken moral compass. Perhaps Wal-Mart will have a special sale soon.
It’s hard to understand the price of gold and silver when bonds are about to bust loose as inflation rears its ugly head. We had visitors over the weekend from my high school days 53 years ago. We talked about a lot of things including the price of real estate and the value of tangible products. My friend looked up the value of the three bedroom, one bath house my parents bought in 1962 for $12,000 in Fort Worth. Now it’s a $308,000 house, up 2400%.
For the last two years of school I lived there with two stepsisters, a sister and a wicked stepmother. The teachers at school were quite impressed with me. I was the first student to arrive and the last to leave. They believed I valued an education highly. Actually I wanted to pee, I never saw the inside of our solitary bathroom in two years.
I love being able to tell my readers, “I told you so.” It’s the most wonderful feeling to get it right now and again. In December of 2016 I talked about a gold company in Canada named Bonterra Resources Inc. (BTR:TSX.V; BONXF: US; 9BR:FSE) selling for $0.22 with a $20 million market cap.
Naturally they have issued shares to raise money and are now up to a $113 million market cap. The shares have been as high as $0.72 in November and have corrected back to about half a buck. They have issued so many drill results reporting high-grade intersections that it has become boring. 4 meters of 10 g/t Au at Gladiator, 3.6 meters of 12.7 g/t Au, 3.8 meters of 12 g/t Au in Quebec, a new zone of 2.7 meters of 4.7 g/t Au and 44.6 g/t Ag at Coliseum 5 km west of Gladiator, 3 meters of 10.4 g/t Au at Gladiator, 9.4 meters of 8.2 g/t Au at Gladiator, 1.9 meters of 22.2 g/t Au at Gladiator, 4 meters of 18.5 g/t Au in the South Zone. I could continue but they have gotten really boring with their high-grade wonderful intercepts.
Until last week the results were boring, boring, boring. But finally they woke the market and naturally the results were enough to make the rest of the industry green with jealousy. They reported metallurgical studies showing gravity-cyanide tests with recoveries of 99.0% to 99.4%. If they used gravity-flotation they still got 96.8% to 97.3%. The results give me a great chance to discuss gold recovery in simple terms.
In general gravity is simple and cheap. A gravity circuit would cost under $1 million. Gravity will only recover the free gold. Since gravity circuits are cheap and easy to install, any recovery is good because it is gold you can throw in a furnace and pour into a doré bar and peddle at once. But Bonterra has to go first class. Their free gold recoveries measured 76.1% and that is nearly off the chart. They could install a gravity only circuit and crushing plant and go into production for a few peanuts. Save the fines and run them through a cyanide or flotation plant down the road. That’s an alternative.
Any open pit heap leach mine with 76.1% recovery would think they have died and gone to heaven. Those are wonderful numbers. But it gets worse, or better depending on how you look at it.
In general cyanide plants take longer to permit and cost more than either gravity (very cheap) or flotation (kinda cheap). Yes, a 99% gold recovery for Bonterra using a combination of gravity and cyanide is nothing short of brilliant but everyone loves to hate cyanide. It’s a handy target for all the tree huggers whining, “Not in my back yard.” Cyanide is best for very fine gold, actually it’s often the only alternative for microscopic gold but as the size of the gold increases, cyanide becomes less effective.
So just for fun and to rub everyone’s nose in it, the Bonterra boffins set up a gravity-flotation circuit. Given the 76.1% recovery from gravity, the process already had a head start and it came in at 96.8% to 97.3% using both. Every other company running a mine would beg for results like that.
Bonterra will continue to report more results. They have another 4,000-6,000 meters of drilling planned and paid for. At the end of the program when all the assays are back the company will begin the resource modeling. An up to date 43-101 is predicted for 2h of 2018. It may be as early as September or as late as November.
Bonterra has Quebec’s next gold mine. I’m guessing between 2 million and 4 million ounces of gold. I think the surprises will be on the high side. If you assume 2 million ounces, they are getting less than $45 an ounce for gold in USD. If you assume 4 million ounces you are talking $22.50 an ounce in USD. A takeover bid is probably going to be in excess of $300 an ounce so there is a lot of upside potential. The stock is not going up 20 fold as we all hope we do with a stock someday but it’s like holding a AAA bond paying 50%.
Bonterra is an advertiser and I have bought shares in the open market. Naturally that makes me biased. Do your own due diligence. Their website does a great job of communication.
Bonterra Resources
BTR-V $0.495 (Apr 24, 2018)
BONXF OTCBB 226.5 million shares
Bonterra Resources website
Bob and Barb Moriarty brought 321gold.com to the Internet almost 16 years ago. They later added 321energy.com to cover oil, natural gas, gasoline, coal, solar, wind and nuclear energy. Both sites feature articles, editorial opinions, pricing figures and updates on current events affecting both sectors. Previously, Moriarty was a Marine F-4B and O-1 pilot with more than 832 missions in Vietnam. He holds 14 international aviation records.
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Disclosure:
1) Bob Moriarty: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: Bonterra Resources. Bonterra Resources is an advertiser on 321 Gold. I determined which companies would be included in this article based on my research and understanding of the sector.
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( Companies Mentioned: BTR:TSX.V; BONXF: US; 9BR:FSE,
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