Stratabound Minerals Corp. is focused on gold exploration at its flagship Golden Culvert Project, Yukon Territory and its new McIntyre Brook Project, New Brunswick. The Company also holds a significant land position that hosts three base metals deposits in the Bathurst base metals camp of New Brunswick. With an incredible team of successful industry veterans at the helm, recent positive drilling results and a rally in the price of gold, this junior miner may not be under the radar much longer.
Considering the accommodative nature of central banks globally, there is no real reason to expect the 11-year bull run to come to an end. At some point, though, there needs to be some recognition that the markets are ignoring everything (China/U.S. trade war, Brexit, impeachment or coronavirus). With consumer sentiment hovering near a 10-year high, the euphoric momentum is starting to wake up contrarian investors and making a case for safe haven assets like gold.
The fact that gold has been on the rise since December 2015 lends to the contention that investors are looking to continually increase their exposure to gold in the event that the markets are making a mistake with lofty valuations and reliance of ultra-low interest rates for growth.
Against the backdrop of gold likely going higher, Stratabound Minerals Corp. (TSX-Venture:SB) has assembled an incredible team of successful industry veterans and an attractive portfolio of assets in the Yukon and New Brunswick, with a key focus on two new promising gold projects in emerging districts.
The company’s portfolio consists of the Golden Culvert Project (eastern Yukon Territory), the McIntyre Brook Gold (New Brunswick) and the Captain Copper-Cobalt-Gold Deposit (New Brunswick).
Golden Culvert is an 84-square-kilometer property along 24 kilometers of mineralized trend. The project has delivered compelling exploration data to date, although only about 20% of Golden Culvert’s gold-bearing quartz veins have been explored, so there’s plenty of upside. A 2018 maiden diamond drilling program showed results as high as 2.53 g/t gold across 33.1 meters, including 60.1 grams per tonne (g/t) gold across 0.9 meters with a quartz vein core. These data sets align with previous drilling, trenching and sampling programs at Golden Culvert.
Some of the most exciting results came in October, when a phase 1 trenching program unearthed 95.0 g/t gold over 1.5 meters within an interval of 24.41 g/t gold over 5.0 meters. Exploration during 2019 discovered four new gold-bearing veins for a total of six parallel veins to date within a 130-meter-wide gold vein “corridor.” With the aforementioned 95.0 g/t find at one end and a 0.49 g/t gold find across 2.0 meters in an outcrop at the other, there is 7 kilometers of unexplored strike in between, while open in all directions to boot.
The project has all the characteristics that resource investors look for, with nearby mining activity (Cantung Mine, Golden Predator’s 3 Acres Project, Aben Resources’ Justin Project, Banyon Gold’s Hyland Project) year-round access through Cantung Mine Road, nearby infrastructure, low-cost exploration and a 10-year Class 3 Exploration Permit to 2026.
In December 2019, the Company concluded an option to acquire the McIntyre Brook Project, an exciting new iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) exploration project in a region that has been overlooked for such targets despite mounting evidence of similar geological opportunity for such world class deposit types as Olympic Dam, Australia (2.95 billion tonnes @ 1.2% copper, 0.04% uranium, 0.5 g/t gold and 6 g/t silver) and Candelaria, Chile (600 million tonnes @ 0.95% copper, 3.84 million ounces of gold and 576 million ounces of silver).
The McIntyre property is adjacent to Highway 180 and about 80 kilometers west of the prolific Bathurst base metal district. It has two known gold occurrences 1.5 kilometers along strike of each other, dubbed the McIntyre Brook and the Big Pit showings. Rock samples at the Big Pit returned up to 1.44% copper and 9.53 g/t gold.
McIntyre Brook features 40 significant gold values between 0.20 and 41.56 g/t gold out of a total 46 grab samples collected from bedrock exposed in trenches along 300 meters of strike length. The zone remains open at both ends and occurs within a 480 meter wide, 8 to 165 ppb gold-in-soil anomaly that remains open beyond 500 meters of strike length.
In recent days, the company updated investors with new drilling results. The drill results confirmed that significant gold mineralization previously reported to occur in surface trenches along 300m of strike featuring 40 samples grading between 0.20 and 41.57 gpt gold also now extends to at least 80m below surface.
In the update press release, two drill holes were completed approximately 50 metres apart along strike and under the previously sampled trenches. Both holes intercepted significant gold values near surface.
Drill hole MB019-04 intercepted 5.73 gpt gold over 2.0m between 68.0m and 70.0m down the hole within a broader low grade interval averaging 1.20 gpt gold over 20m between 57.0m and 77.0m down the hole. Drill hole MB019-03 intercepted 5.08 gpt gold over 1.0m between 73.0m and 74.0m down the hole within a broader low grade interval of 0.84 gpt gold over 16.0m between 65.0m and 81.0m down the hole.
Lastly, Stratabound holds 100% ownership of the Captain Copper-Cobalt-Gold-Silver Deposit in the Bathurst district. The project has been the subject of a NI 43-101 report showing 1.0 million tonnes @ 1.03% copper, 0.051% cobalt and 0.2 g/t gold in the Measured and Indicated categories. The Inferred resources per the report are 960,000 tonnes @0.64% copper, 0.039% cobalt and 0.12 g/t gold at 0.6 copper equivalent cut-off based on total insitu metal.
The resource remains open along strike and dip.
At the Bathurst Camp, Stratabound also has the opportunity to option a past-producing lead-zinc-silver-copper project through the CNE mining lease.
To move forward with exploration at its projects, Stratabound raised $200,000 through a private placement in December where one subscriber, Jerritt Canyon Canada Ltd., took 4 million shares offered. Jerritt Canyon Canada Ltd. is the parent company of Jerritt Canyon Gold LLC, a private, growing mid-tier North American gold producer with its primary operating asset, the Jerritt Canyon Mine located 50 miles north of Elko, Nevada.
Interestingly, Stratabound Director Rodney Lamond is the President and CEO of Jerritt Canyon Gold LLC. He also is the Chairman of the Board of Jaguar Mining. The fact is the whole leadership team at Stratabound from its C-suite to its board is an anomaly for a company with a C$4 million (US$3 million) market cap.
Terrence Byberg, Interim Chairman, Executive Vice President, has over 40 years of international mining experience, managing operations in Canada, USA, Mexico, Greece, Australia and the Philippines. He is the former founder and Vice President Mining of Chieftain Metals, former President, CEO of Silver Eagle Mines Inc., and Philippine Gold.
R. Kim Tyler, P.Geo, President, CEO, Director, has 40+ years experience in gold, base metals and industrial minerals with Vale, Rio Tinto, Royal Oak Mines and Cominco, as well as being the former President and a Director of Canadian Arrow Mines Inc.
Other members of the team have experience working with companies like Barrick Gold, Norilsk, Ivanhoe and Silver Standard Resources.
With this sort of leadership and quality of projects – not to mention a favorable gold environment – it’s not surprising that trading activity for SB has picked up in recent months with shares looking to break through to a new 52-week high.
