RNC up 25% on new high-grade gold discovery

RNC Minerals Corp. [RNX-TSX; RNKLF-OTCQX], aka Royal Nickel Corp., rallied in heavy trading Thursday June 6 after the company announced details of another high-grade gold discovery at its 100%-owned Beta Hunt Mine in Australia, where the company said it has encountered coarse gold in quartz veins on the level beneath the Father’s Day Vein discovery.

Following a resumption of trading, RNC shares jumped 25.30% or 10.5 cents to 52 cents on volume of over 8.0 million. That made RNC the most actively traded stock on the TSX on Thursday. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of $0.07 and $1.18.

RNC recently attracted international attention following news of a once-in-a lifetime gold strike in the Father’s Day Vein at Beta Hunt. The company said it had extracted 9,250 ounces of gold, worth $15 million, from a 130-tonne cut of rock about 500 metres underground at the mine.

The find included a single 95-kilogram chunk that contained 2,400 ounces of gold, worth about $3.8 million. A second 62-kilogram stone contained 1,620 ounces.

“With multiple large scale and spectacular specimens coming from a single area, we believe the Father’s Day Vein may rank among the richest and most prolific gold veins ever found,” RNC President and CEO Mark Selby said recently.

On Thursday, the stock rallied after the company said an estimated 987 ounces of coarse gold has been recovered in 238 kilograms of rock from a series of veins. The company said the accuracy of this estimate at this stage is considered to be +10%/-25% based on the measurement of the estimated gold content for each of the samples by specific gravity determinations.

RNC said it will provide a final estimate of ounces recovered once this material has been processed.

“We are thrilled to encounter high-grade coarse gold in an area below the Father’s Day Vein,” Selby said in a press release issued on June 5, 2019. “This most recent discovery provides further support for our geological model that predicts that the areas where the mineralized shear zone and sedimentary sulphides intersect are capable of generating Father’s Day Vein-style coarse gold mineralization, and provides that such areas extend at least 25 metres below the Father’s Day Vein discovery,” Selby said.

“We look forward to continued mining in this highly prospective area with the potential to find other veins containing coarse gold,” he said. “As material developments occur, we will continue to update the market.”

RNC is currently completing a 40,000-metre drill program. It said the results will be incorporated into an updated NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate and mine plan targeted for the second quarter of 2019.

The company said mining has been advancing along the main A Zone shear on the 16 level toward a point approximately 25 metres below the Father’s Day Vein discovery on 15 Level. RNC’s focus on mining on 16 level has been driven by the company’s geological model. It predicts that Father’s Day Vein-style coarse gold is likely to occur where mineralized shears intersect sedimentary sulphides and by the occurrence of a diamond drill intersection of 119 g/t over 6.40 metres, including 1,406 g/t over 0.50 metres in hole AZ15-013, located below the Father’s Day Vein occurrence.