Juggernaut rallies ahead of Midas, Empire exploration
By Peter Kennedy
Juggernaut Exploration Ltd. [JUGR-TSXV], a company with early stage exploration properties in northwestern British Columbia, has emerged on investor radar screens as indicated by the recent rise the company’s stock price.
Trading at 51 cents on Wednesday July 25, the stock valuation has more than doubled from around the 20-cent level in mid-April 2018, leaving Juggernaut with a market cap of $43.5 million, based on around 80.6 million shares outstanding. The 52-week range is 59 cents and 17 cents.
The company recently closed an oversubscribed non-brokered private placement of $2.74 million, raising its cash balance to $3.5 million.
Juggernaut is focused on two project areas – Empire and Midas – which are located south of British Columbia’s Golden Triangle. Both projects were identified within the last two years by prospecting in areas of receding snow and ice covering. Little work has been completed on either project apart from first-pass rock-chip sampling, preliminary mapping and drone imagery.
Both projects are held under option agreements with DSM Syndicate, a private prospecting firm, which is 20%-owned by Juggernaut. The option agreements require Juggernaut to pay $4.1 million in cash over five years and issue 20.5 million Juggernaut shares and 8.2 million warrants at 8 cents a share. That adds up to a spending commitment of $13.35 million per project.
At this early stage, published reports say investors appear to be betting on the expertise of a management group that includes Bill Chornobay, a senior exploration and corporate development consultant to the company.
Chornobay’s previous successes include the staking of part of what is now the Coffee Gold Project in the Yukon, now held by Goldcorp [G-TSX, NYSE-GG]. More recently, he was involved in the discovery of another Yukon project – the Plateau South – which is held by Goldstrike Resources Ltd. [GSR-TSXV].
Back in March, 2017, Goldstrike revealed that it had agreed to form a strategic alliance with Newmont Mining [NEM-NYSE], the U.S. mining giant that ranks among the world’s largest gold producers. Under an agreement, Newmont can invest $53 million in Goldstrike and its Plateau project.
Plateau has been described as a newly discovered gold system, covering 350 km2, and containing high grade mineralization. The company has a second property – the Lucky Strike – which is located in the heart of the White Gold District.
The Empire property covers 16,000 hectares and is 100%-owned by Juggernaut. It consists of several targets revealed by the retreat of glaciers and snow packs, with extensive porphyry dikes and potassic and propylitic alteration believed to be associated with a porphyry-style deposit along an area known as the Inca Trend.
Rock chip and channel samples at the Rockstar Zone in 2017 returned notable assay results, including 6.02 metres, grading 1.53 g/t gold, 1.38% copper, 0.23% lead. One rock chip sample returned 21.7 g/t gold, 0.94% copper, 3.42% zinc, and 11.55% lead. In a research report, Haywood Securities said polymetallic mineralization has been observed over a zone that measures 1 km by 530 metres.
“In addition, the northern region of the Empire property is believed to be prospective for volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) and epithermal-style mineralization following a high-resolution SKYTEM survey and research conducted by a British Columbia Geological Survey,” Haywood said in a report.
The Midas property covers 16,653 hectares and is also 100% controlled by Juggernaut. Like Empire, it is accessible by logging tracks and is located 10 km from Terrace, or 14 km from power, rail and road infrastructure.
Midas features an 18 to 10-km alteration zone of oxidation and quartz-sericite-pyrite alteration. Haywood said the King Solomon Zone is of particular interest, as it hosts a 2.1 by 1.6-km area of polymetallic and gold mineralization that is interpreted to be VMS (Eskay Creek) style and has been defined by both the British Columbia Geological Survey and Juggernaut, Haywood said. Rock-chip and channel sampling revealed a number of visible gold showings and high-grade gold mineralization, including 4.34 metres grading 10.28 g/t gold and 3.11 metres grading 5.43 g/t gold (including 0.55 metres, grading 14.55 g/t gold).
A 2018 exploration program of $3.5 million has just commenced at both targets. Initial geochemistry, mapping and sampling will be followed by a drill program designed to test several targets at both properties that will help the company rank each target for follow up work.
Results from the program will be released once assay results have been received, compiled and interpreted, the company said in a July 4, 2018 press release.