by Stockwatch Business Reporter
New York spot gold fell $3.90 to $1,798.60 on Friday. The TSX-V rose 12.75 points to 684.71 while the TSX gold index lost 3.65 points to 358.90. Canadian gold miners moved little today, although Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. (AEM) did drop $1.67 to $88.40 on 1.19 million shares. Eldorado Gold Corp. (ELD) was strong, adding 66 cents to $15.13 on 2.83 million shares.
Gareth Thomas's recently renamed Westhaven Gold Corp. (WHN) closed unchanged at 92 cents on 92,000 shares. The company, Westhaven Ventures Inc. until just a few days ago, said midday Thursday that it had drilled a 34-metre zone averaging 1.21 grams of gold and 3.68 grams of silver per tonne in the Lear zone at its Shovelnose project, just south of Merritt in British Columbia. The assays, from four new holes, did not sit well with investors as Westhaven, up earlier in the day, ended the session down 13 cents to 92 cents on 729,000 shares.
The three other holes produced precious metals from the Lear zone, but not in promotable amounts. A 20-metre interval in a second hole produced 0.9 gram of gold and 2.17 grams of silver per tonne, while a third yielded 1.57 grams of gold and 4.3 grams of silver, but over just six metres. The assays are from the company's continuing 30,000-metre drill program designed to test several targets beyond the known high-grade South zone. (In February, Westhaven wowed investors with hits of up to 13.9 grams of gold and 105.6 grams of silver per tonne over five metres from its high-grade zone.)
Mr. Thomas, president and chief executive officer, was nevertheless "encouraged with the first assay results" since drilling resumed at the project this spring. He cheers that the results "build confidence in the continuity" of gold mineralization between the South zone and the "high grade Lear zone." Mr. Thomas can call Lear a high-grade zone with a straight face, as earlier this year, Westhaven hit a 3.13-metre interval averaging 7.2 grams of gold and 27.34 grams of silver per tonne at Lear, but that only helped dampen the market's expectations for the latest assays.
Westhaven was a 10-cent stock until the fall of 2018, when out of the blue, it drilled a 1.65-metre interval at Shovelnose that assayed 175 grams of gold and 249 grams of silver per tonne in the South zone. The hits kept coming, with a 17.8-metre interval producing 24.5 grams of gold and 107.9 grams of silver per tonne just days later and since then, Westhaven's stock has been oscillating near the $1 mark.
Westhaven will press ahead with its drilling, adding a third rig to the program in a few days. (The company had been operating with just one rig in late May.) Mr. Thomas says that the company continues to expand the regional targets beyond the South zone using geophysics, so investors had best lower their expectations of high-grade assays as Westhaven tests targets farther afield from its South zone.
One gold bug's trash is another's treasure, it seems, as James Nelson's Spearmint Resources Inc. (SPMT) was quick to react to Westhaven's news. Spearmint, up one cent to five cents on 6.26 million shares today, has added over 1,000 hectares of new ground to its Hammernose project, which adjoins Westhaven's Shovelnose project. Mr. Nelson, president of Spearmint, eagerly points out that Westhaven's new assays, a disappointment to its own backers, are an encouraging sign for Spearmint's plans at Hammernose.
Mr. Nelson highlighted a one-metre interval within Westhaven's 34-metre zone that returned 15.7 grams of gold and 77.5 grams of silver per tonne. He segued that news by expressing his pleasure at being able to "significantly increase our landholdings" directly bordering the Westhaven discovery, adding that with the price of gold rising steadily and the "re-energized junior mining sector," he and his crew -- unlike the rest of the COVID-weary world, it appears -- are "optimistic regarding 2020" and plan to be active throughout the rest of the summer.
Mr. Nelson and Spearmint began snatching at Westhaven's coattails just days after that company's first high-grade assays from Shovelnose hit the news. In the fall of 2018, Spearmint grabbed about 2,000 hectares of ground adjoining the Shovelnose property with Mr. Nelson cheering that he was "inspired by the recent success" of Westhaven -- so much so that Spearmint hired a new investor relations specialist to "increase investor awareness as we enter this exciting time."
Unfortunately, investors are all too aware that progress has been slow at Hammernose. Spearmint did collect some samples last summer that produced modest amounts of gold, but once again, Mr. Nelson was all too eager to segue his pitch to news from Westhaven. So far, Mr. Nelson has had little to say about Spearmint's exploration plans for Hammernose.