Hi All,
If anyone has followed me on twitter, they would have seen a hodgepodge of extremely interesting disclosures from Barrick Gold. I will try to organize this (a little) better here.
SUMMARY: I can't believe Barrick has made so much progress AND is willing to disclose so much, very specifically related to Bambadji in Senegal! I can not emphasize enough how unusual this is, for one of the largest gold companies in the world to disclose this amount of detail for early exploration. If the following info was widely known prior to the "macro collapse" in March, I think the CHZ/Chesser share price would not have been trashed so much. On the flip side, it already seems that some people are scurrying to buy AFTER the successful Chesser financing, NOW realizing how significant the COMBINATION of an exciting Chesser discovery at Diamba Sud AND potentially significant discovery by Barrick next door is.
This post is to help crystallize how significant the Barrick activity/disclosure has been over the last few months.There won't be too much text throughout the rest of this post. This will mostly be screenshots of public materials shared on Barrick's website, some lightly edited by me to show how directly significant this is for Chesser.
Starting Point: I wish I would have had the initiative to find all of this stuff on my own over the past few months. But I am thankful the Chesser twitter account kicked off my activity earlier this week!
Here is the link to that post:
https://twitter.com/Chesser_CHZ/status/1247226889464209411And here is the beginning of my messy twitter thread as I went down the research rabbit hole:
https://twitter.com/MiningBookGuy/status/1247236036301688832Quote from the Chesser account:
"Barrick's Annual Report: The 12km anomaly that has "early, strong results" is their Gefa target- that extends into the southern block of Chesser's Diamba Sud tenement. They are currently drilling."I immediately wanted to know more about the Gefa target. From the Barrick link (
https://www.barrick.com/investors/annual-report/exploration/default.aspx ), here is a good starting map of the "Tier One gold district":
Notice where the Gefa "exploration focus" is. I then want to try to overlay Diamba Sud. Knowing that Gefa should extend into the "southern block" definitely helps.
Here is a good Chesser map of the area:
And here is an attempt to overlay (after a few tries):
This would confirm that BOTH blocks are now very relevant, with "KB" target directly to east of the upper Diamba Sud block (where Chesser has made the exciting "Area A" discovery), and the "Gefa" target to the north of the lower Diamba Sud block.
More on Gefa and the location of targets soon. But now is the time to share details on the "early, strong results". Again, it's amazing that Barrick has shared all the following details!
These are from the Q4 MD&A published on Feb 12th (
https://barrick.q4cdn.com/788666289/files/doc_financials/2019/q4/2019-Q4-Report-and-MD-A.pdf ):
p. 5
p. 77
p. 116
Barrick included most of this in the Annual Report published a week or two ago, and also the following paragraph as the HEADLINE of the "Africa and Middle East" Exploration Section (
https://www.barrick.com/investors/annual-report/exploration/default.aspx ):
Basically, Barrick is gushing over this as an exciting, emerging greenfields discovery. My take is that they are using exactly the same methods as Chesser for their discovery (with an early auger program being key). Barrick might be on a 12 month time lag...but is rapidly catching up and surely has a big, expanding budget.
Only one hole really stands out ( 7m at 16.72 g/t ). But keep in mind it's VERY early, these are all short, RC holes (near-surface intersections). And the most exciting part is that there is 12km of strike. It's important to note Barrick is saying there is a likely "continuous system" here towards the north.
Also note that Barrick is likely drilling targets near the Diamba Sud upper block right now (which could be a separate discovery)!
But I'm still really intrigued by where "Gefa" actually is. Somehow I missed one of the best Bambadji maps in an old Barrick powerpoint (Q2 2019) until now. But I think it's one of the most useful. Here it is ( original link:
https://barrick.q4cdn.com/788666289/files/doc_financials/quarterly/2019/Q2/Barrick-Q2-Presentation-2019.pdf ), with editing from me to include Diamba Sud:
Immediately, the "Tier 1 Destination" stands out in the title, as well as the LACK of a border between Senegal-Mali, or where the Senegal-Mali Shear Zone lies. It's just further evidence Barrick is treating a potential discovery at Bambadji as "the next big thing" in the company. One VERY exciting thing to come is the possiblity of Barrick hitting something big just to the east of the upper Diamba Sud block (notice all those "exploration target" stars!). But as I thought about it, I wondered about how few exploration targets show up where it seems "Gefa" is.
I wonder how much the exploration targets may have changed over the past 3-6 months. Please keep in mind I really do NOT know where these things are, beyond guesswork using this public information. But I come back to one other old map that intrigues me.
Here is an edited map from Oriole Resources (ORR on AIM in London, p. 19 of powerpoint:
https://orioleresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Oriole_Corporate-Presentation-121_28.01.20_PRINT.pdf )
One thing I REALLY like about this map is that the Senegal Mali Shear Zone (SMSZ) is so clear. When I edited this map PRIOR to realizing the "Tier 1 Destination" map above existed, I subconsciously moved the "Gefa" area a bit to the left, knowing that the SMSZ is angled towards to the northwest.
Is it possible that the Gefa discovery and "12km anomaly" towards the north hugs the SMSZ on the western side? Does this also mean it could go right through the Diamba Sud lower block, perhaps with Barrick making discoveries directly to the east or southeast of this block? Or maybe what Barrick has shared so far is just a very rough approximation of where targets are? In the map above, Randgold is now "Barrick" (post-acquisition). I am not sure if any drilling has been or is planned on 100% owned Barrick land, or just on the Barrick/Iamgold JV.
I could be quite wrong with some of my speculations above. I could not find the "Maliki target" in Barrick materials. This would help a lot, and perhaps they purposefully did not share this.
I am ending with all these questions to show this is all a work-in-progress. Many exciting questions to be answers.
One thing is for sure: Chesser is literally right in the middle of all of it with their own exciting discovery! I really look forward to progress from BOTH companies, knowing that what Barrick is doing will drive credibility in Chesser.
Corporates/Institutions will become aware of this very soon...I think most of them are too distracted right now. They won't be distracted forever.
Cheers,
MBG
