Could be some cost efficiencies to be had. But it would mean...

Could be some cost efficiencies to be had. But it would mean delays, and competing management priorities (competing egos, wanting to be the leader who brought the resource from discovery to production? Vs stepping in to help with an existing asset).

USGO would likely want to develop 'their' deposit. So within NVA's leases, they'd likely want the focus to be on resources that are nearer to their processing plant.


Right now, both management teams want to build a plant on their land. If they merged, I doubt they'd gain funding to build 2 plants, so they'd start with 1 instead, and the other one would be 5+ years down the track.


So, after noting that Korbel and RPM are the leading assets for NVA:



USGO want to develop their North assets first, I think. They're 17km from Korbel. Nearer than 'RPM to Korbel' (40-50km). 17km sounds far to be trucking bulk ore. But maybe ore sorters could be used, then truck the concentrate the 17km? That's if Whistler/Raintree has a need for more ore - I'm not sure about that.

Looks like 6Moz @ 0.67g/t. I'd imagine it would not benefit much from 8.6Moz @ 0.3g/t (inc. Cathedral), but maybe from 4Moz @ 2g/t (after ore sorting, Korbel only, but I forget what numbers SS2 showed specifically). You'd still outlay the CAPEX for sorters at Korbel, but have 2 projects share 1 plant.






USGO's southern asset is Island Mountain. I think it's on the backburner, because the North assets are higher priority. But it's not too far from RPM/Train. The asset might make more sense if combined into a group. (But it's still 30km from the North assets, so needs a 2nd plant built, I guess.)



2Moz @ 0.57g/t + RPM's 1.24Moz @ 0.6g/t, and growing. Not a bad combination.



I guess it's tough to do a combined companies scoping study though, unless you were considering a merger. So I can only guess how the NPV would jump from the efficiencies of sharing plants etc.

Also, something like PFS might demand higher confidence resources, so add a year to prove up USGO's Northern resources at least.


We have at least a little Measured, which I guess means we are closer to PFS-ready, and with new MRE pending.