In terms of valuing an exploration (not mining)company you need...

In terms of valuing an exploration (not mining)company you need to understand

1. The Mining potential of the JORC resources they have...and to do this you best refer to the feasability study the company has published, but in the absence of them completing this, you then go to published feasabiity studies done by other MINING companies which operate in the same geographic and geological area, which for example is SEMAFO, and ENDEAVOUR as 2 examples in Burkina Faso. When you look at these, you have to be careful to look at the basic costs structures, and then make allowance for some important differences, such as rock hardness (takes more power to crush the rock), the metallurgy and contained ounces in the different metallurgical zones of a deposit, the strip ratio, the ore grade variability etc. You need to understand the risks of the project and how these risks can be managed.

2. The exploration potential, which is the potential to find additional ounces or gold deposits in the permit area the company holds.
Having this area concentrated along a gold bearing crustal scale (generally 3 times the thickness of the crust = 100kms) is a triple bonus, and increases significantly the probability of the area hosting multiple gold deposits (more than Ampella's one at the moment.) Having multiple deposit or mineralisation styles is another bonus. Having gold precipitating or mineralising events over a long period of time in multiple bursts is another.

Having a permit area like Ampella has, is very rare. In Canada you may find that there would be 10's of different permit holders along such a mineralisaed structure as Ampella has got. Someone soon a professional major company, will relaise this, but they have probably realised also that they can afford to wait a little, and the skittish behaviour of the non professionals will drive the price lower, and hence the opportunity will become more attractive.

If you look at the history of the exploration development of a Gold Camp, which Ampella looks like they have, on must remember even the great explorers like WMC took time to exploit the camps. If you look at Victory Defiance area at Kambalda, the gold was first discovered in about 1981. By 1983 they had about 1 M ozs. Jumping forward a few decades the camp has produced in excess of 10 m ozs, and new discoveries are still happening using new geological ideas by the present owner, Goldfields.

If you would like to know more about orogenic gold deposits, which is what Ampella has got, you could read the below

http://crcleme.org.au/Pubs/Monographs/MXTC2008/session%201/bierlein_orogenic_gold08.pdf

www.geology.wisc.edu/~pbrown/g515/web09/L26-OrogenAu.pdf

www.ruf.rice.edu/~ctlee/cali/GrovesOrogenicGold.pdf

Good reading!