Over the past five years, gold and uranium prices have increased dramatically. As of January 25, gold has appreciated just over 43% in that time frame, and nearly 13% in the last six months, according to GoldPrice.org. The twenty year trend, with a 426% increase, is notable as well.
Over the same five year period, uranium has appreciated about 131%, from $21.4/lb to $49/lb, according to TradingEconomics.com. Over the last 20 years, uranium prices have increased 383%, from $10.15/lb in January 2003 to $49/lb as of January 24, 2023.
Over the last 20 years, the S&P 500 Index has appreciated 188%, from 1,397 in January 2003 to 4,017 as of January 24, 2023. With both gold and uranium prices increasing at a rate that far outstrips stock prices in general, it may be a good idea to look at some companies that intend to capitalize on the explosive growth in these two crucial commodities.
Stallion Discoveries Corp. (TSX-V: STUD) (OTCQB: STLNF) is a company in the discovery and exploration stage, with significant and promising holdings of properties that have the potential for major gold and uranium resources. Stallion’s properties are located in currently producing areas of mining friendly jurisdictions in Idaho, Nevada, and Saskatchewan. This is a prospective play based on the idea that Stallion can successfully prove the resources in the ground to greatly increase its current valuation in the neighborhood of about US$16 million. Here we’ll take a look at the properties, what is known about them, and the team looking to develop them.
Property Overview – Uranium
Stallion Discoveries very recently changed its name from Stallion Gold, to more accurately reflect the company’s focus on large scale discoveries and its recent acquisition of uranium properties in the world-class Athabasca Basin uranium district in northern Saskatchewan. The area is home to the world’s highest grade uranium deposits, with grades that are on average 10 to 20 times greater than the average grade of deposits mined elsewhere in the world. The Athabascan Basin holds almost all of Canada’s known uranium resources, and the country holds about 8-10% of the world’s supply of the critical metal while accounting for about 13% of global production.
Stallion now holds 23 mineral claims totaling 78,831 hectares in the Basin. In perhaps more relatable terms, that equals 194,796 acres, or 304 square miles. Whatever measurement you use, it’s a significant area of land. In the western portion of the Basin, Stallion claims accounting for 67,957 hectares are surrounded by prolific existing, past producing, and newly discovered mines and reserves. Orano Canada and Cameco Corporation, Canada’s leading uranium miners and among the largest global suppliers, are both active in the area. Fission 3.0, recently renamed F3 Uranium Corp., made a discovery of uranium deposits as high as 59% purity and averaging nearly 7% purity on property directly bordering Stallion claims. For reference, 0.75% uranium is usually considered the threshold for mining.
The company’s claims in the eastern portion of the basin are smaller, but similarly situated in relation to very large current and past producing mines. These include the McArthur River Uranium Mine, the world’s largest high grade uranium deposit.
Property Overview – Gold
Stallion is a bit mineral agnostic in its approach, and built the company based on gold properties (with a touch of antimony thrown in, a recently-listed critical mineral by the US Department of Interior). The company has two properties in development, one in Idaho and the other in Nevada.
The Idaho property is called Horse Heaven, covering 5,817 hectares of mineral rights on federal property. The neighboring property immediately to the east is a past producing gold/antimony/tungsten mine currently being resurrected by Perpetua Resources as the Stibnite Gold Project. Perpetua has just wrapped up the public review phase of the permitting process and anticipates a final decision by the US Forest Service around the middle of 2023. This is the only project on Perpetua’s plate and it currently trades with a market capitalization around $227 million. Investors are looking at its measured and indicated resource of about 6 million ounces of gold (based on the 2020 Feasibility Study) along with positive signs around the permitting process and the possibility of becoming the US’ only domestic source of antimony.
Stallion is conducting an extensive drill program to further the historical drilling done on the Horse Heaven property in the 1980s, and to further prove the property’s potential as indicated by total field magnetic data gathered from flights over the claims in 2012.
Watch a video outlining the historical work and potential of the Horse Heaven project.
Of note, antimony has been produced and shipped from the Horse Heaven property in the past. Geochemical surveys and structural mapping have found similar structures, anomalies and intrusions to the ones found on the neighboring Stibnite property. In fact, one of the geologists who worked on the Stibnite project for the past decade, Austin Zinsser, is now currently working with Stallion and continues to be greatly encouraged by the signs that similar mineralization is found on the Horse Heaven project.
Stallion’s other gold property is the Richmond Mountain project in Nevada, just across the road from the Ruby Hill mine recently acquired by i-80 Gold Corp. Situated just outside the town of Eureka, Nevada, the properties sit at the southern end of the prolific Battle Mountain-Eureka Trend. Richmond Mountain displays very similar geology to the adjacent Ruby Hill property. Both feature areas where various alluvial and volcanic rocks have covered deeper poly-metallic formations, including gold, silver, lead, and zinc. I-80 Gold is currently in the midst of an extensive drilling program to define resources on their property beyond the historic Archimedes open pit mine there and with continued positive results will be looking to develop underground operations to access deeper deposits.
Source: Stallion Discoveries (blue border represents extent of Stallion claims)
Stallion’s property has had two previous holes drilled on it which did not go deep enough to intersect the mineralized rock below the cover. The company plans to rectify that, starting with a comprehensive geophysics program to define with modern techniques the intrusion and mineralization structure. This data will inform Stallion’s drilling program on the site to further define the resources there. Across the street, Ruby Hill has over 7.6 million ounces of gold measured, indicated, and inferred to date, with a history of 1.5 million ounces of gold production from the Archimedes Pit.
The Strategy
Stallion Discoveries mode of operation is fairly consistent throughout. The company is in the business of discovering and defining major mining resources based on four pillars or guiding principles:
- Jurisdiction (Idaho, Nevada, Saskatchewan all very mining friendly and productive)
- Large underexplored properties adjacent to proven world class resources with similar geology/deposits
- People capable of executing throughout the process of building value
- Attractive share structure with insiders interested in holding until exit
The goal is to create value for shareholders, including the insiders directly involved in Stallion. As part of the uranium property acquisitions, for instance, Stallion acquired Hathor Exploration which just happened to have the same name as the original Hathor Exploration run by Stallion advisor and significant shareholder Stephen Stanley. Stephen sold the original Hathor to Rio Tinto in 2012 for $642 million based on the Roughrider uranium project the company developed, holding approximately 58 million pounds of uranium in the Athabasca Basin.
Stallion Discoveries is looking to repeat that type of success, repeatedly, and has the properties now under control that exhibit all of the characteristics necessary to pull it off. There is a lot of ground to cover, resources to prove, and value to be built between now and then, and of course nothing is guaranteed. 2023 is a big year as Stallion moves toward definition of the potential of its large scale resource plays. Stay tuned.
