The Conversation (0)
Aurum Resources Investor Kit
- Corporate info
- Insights
- Growth strategies
- Upcoming projects
GET YOUR FREE INVESTOR KIT
Aurum Resources
Investor Insights
Aurum Resources offers a compelling value proposition with a highly prospective gold asset in an emerging gold region and a cost-effective exploration strategy.
Overview
Aurum Resources (ASX:AUE) is a mineral exploration company primarily focused on gold through its flagship Boundiali gold project located in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa.
Côte d'Ivoire's gold mining sector is experiencing significant growth and development, with several key projects contributing to the country's economic expansion. The overall gold mining sector in Côte d'Ivoire is supported by substantial investments in infrastructure and exploration.
Geopolitically, Côte d'Ivoire outperforms most developing countries in the world in political, legal, tax and operational risk metrics. Additionally, Côte d'Ivoire continues to make notable strides in its political stability and Absence of Violence and Terrorism Index.
Aurum is led by a board and management team with considerable experience and a track record of success in the mining industry and a history of creating shareholder value.
Company Highlights
- Aurum Resources is a precious metals company with exploration prospects in the same greenstone belt as the Syama (11.5 Moz), Sissingué (1.0 Moz), Tongon (5.0 Moz) and Kone Gold (4.5 Moz) deposits of West Africa.
- Upcoming catalysts include a maiden mineral resource estimate expected to be completed by the end of 2024. The company believes mineralization is open at depth and along strike and highlights the existence of numerous gold mineralization targets within the large land holding of Aurum’s Boundiali Gold Project.
- Aurum operates its own drill rigs, allowing the company to significantly reduce its exploration costs relative to peers.
- Management has a track record of creating value for shareholders from exploration through to project development, mine construction and gold production.
- Strong leverage to increasing gold prices that will benefit from a declining interest rate environment and rising global geopolitical risk factors.
- Well funded for greater than 12 months and over 100,000 metres diamond drilling programs and metallurgical study
Key Project: Boundali Gold Project
The Boundiali gold project in Cote d’Ivoire is located within the Boundiali Greenstone Belt, which hosts Resolute’s Syama gold operation (11.5 Moz) and the Tabakoroni deposit (1 Moz) in Mali. Neighbouring assets also include Barrick’s Tongon mine (5 Moz) and Montage Gold’s Kone project (4.5 Moz).
The Boundiali project area covers the underexplored southern extension of the Boundiali belt, where a highly deformed synclinal greenstone horizon traverses finer-grained basin sediments, and to the west, Tarkwaian clastic rocks lie in contact with a granitic margin. The project benefits from year-round road access and excellent infrastructure.
The first stage of drilling at Boundiali occurred in the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024 for both the BM and BD tenements (BM1 and BM2; BD1, BD2 and BD3 targets) and was designed to test below-gold-in-soil anomalies oriented along NE trending structures. Having completed its initial exploration program, Aurum is now ramping up and undertaking a scout and step-back diamond drilling campaign with plans to increase its drilling fleet to include six rigs targeting a drilling rate of ~10,000 metres per month. The company expects to drill more than 45,000 metres of diamond core at Boundali to support an inaugural mineral resource estimate that is anticipated by the end of 2024.
Drilling costs are estimated at US$45 per metre, as Aurum owns all of its drilling rigs and employs its operators, representing a significant value proposition relative to peers who use commercial drilling companies that charge upwards of $200 per meter. The company believes there is potential for multi-million ounce gold resources to be defined with hundreds thousands meters of drilling over years within the Boundiali Gold Project’s land holding areas.
The Boundiali gold project comprises four contiguous granted licenses: PR0808 (80 percent interest), PR0893 (80 to 88 percent interest), PR414 (100 percent interest), and PR283 (70 percent interest). Historic exploration at PR0893 includes 93 AC drill holes and four RC holes. Airborne geophysical surveying, geological mapping and extensive soil sampling have also been performed at PR0893, while PR0808 has had 91 RC holes drilled for 6,229 metres along with geochemical analysis and modeling. Detailed geochemical sampling and drilling at PR414 revealed three strong gold anomalies and returned impressive high-grade results.
Management Team
Troy Flannery – Non-Executive Chairman
Troy Flannery has more than 25 years’ experience in the mining industry, including nine years in corporate and 17 years in senior mining engineering and project development roles. He has a degree in mining engineering, masters in finance, and first class mine managers certificate of competency. Flannery has performed non-executive director roles with numerous ASX listed companies and was the CEO of Abra Mining until October 2021. He has worked at numerous mining companies, mining consultancy and contractors, including BHP, Newcrest, Xstrata, St Barbara Mines and AMC Consultants.
Dr. Caigen Wang – Managing Director
Dr. Caigen Wang founded Tietto Minerals (ASX:TIE), where he led the company as managing director for 13 years through private exploration, ASX listing, gold resource definition, project study and mine building to become one of Africa’s newest gold producers at its Abujar gold mine in Côte d’Ivoire. He holds a bachelor, masters and PhD in mining engineering. He is a fellow of AusIMM and a chartered professional engineer of Institution of Engineer, Australia. Wang has 13 years of mining academic experience in China University of Mining and Technology, Western Australia School of Mine and University of Alberta, and over 20 years of practical experience in mining engineering and mineral exploration in Australia, China and Africa. Other professional experience includes senior technical and management roles in mining houses, including St. Barbara, Sons of Gwalia, BHP Billiton, China Goldmines PLC and others.
Mark Strizek – Executive Director
Mark Strizek has nearly 30 years’ experience in the resource industry, having worked as a geologist on various gold, base metal and technology metal projects. He brings invaluable geological, technical and development expertise to Aurum, most recently as an executive director at Tietto Minerals’, which progressed from an IPO to gold production at the Abujar gold project in West Africa. Strizek has worked as an executive with management and board responsibilities in exploration, feasibility, finance and development-ready assets across Australia, West Africa, Asia and Europe.
Development Contract for Underground Exploration Drill Drive Awarded to Barminco
Highlights:
- Development contract for the underground exploration drill drive at the Dalgaranga Gold Project awarded to Barminco Limited.
- The contract, which is valued at ~$18.3 million, provides for 2,350m of development to deliver twin decline access for the establishment of underground drilling platforms to in- fill and extend mineralisation within the Never Never, Pepper, Four Pillars and West Winds areas.
- The drill drive has also been designed to support future mine production activities.
- All regulatory mining approvals are now in place and all major support services have been engaged to facilitate the commencement of construction in the current quarter.
- Surface exploration drilling at Dalgaranga will shortly re-commence, with rigs arriving on site later this month.
Figure 1: Long Section of the Never Never Gold Deposit and the Pepper, Four Pillars and West Winds Gold Prospects looking east. Proposed exploration drill drive design in black.
The contract, which is valued at ~$18.3 million including an allowance for fuel and contingencies, provides for 2,350m of development to deliver twin decline access for the establishment of underground drilling platforms to in-fill and extend mineralisation across the Never Never, Pepper, Four Pillars and West Winds deposits.
All of these steeply-plunging, high-grade gold zones are located along a single 800m-long, semi- continuously mineralised north-south stratigraphic horizon (see Figure 1). The exploration drill drive has been designed to run parallel and adjacent to this horizon to provide underground drill platforms to more effectively define these existing deposits and prospects, as well as explore for further high-grade shoots and provide critical underground infrastructure as Spartan develops its future mine plan.
Construction of the drill drive is on-track to commence in the September Quarter, with all regulatory mining approvals and support services in place. In addition, the Company has established an experienced on- site project team to manage and oversee the development and construction process. Establishment of the drill drive, and an initial underground drilling programme, is fully funded from the Company’s existing cash reserves.
Management Comment
Spartan Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Simon Lawson, said: “We are delighted to have Barminco on board to complete the construction of this new drill drive, which represents a very exciting initiative that will enable us to drill from platforms located right alongside our high-grade deposits and targets. This will provide for cheaper, more accurate and quicker drilling to continue to accelerate our Resource growth and conversion to Ore Reserves.
“All of the high-grade deposits and prospects discovered at Dalgaranga over the past two years remain open at depth – with mineralisation at the Never Never deposit now defined to beyond 1km below surface – and we’re very excited to get the underground rigs in place to help determine just how deep this high- grade mineralisation extends.
“Importantly, the drill drive is being constructed using the same dimensions as a standard underground mine development, ensuring it can be incorporated into our infrastructure planning for the future re- commencement of mining operations.
“Construction of the drill drive is set to kick-off later this Quarter and is expected to take approximately 10 months to complete. In addition, we will also shortly re-commence surface drilling programs, targeting the Pepper, Four Pillars, West Winds and other near-surface anomalies, ensuring plenty of exciting news- flow for shareholders in the months ahead.”
Click here for the full ASX Release
This article includes content from Spartan Resources, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.
Diamond Drilling Program Expanded and High-Grade M1 Intercept Returned
HIGHLIGHTS:
- Drilling activities along the ‘Golden Corridor’ progressing well; current Reverse Circulation (RC) program complete (28 holes for 5,024m) and diamond tails program expanded to 2,500m (approx. 1,900m complete across 19 holes).
- Represents the first diamond drilling undertaken at the 2.3km-long Ricciardo deposit, and the nearby M1 deposit, by any operator in ten years.
- Assay results for the first diamond hole at M1 (infill focus) were significantly higher grade than expected:
- 8.9m @ 8.93 g/t Au from 156m, incl. 2m @ 23.83 g/t from 158.3m
- M1 offers clear high-grade extension potential, which is planned to be a focus of further drilling in H2 2024.
- Diamond holes drilled beneath the Silverstone Central pit (Ricciardo), in an area with no historical drilling, returned:
- 7m @ 2.59 g/t Au from 229m, incl. 1m @ 10.81 g/t Au from 233.7m
- 4.6m @ 1.20 g/t Au from 235m
- Extensional RC drilling under the Eastern Creek pit (Ricciardo) returned:
- 7m @ 2.54 g/t Au from 170m, incl. 1m @ 7.48 g/t from 172m
- 9m @ 1.42 g/t Au from 180m
- Ricciardo and M1 both sit in the 25km-long ‘Golden Corridor’ at Golden Range, which hosts six discrete deposits (18 historic pits) that are all open at depth and possess immediate growth potential.
- Diamond drilling set to be completed in mid-August, with all assays expected by mid-September and update of the Ricciardo MRE targeted for Q4 2024.
- Further growth-focussed drilling of the ‘Golden Corridor’ planned for H2 2024.
The results reported in this release are for a further eight (8) of the diamond holes and the first nine (9) of the RC holes drilled in the current program (representing all outstanding results received to date). Results for the first four (4) diamond holes were previously reported (refer WA8 ASX release dated 3 July 2024). The new results continue to demonstrate the outstanding Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) growth potential that exists at Ricciardo, M1, and along the broader ‘Golden Corridor’ trend.
Figure 1: The Golden Range and Fields Find Projects. Mines and projects within trucking distance of the Warriedar tenure are shown. The location of the Ricciardo deposit within the 25km-long ‘Golden Corridor’ at Golden Range is annotated.
M1 deposit
The M1 deposit is located 7km north of the Ricciardo deposit, and right alongside the existing processing plant (refer Figure 2); within the 25km long Golden Corridor trend.
Initial results have been returned from diamond tails drilled at the M1 deposit, with significant intersections returned in both holes. The holes were planned to test the existing MRE model,
Figure 2: The Golden Corridor within the Golden Range Project. The M1 deposit is located 7km north of the Ricciardo deposit. The image on the LEFT is gravity over shaded residual magnetic RTP.
potential parallel lodes and gaps within the MRE area. This drilling represents the first time this deposit has been revisited and drilled since 2013.
Hole M1RC191 was drilled in the centre of the modelled resource area and returned significantly higher grade than expected (refer Figure 3). This is an excellent result and aids Warriedar in the larger goal of building high-priority MRE areas for rapid development.
Click here for the full ASX Release
This article includes content from Warriedar Resources Limited, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.
What Was the Highest Price for Gold? (Updated 2024)
While some have posited that the gold price may break US$3,000 per ounce and carry on as high as US$4,000 or US$5,000, there are those with hopes that US$10,000 gold or even US$40,000 gold could become a reality.
These impressive price predictions have investors asking, what was the highest gold price ever? The answer to that question is revealed below. And by looking at how the gold price has moved historically, it’s possible to understand what that means for the yellow metal in the future.
How is gold traded?
Before discovering what the highest gold price ever was, it’s worth looking at how the precious metal is traded. Knowing the mechanics behind gold's historical moves can help illuminate why and how its price changes.
Gold bullion is traded in dollars and cents per ounce, with activity taking place worldwide at all hours, resulting in a live price for the metal. Investors trade gold in major commodities markets such as New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong. London is seen as the center of physical precious metals trading, including for silver. The COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange is home to most paper trading.
There are many popular ways to invest in gold. The first is through purchasing gold bullion products such as bullion bars, bullion coins and rounds. Physical gold is sold on the spot market, meaning that buyers pay a specific price per ounce for the metal and then have it delivered. In some parts of the world, such as India, buying gold in the form of jewelry is the largest and most traditional route to investing in gold.
Another path to gold investment is paper trading, which is done through the gold futures market. Participants enter into gold futures contracts for the delivery of gold in the future at an agreed-upon price. In such contracts, two positions can be taken: a long position under which delivery of the metal is accepted or a short position to provide delivery of the metal. Paper trading as a means to invest in gold can provide investors with the flexibility to liquidate assets that aren’t available to those who possess physical gold bullion.
One significant long-term advantage of trading in the paper market is that investors can benefit from gold’s safe-haven status without needing to store it. Furthermore, gold futures trading can offer more financial leverage in that it requires less capital than trading in the physical market.
Interestingly, investors can also purchase physical gold via the futures market, but the process is complicated and lengthy and comes with a large investment and additional costs.
Aside from those options, market participants can invest in gold through exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Investing in a gold ETF is similar to trading a gold stock on an exchange, and there are numerous gold ETF options to choose from. For instance, some ETFs focus solely on physical gold bullion, while others focus on gold futures contracts. Other gold ETFs center on gold-mining stocks or follow the gold spot price.
It is important to understand that you will not own any physical gold when investing in an ETF — in general, even a gold ETF that tracks physical gold cannot be redeemed for tangible metal.
With regards to the performance of gold versus trading stocks, gold has an interesting relationship with the stock market. The two often move in sync during “risk-on periods” when investors are bullish. On the flip side, they tend to become inversely correlated in times of volatility.
According to the World Gold Council, gold's ability to decouple from the stock market during periods of stress makes it “unique amongst most hedges in the marketplace.” It is often during these times that gold outperforms the stock market. For that reason, it is often used as a portfolio diversifier to hedge against uncertainty.
What was the highest gold price ever?
Gold hit US$2,483.35, its all time highest price at the time of this writing, on July 17, 2024. Gold broke through the important psychological level of US$2,000 per ounce in late 2023 on rising expectations that the US Federal Reserve would begin to reverse course on interest rates, and climbed throughout Q2 to over US$2,450 in May.
While interest rate cuts have yet to materialize as of mid-July, gold climbed to its new all-time high in the wake of July 15 comments by Fed Chair Jerome Powell in which he indicated the central bank would be willing to cut interest rates before inflation reaches its 2 percent target.
Fears of a looming recession — or the strong belief that a recession is already here — are also highly supportive for gold heading as we head deeper into 2024.
Gold price chart, July 17, 2014, to July 18, 2024.
Chart via Quotemedia.
Despite these recent runs, gold has seen its share of both peaks and troughs over the last decade. After remaining rangebound between US$1,100 and US$1,300 from 2014 to early 2019, gold pushed above US$1,500 in the second half of 2019 on a softer US dollar, rising geopolitical issues and a slowdown in economic growth.
Gold’s first breach of the significant US$2,000 price level in mid-2020 was due in large part to economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. To break through that barrier and reach what was then a record high, the yellow metal added more than US$500, or 32 percent, to its value in the first eight months of 2020.
The gold price neared that level again in early 2022 as Russia's invasion of Ukraine collided with rising inflation around the world, increasing the allure of safe-haven assets. In 2023, continued inflation and subsequent rate hikes from the Fed threatened the possibility of a recession, once again pushing gold above US$2,000 and even putting it in sight of its then all-time high.
The evolving banking crisis in the spring of 2023 and the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October also placed upward pressure on gold, allowing it to test its previous all-time high.
What's next for the gold price?
What's next for the gold price is never an easy call to make. There are many factors that affect the gold price, but some of the most prevalent long-term drivers include economic expansion, market risk, opportunity cost and momentum.
Economic expansion is one of the primary gold price contributors as it facilitates demand growth in several categories, including jewelry, technology and investment. As the World Gold Council explains, “This is particularly true in developing economies where gold is often used as a luxury item and a means to preserve wealth.” Market risk is also a prime catalyst for gold values as investors view the precious metal as the “ultimate safe haven,” and a hedge against currency depreciation, inflation and other systemic risks.
Going forward, in addition to the Fed, inflation and geopolitical events, experts will be looking for cues from factors like supply and demand. In terms of supply, the world’s five top gold producers are China, Australia, Russia, Canada and the US. The consensus in the gold market is that major miners have not spent enough on gold exploration in recent years. Gold mine production has fallen from around 3,200 to 3,300 metric tons each year between 2018 and 2020 to around 3,000 to 3,100 metric tons each year between 2021 and 2023.
On the demand side, China and India are the biggest buyers of physical gold, and are in a perpetual fight for the title of world’s largest gold consumer. That said, it's worth noting that the last few years have brought a big rebound in central bank gold buying, which dropped to a record low in 2020, but reached a 55 year high of 1,136 metric tons in 2022.
The World Gold Council has reported that central bank gold purchases in 2023 came to 1,037 metric tons, marking the second year in a row above 1,000.
"We think that gold has entered into a new phase of this bull market," Adam Rozencwajg, managing partner at Goehring & Rozencwajg, told the Investing News Network (INN) in a June 2023 interview. "It probably started in the third and fourth quarter of last year, and it really revolves around central banks' behavior as much as anything else. I think it's going to propel gold much much higher in this leg of the bull market."
Joe Cavatoni, North American market strategist at the WGC, told INN in an email at the end of Q1, “As central banks continue to be significant buyers and geopolitical risks and global uncertainties drive investors towards the perceived safety of gold, the current environment underscores gold’s importance as a strategic asset for portfolio diversification and risk mitigation. Therefore, while there may have been a perception of western disinterest in gold, recent developments indicate a sustained and broad-based demand for the precious metal.”
At the beginning of Q3, INN spoke with Brien Lundin, editor of Gold Newsletter, at the Rule Symposium in Boca Raton, Florida.
"I think clearing US$2,400 for good — trading a few weeks above that level would be key," Lundin said. "Eventually I think we're going to go much higher. The timing of that is always the hard part. Getting back to where I think we're going to be at the end of this cycle, I think the gold price is going to be somewhere between US$6,000 and US$8,000."
Should you beware of gold price manipulation?
As a final note on the price of gold and buying gold bullion, it’s important for investors to be aware that gold price manipulation is a hot topic in the industry.
In 2011, when gold hit what was then a record high, it dropped swiftly in just a few short years. This decline after three years of impressive gains led many in the gold sector to cry foul and point to manipulation. Early in 2015, 10 banks were hit in a US probe on precious metals manipulation. Evidence provided by Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) showed “smoking gun” proof that UBS Group (NYSE:UBS), HSBC Holdings (NYSE:HSBC), the Bank of Nova Scotia (NYSE:BNS) and other firms were involved in rigging gold and silver rates in the market from 2007 to 2013.
Not long after, the long-running London gold fix was replaced by the LBMA gold price in a bid to increase gold price transparency. The twice-a-day process, operated by the ICE Benchmark Administration, still involves a variety of banks collaborating to set the gold price, but the system is now electronic.
Still, manipulation has by no means been eradicated, as a 2020 fine on JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) shows. The next year, chat logs were released in a spoofing trial for two former precious metals traders from the Bank of America’s (NYSE:BAC) Merrill Lynch unit. They show a trader bragging about how easy it is to manipulate the gold price.
Gold market participants have consistently spoken out about manipulation. In mid-2020, Chris Marcus, founder of Arcadia Economics and author of the book “The Big Silver Short,” said that when gold fell back below the US$2,000 mark after hitting close to US$2,070, he saw similarities to what happened with the gold price in 2011.
Marcus has been following the gold and silver markets with a focus specifically on price manipulation for nearly a decade. His advice? “Trust your gut. I believe we’re witnessing the ultimate ’emperor’s really naked’ moment. This isn’t complex financial analysis. Sometimes I think of it as the greatest hypnotic thought experiment in history.”
Investor takeaway
While we have the answer to what the highest gold price ever is as of now, it remains to be seen how high gold can climb, and if the precious metal can reach as high as US$5,000, US$10,000 or even US$40,000.
Even so, many market participants believe gold is a must have in any investment profile, and there is little doubt investors will continue to see gold price action making headlines this year and beyond.
This is an updated version of an article first published by the Investing News Network in 2020.
Don’t forget to follow us @INN_Resource for real-time updates!
Securities Disclosure: I, Melissa Pistilli, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
Editorial Disclosure: The Investing News Network does not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the information reported in the interviews it conducts. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not reflect the opinions of the Investing News Network and do not constitute investment advice. All readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence.
Aurum Resources Investor Kit
- Corporate info
- Insights
- Growth strategies
- Upcoming projects