TTM Just Added 1.28Moz. of High Grade South American Gold to its Asset Inventory

Titan Minerals (ASX:TTM) has today confirmed the 100% re-instatement of a 1.28Moz gold project to its name.

This Ecuadorian project has an average grade of 14.5 g/tonne and sits on trend between the Fruta del Norte deposit 40km to the north, and the contiguous land holding of Luminex Resources’ Condor Project.

Prior to today’s news, TTM already had a 2.1Moz resource, averaging 4.5 g/tonne gold resource inventor at its Dynasty Project. With today’s addition, its resource base has jumped 64%.

Importantly, this is not an acquisition by TTM. The project has been reinstated to the company, meaning there is no dilution of equity.

Aside from an already healthy resource size, the project has numerous high grade targets identified but not explored, and the system remains open to the north and at depth.

We initiated coverage on TTM as part of our long-term portfolio in early July this year when it was trading at 10c, the company has been as high as 17.5c/share, a 75% increase since then.

We added TTM to our portfolio as we were impressed by the size of its gold assets at its Dynasty Gold Project and the potential for growth on the back of:

• converting the Dynasty resource to JORC classification from a Foreign Resource Estimate
• Unlocking the value in the historical drill assays not yet contemplated in the resource estimate
• Continued diamond and RC drilling to prove up the Dynast resource
• Upside at Copper Duke – an under-explored porphyry project TTM holds

We see plenty of upside to come, as the company continues to drill out Dynasty, and the market should soon start to recognise the quality of the total project base TTM now commands.

While the company’s shares seem to have consolidated at around 13.5 cents, the addition of the Jersualem Project should act as an immediate catalyst for the company, as we roll through the last months of 2020.

TTM: A quick recap

We first covered Titan Minerals (ASX:TTM) back in July in the article ASX Gold Stock Sitting on 2.1Moz Resource – Primed for Rapid Growth.

This is where TTM first caught our attention.

Here was a well-priced gold junior, with a pair of impressive Ecuadorian gold projects and the resources to match, that could leverage off the rising gold price.

When we initiated coverage, TTM had raised $14.5 million in funding to deploy on its flagship Dynasty Gold Project in the underexplored Loja Province of Ecuador.

Dynasty is close to existing infrastructure, has strong local support and the company is fully permitted to begin work here.

Our expectation for the company has only grown since then.

We expect that with a bolstered resource size and classification, the $137.8 million capped TTM will soon be trading at a much higher value on a market cap to ounce basis.

Pushing things along is TTM’s highly experienced management team, well versed in building producing operations in South America.

Ecuador has a mining friendly nature and vast amounts of undeveloped resource wealth. It has attracted the likes of Hancock Prospecting, Lundin Gold, Newcrest, BHP and SolGold to the region.

TTM will also look to make its name here.

We should also mention the company’s Copper Duke Project, a 130 km2 tenement in Southern Ecuador with high quality copper-gold porphyry potential.

Here is a look at its current projects (pre the addition of Jerusalem):

The final piece of the Ecuadorian puzzle is the Linderos gold project, where a recent high-grade gold discovery was made.

The highlights of Dynasty and Copper Duke are plentiful:

As are the investment highlights, which are neatly summed up below:

The addition of the Jerusalem Project will only add to these.

Jerusalem has the lot

Just this morning, Titan Minerals announced it had been reinstated by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Mines as owner of the of the Jerusalén Concession (Jerusalem Gold Project), situated in a highly prospective area of Ecuador in close proximity to multi-million ounce gold deposits.

Titan has been engaged with the Ecuadorian Ministry of Mines since the acquisition of Core Gold in May 2020 and had presented its case to successfully reinstate the concession.

The Jerusalem concession was formally validated and registered late last week, finally ratifying a succession of developments that occurred when the area was the subject of artisanal mining, during which time the government declared a force majeure.

Titan is now in a position to progress the Jerusalem Project which boasts 1.3 million ounce of gold grading 14.5 g/t gold and 8.6 million ounces of silver grading 98 g/t (NI43-101) foreign estimate.

While not a JORC compliant resource, management believes that the Foreign Estimate is sufficiently reliable with estimation methodologies and data compilation work acceptable for methodologies used at the time of their estimation to provide the basis for a decision to deem the property to have merit for further exploration expenditure, but is not of a quality to underpin any economic reviews.

Titan has confirmed that the categories of the mineralisation reported under NI 43-101 are similar to the JORC Code (2012) classifications and Titan considers the Foreign Estimate to be material to Titan, providing a basis to contribute funding for continued exploration activity and advancement of Jerusalem through additional desktop studies for the purpose of data validation and ranking of targets within the project area.

Close proximity to multi-million ounce deposits

The Jerusalem Gold Project is hosted in the same Jurassic age terrane as the Mirador, Fruta del Norte and Condor deposits, situated between the latter two deposits approximately 40 kilometres south of Lundin’s Fruta del Norte Mine hosting over 13 million ounce gold resource.

As shown below, the concession is also contiguous with Luminex Resources’ Condor project to the south which hosts a 5 million ounce resource.

The Jerusalem Gold Project is a single concession located within 45 kilometres of the provincial capital Zamora in the Zamora-Chinchipe province.

The project area has been the focus of a number of exploration campaigns, reporting several mineral resource estimations since the late 1990s and host to artisanal mining activity since the early 1980s.

Several mineral resource estimations have been completed with two such estimates reported under the Canadian National Instrument 43-101.

As outlined below, the most recent technical report titled “Jerusalem Gold Project, Zamora Chinchipe – Ecuador” was released in October 2014.

The existing drill data sets for the project are reported to include 52 holes of drilling inside or intersecting the Jerusalem Gold project.

Titan has identified available files and assay logs for 47 diamond holes totalling 13,383 metres drilled, of which 30 holes are collared inside the Jerusalem Gold Project area.

The average length of the holes is 267 metres and the depth of the deepest hole collared in Jerusalén Concession is 614 metres.

Having in-depth data to work with should assist Titan in developing a focused exploration strategy at the project.

Commenting on Titan’s reinstatement as 100% owner of the Jerusalem Project, managing director Laurie Marsland said, “Return of the Jerusalem concession is a great result for our shareholders.

“Clearly, the concession adds significant value to our already exceptional portfolio of exploration and development assets.

“We look forward to placing boots on the ground to evaluate the full potential of Jerusalem and the opportunities it provides.

“A lot of work has been done since acquiring the Ecuadorian assets and I want to take this opportunity to thank all members of our team for their continued diligence and dedication to the task at hand.

“I think we will all look back on the acquisition of Core Gold as a remarkable opportunity.”

The macro outlook

The macroeconomic picture looks bright for Titan, with the gold price still hovering in the vicinity of US$2000 per ounce, and silver settling around the US$27.50 per ounce mark over the last month after trading as high as US$29.83 per ounce at the start of August.

The addition of the Jerusalem Project to its overall asset base, should provide further catalysts for the company and potentially further improve its valuation potential.

There’s a lot to like about the latest news and coupled with ongoing work at Dynasty, we expect our long-term holding will be justified sooner rather than later.