JBY increases US gold project area by 184%

Our US gold Investment, James Bay Minerals (ASX: JBY) just added 1,861 acres to its project area in Nevada, USA.

The new project area’s increase JBY’s acreage by ~184% and sit to the west of JBY’s existing 1.4M ounce gold equivalent JORC resource.

JBY is about to start drilling its project to grow that resource - check out our latest note here: How high will the gold price go? How big is JBY’s USA gold resource?

Coming back to today’s deal, this is where the new ground sits relative to JBY’s existing resource:

The new ground isn't so much about adding strike to JBY’s existing resource. For us, it looks like JBY is picking these up with a much longer-term view on its project.

We noticed in today’s announcement that JBY made specific mention of how the “Modoc South claim” could be the “ideal setting for an expanded millsite” for its JORC resource.

Especially because of the buffalo-phoenix access road that connects the block to where JBY’s resource sits.

So JBY is thinking about the practical realities of how it could develop its project with this deal.

Here is that road JBY mentions:

Another reason we think this deal is being done with a longer-term view in mind is that it adds NEW discovery potential to JBY’s project area.

The Northern claims are along strike the old Modoc mine and sit on similar geology to the Buffalo Valley silver-gold-copper mine.

JBY’s executive director Matt summarises that potential well here:

What’s next for JBY?

The following slide from JBY’s most recent investor presentation gave a good overview of what to expect next from JBY:

(Source)

4,000m RC drill program 🔄

JBY should be starting drilling any day now to try and expand its existing shallow gold resource.

JBY’s plan is to drill a 4,000m program testing ~1.3km of strike that could extend the resource from surface to the north/east:

Metwork testing on the deeper Skarn resource 🔄

JBY has also flagged it would look to do some metwork testing on its deeper skarn resource.

From that program we are hoping to see recoveries that somewhat resemble the ones from N.G.M’s Fortitude pit which has mined ~2.3M ounces of gold from similar geology.

If the metwork is similar, the look through for us will be that JBY’s resource might also be feasible to mine.

Re-assaying old cores 🔄

JBY has flagged potential assay results from old deep diamond drillcores that were never tested for gold.

These should give us some more information on whether or not there is gold in between JBY’s shallow and deep resources: