How is it that TRU Precious Metals Corp is so plugged into what the majors are doing?
In part, it’s chief executive officer Joel Freudman’s experience in mergers and acquisitions. Freudman knows his way around the corporate world, and he knows how it intersects with mining and exploration.
But that isn’t the only reason that the TRU booth was so busy at this year’s PDAC.
The key is the location of the principal asset, the Golden Rose project, in the central region of Newfoundland, one of the top mining jurisdictions in the world. TRU’s Golden Rose project covers 240.25 square kilometres and is transected by the Valentine Lake structural corridor, which hosts over 40 kilometres of prospective strike-length on TRU’s ground for gold and copper mineralization, on the same shear zone as Marathon Gold’s Valentine Lake gold project.
Golden Rose sits slap in between two highly significant gold discoveries on the Cape Ray/Valentine Lake shear zone.
The first, the Valentine gold project owned by TSX-Listed Marathon Gold is the largest undeveloped gold resource in Atlantic Canada, with 3.96 million ounces in the measured and indicated categories and a further 1.1 million ounces inferred.
Marathon is already fully financed to production, and due for first gold pour in early 2025. When completed, the Valentine gold project will be the largest gold mine in Atlantic Canada. The second, the Cape Ray gold project owned by Australian-listed Matador Mining Ltd (ASX:MZZ, OTCQX:MZZMF), already boasts a resource of 840,000 ounces, and may well get much bigger as they continue to explore their landholdings closer to TRU’s Golden Rose project.
In between and on trend with the two of them sits TRU Precious Metal’s Golden Rose project, just crying out for drilling and further exploration of all kinds.
And if there are discoveries to be made on the Golden Rose ground, there’s likely to be more than one. That’s a pattern already set by Matador and Marathon – Marathon is working off a mine plan that involves three deposits, while Matador’s resource is based around four separate occurrences.
And this kind of resource base is certainly consistent with the gold showings that TRU Precious Metals is getting on its ground – they are scattered widely, to the point where there’s such an embarrassment of early exploration riches that a key challenge is deciding where to focus first.
The company has already established the presence of significant amounts of gold at the Woods Lake zone, in the central southern sector of the property, where TRU hit gold in most of its drillholes there. But the thinking is that higher grading zones may well be on offer at prospects like Mark’s Pond and Jens Pond further to the north.
In November of last year, for example, gold grading as high as 1,929 grams per tonne – yes, you read that correctly – was returned from a rock sample at Mark’s Pond, while at Jacob’s Pond in September the company drilled numerous mineralized intersections including 1.03% copper, 0.71 grams per tonne gold and just under 25 grams silver over three metres.
Accordingly, during the second quarter of this year the exploration focus will be on these two prospects, as well as a third, the Rich House and northeast Victoria Lake area, where historic grab samples have run as high as 189.2 grams per tonne of gold.
The market is always impatient for drilling, and even high quality sample results like this don’t usually set rockets under anybody’s share price. But, given the position of TRU between Marathon and Matador it’s easy to understand why this parcel of land is being regarded as more than just another greenfields opportunity.
What’s more, recent work has also highlighted that a secondary fault split off from the Cape Ray/Valentine Lake shear zone trend, and this has also yielded a significant pipeline of copper-silver-gold targets for the company.
So, in an area that’s beginning to establish itself as a district play, it looks quite possible that TRU Precious Metals may play a key role in a second phase of discovery and development.
That is, of course, if it gets that far.
Two big names are already on the register – TSX-listed royalty company and project generator Altius Minerals, which sold TRU the ground, but retained an interest, and Eric Sprott, who bought in on the strength of Freudman’s presentation.
TRU also has several other large institutional investors from the flow-through fund space. That adds a further air of respectability, and it comes as no surprise to learn that certain groups have been conducting due diligence on Golden Rose.
“It’s been built as a turnkey project,” says Freudman.
“An acquirer won’t have to clean it up or build it out. And people are kicking the tyres.”
But even as that’s happening, the activity is likely to be ramping up a gear.
The company has around C$1 million in the bank, and that ought to be enough to keep the newsflow coming over the next few months.
“We’re funded for our early stage surface work at high-grade gold target Mark’s Pond and copper-silver-gold target Jacob’s Pond,” says Freudman.
“There ought to be rolling newsflow through the second quarter.”
Then in the summer the idea is to set the drill rigs turning at Mark’s Pond and Jacob’s Pond, as well as to advance a couple of other grassroots targets towards drill-ready status.
All told, 2023 looks set be a transformative year for TRU, although the best is yet to come.