It’s a measure of the uniqueness of Greatland Gold PLC (AIM:GGP, OTC:GRLGF) as an exploration company that is share price was broadly flat after it announced a new 120 metre mineralized intercept at its Havieron project in Australia with grades running at 10 grams per tonne gold and significant additional copper.
If it had been any other company, such a result would have set the market on fire.
But Greatland has such a track record of delivering high grades over very long intervals that even this new result – the highest gram-metre intercept returned to date – left investors largely unmoved.
The key point to understand here is that Greatland is already doing really well. Arguably, it’s the stand out success story from London’s junior mining of the last ten years.
It’s got more to give, but given how far and how fast its already come, the exponential rate of growth is likely to slow from here on in.
Nevertheless, the latest drilling does still point to further upside for shareholders.
First, a part of the programme was designed to firm up knowledge about what Greatland and its partner Newcrest think is in the ground at Havieron.
So far that’s been successful, and all the unofficial signs point to Newcrest getting ready to mine.
No announcement’s been made, but it looks as though one of the best discoveries in recent years will become an actual mine before too long. And a low-cost one at that.
Secondly, it’s still not clear how big Havieron actually is.
On this second point, broker Berenberg had some interesting things to say in morning commentary this week.
“The drill programme has also suggested that mineralisation in the South East Crescent Zone extends at depth, with additional high-grade targets in the Northern Breccia and the NW Pod and additional mineralised corridors including the Eastern Breccia,” the broker said.
“We believe that the initial resource of 4.4mln ounces on a gold-equivalent basis with an initial reserve of two million ounces gold-equivalent basis only represents the start of the process of delineation at Havieron, and we expect both the resource and reserve to increase materially over the next 18 months as exploration progresses. We note that the current resource and reserve only includes drilling that was completed to February 2021.”
How much bigger the resource will eventually get remains an open question. But to date Havieron hasn’t done things by halves. The results from the areas targeted for “growth” drilling have been highly encouraging. The Havieron story isn’t over yet. In some sense, indeed, it’s only just beginning.
