Garimpeiro has been looking for somewhere to hide until the market finds its feet again.

Gold is the go and as is Garimpeiro’s wont, junior explorers with leverage to a meaningful discovery are preferred.

The idea is that a good discovery will spark a share price spurt for a lightly capitalised junior regardless of what the broader market is doing.

And when the junior’s discovery has the haven properties of gold, all the better.

The only rider is that the junior company has the funds to get cracking with the drill bit to prove the discovery is no flash in the pan.

It has proved a winning formula in previous market shakedowns but there are no guarantees with these things.

In pursuit of the strategy, Garimpeiro this week consulted his Perth crew who took offence when he last referred to them as the Perth mafia.

Bless ‘em all. During market routs like the one being endured now they still manage to come up with a couple of names that for one reason or another have captured their interest.

They know the people behind the companies and have the exploration nous to divine whether or not a discovery has the potential to become something special for the junior involved.
 

Future funded

Here are the two juniors they came up with:

PACGOLD (ASX:PGO): Trading at 62.5c for a market cap of $42 million, with cash of $12.3m (current).

Garimpeiro fell off his chair when the Perth brigade mentioned this one because it is not one of their own in that it is not based in West Perth. Its project is way over in the Eastern states – Far North Queensland to be exact.

The company only joined the ASX lists in July last year through a $6m IPO at 25c a share, with the long overlooked Alice River gold project, west of Cooktown, as its flagship. The historic goldfield was mined as far back as 1903 but has only ever been the subject of shallow workings and limited exploration.

Pacgold picked the project up in late 2020 from private interests and came at it with a bunch of new geological ideas and the latest in remote sensing tools, the idea being that there could be a big and high-grade gold system hiding away at depth beneath the old scratchings.

The hunch has proved correct. Initial drilling last year indicated the company has cracked the top of a big system, with gold grades increasing at depth. Initial results included 17m grading 9.3g/t gold from 192m, and 43m grading 3g/t from 214m.

The initial excitement around the stock made it the best performed of the gold IPOs last year and like others watching the stock, the Perth crew are as excited as they can be – while they count their losses elsewhere – about what will come from the recently started 2022 field season at Alice River.

There is plenty of ‘’space’’ for a big discovery as the prospective rocks can be traced over a 30km strike length. As Pacgold puts it, it’s now time to join the dots after having already “established an excellent platform to build a substantial resource base.’’
 
WIA GOLD (ASX:WIA): Trading at 7.6c for a market cap of $35m, with cash of $4.6m (March 31).

Garimpeiro pressed the Perth crew for another gold explorer to watch before they headed off for a long lunch on Friday, which is what you do when the market is all over the shop like it is now.

They came up with a West Perth explorer – Wia Gold (formerly Tanga Resources). But to Garimpeiro’s surprise, Wia is an African gold exploration specialist. Is there not a WA gold prospect exciting the crew at the moment?

Anyway, the excitement around Wia is due to is Kokoseb gold discovery in friendly Namibia, and the company’s leverage to the upside thanks to its modest market cap.

Wia (it means “Sun” in Baoulé, one of the major languages in Côte d’Ivoire where the company is also exploring) announced last week that the first three diamond drill holes at Kokoseb had returned high-grade intersections.

Best results included 17.4m at 2.70g/t, 4.8m at 4.38g/t, and 27m at 1.67g/t. Assays results from the remaining nine holes from the 12-hole program, are expected next month.

Wia’s board and management is populated with guys who have enjoyed major African gold success in the past. So when the company said it believes it is on to a “significant gold discovery’’ and that results to date demonstrate a “large-scale opportunity,’’ the Perth crew sat up and took notice.

A 20,000 metre reverse circulation drilling program and further follow up programs are now planned.

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