The bulls are out in force with more gold industry observers coming around to the belief that the precious metal has rockets firmly strapped on even as the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude sinks into negative territory.
While speculation that gold could reach as high as $US20,000 ($31,534) per ounce is still thought to be in the realm of fantasy, analysts are coming around to the likelihood that it could jump to $US1,900 or even $US2,000 per ounce.
Kitco News quoted TD Securities as saying that gold could hit $US1,900 per ounce in just three months due to “continued growth in investment demand amid massive and prolonged unconventional bank stimulus”.
Spot gold is currently trading at $US1,692.55, or about $2,668.60 in Australian dollar terms thanks to the favourable currency exchange rate.
Meanwhile, State Street Global Advisors believes that gold has enough room to push to a new all-time high of $US2,000 per ounce thanks to support from the US Federal Reserve’s monetary action.
ASX small cap gold stocks
Middle Island Resources (ASX:MDI) has defined a second new gold deposit at its Sandstone project in central Western Australia just a week after finding gold at the McClaren prospect.
Drilling at the McIntyre prospect returned shallow drill intercepts including 24m at 1.66 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 23m at 1.4g/t gold, 11m at 1.39g/t and 18m at 1.35g/t gold.
Managing director Rick Yeates believes that McIntyre could represent a second new, low strip ratio, open pit deposit to supplement the planned Sandstone mill recommissioning inventory.
McIntyre is one of a cluster of three proximal gold prospects, which include McClaren, where substantial intercepts of 4m at 90.6g/t gold and 8m at 3.35g/t gold were made.
Results are also pending from the third prospect, Ridge, to determine if associated gold mineralisation links up with McIntyre and/or McClaren.
Re-sampling of recent high-grade gold assays from drilling at Musgrave Minerals’ (ASX:MGV) flagship Cue project in Western Australia’s Murchison district have improved the grades from composite sampling.
The top result from this re-sampling is 3m at 118.4g/t gold from a depth of 72m including 1m at 351.2g/t (or more than 11 ounces per tonne) from 73m.
Results above 5g/t gold are generally considered to be high-grade.
Musgrave noted that the high-grade Starlight link-lode mineralisation is now confirmed over a strike length of more than 100m that remains open to the west and down dip.
Follow-up drilling is scheduled to begin in early May.
Emmerson Resources (ASX:ERM) is a step closer to receiving a low risk royalty stream from its gold assets in the wholly-owned Tennant Creek Mineral Field in the Northern Territory after its strategic partner Territory Resources signed a letter of intent with Blue Cap Mining.
Blue Cap and Territory are now finalising the mining schedule that aims to maximise the full capacity of the Warrego mill through fast tracking the development of multiple gold projects.
Territory has already completed the purchase of all major components to refurbish the Warrego Mill.
Emmerson is eligible to receive a 12 per cent gold production royalty at Edna Beryl, which is free of all costs associated with development, mining and processing. It is also entitled to a similar 6 per cent royalty at the Chariot deposit.