TSX

Southern Cross Gold's massive Sunday Creek drill hit has shone a light back on Victorian gold Canadian companies Agnico Eagle and Mandalay Resources are the two dominant players in the multi-million ounce gold field A host of Canadian small caps have piled into the district in the hope of striking it lucky like 1850s prospectors Our Canada Unearthed column wraps the news driving mining and exploration stocks listed in Canada, mostly on the TSX and TSX.V. In one of the most exciting days of trade in the gold space in weeks, a not long listed tiddler in the Victorian goldfields, home to 2400t of historic production, showed the field was not dead yet with a massive hit in its long overlooked Melbourne Zone. Southern Cross Gold (ASX:SXG) came to market in 2022 chasing riches in the historic mining state, where new discoveries and mines have run dry in recent years. Its biggest bounty yet came with a hit released to the market on Tuesday, including 404.4m uncut at 5.6g/t gold equivalent including 5.1g/t gold and 0.3% antimony, a critical mineral largely mined in Australia at the nearby Costerfield operation. Gold ranged as high as 2670g/t and while that grade is unlikely to be replicated at scale (equivalent to almost 86oz in each tonne of rock), it is certainly a number that will make gold bugs sit up and take notice. Found at the Sunday Creek project, the results exceeded total gold content in the previous best hole by some three times, with another 26,000m of diamond drilling planned to test the extents of the find by April next year after 19,626m of soil churning so far in 2023. Why is this relevant TSX watchers? If you really take stock and zoom in on the region around the Sunday Creek discovery, much of it has been wrapped up in cotton wool by TSX listed explorers. Why are Canadians in love with Victoria? While Southern Cross Gold is an All Australian story, the Victorian goldfields were at one point to TSX precious metals hunters what Canada's James Bay lithium district is to Australian geologists. We can't confirm whether they have a taste for Melbourne coffee, Brunetti pastries or Eureka Stockade recreations at Sovereign Hill. But we can say the most successful gold mines in the state are run by Canucks. The big one is the 8.2Moz Fosterville, known for its extraordinarily high grade Swan Zone. Previously owned by Kirkland Lake Gold, the mine is now in the hands of global major Agnico Eagle (TSX:AEM) after a mega merger last year. Fosterville contains 453,000oz of gold in proven mineral reserves at a quite extraordinary grade of 23.19g/t and is projecting cost of US$457/t in 2023 WITH NO BY-PRODUCT CREDITS. Its broader probable mineral reserves sit at 1.2Moz at 6.39g/t, though more exploration is planned to add to the mine's eight-year life. Just down the road is the Costerfield mine run by C$145 million capped Mandalay Resources (TSE:MND), which produced around 65,000oz of gold equivalent in 2022 including 47,887oz gold and 2292t of antimony. Not to be confused with Vandalay Industries, MND also owns the Bjorkdal mine in Sweden but has seen production fall at Costerfield this year to 21,460oz AuEq due to delays getting to higher grade stopes. Around them are a handful of smaller companies looking to make the next Victorian gold discovery around their Canadian neighbours. Among those are TSX-V listed Leviathan Gold (TSX-V:LVX), which last week received a permit for an exploration licence which covers the historic Queen's Birthday mine, a classic Victorian orebody which produced some 118,000oz of gold at 19.1g/t back in the day and hasn't been drilled since the mid-'80s. Even better, the licence once played host to the discovery in 1869 of the Welcome Stranger, the world's largest gold nugget, which weighed 72kg and ran 61cm across. While it is about to shift to PNG and rebrand as Great Pacific Gold Corp, Fosterville South Exploration (TSV-V:FSX) is another player in the new Victorian gold rush, holding well over 1000km2 of ground around the 22Moz Bendigo Goldfields, including directly south of Agnico and Mandalay as well as the southern end of Catalyst Metals (ASX:CYL) and Hancock Prospecting's Four Eagles project. AIS Resources (TSX-V:AIS) is another microcap which boasts Argentinian lithium assets as well as Fosterville style gold prospects including the 'drill-ready' Fosterville-Toolleen project just 12km from the famous high grade gold mine and the Kingston project near the Stawell gold fields. Then there is Novo Resources (TSX:NVO), which famously emerged as one of the world's hottest gold explorers on the discovery of Witwatersrand Basin style 'conglomerate gold' in the Pilbara a few years ago and its "watermelon seed" nuggets. That petered out, though neighbour De Grey Mining (ASX:DEG) later made the world class Hemi discovery and is now taking a big stake in Novo to bankroll a planned dual-listing this month on the ASX. Alongside its Pilbara tenure, it owns the Belltopper gold project 50km south of Fosterville, which displays the same characteristics of epizonal orogenic gold deposits. A diamond drilling program has been designed to test priority targets at Belltopper. TSX and TSX.V Winners & Losers Here’s how TSX and TSX.V-listed mining and exploration stocks performed last week: Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort. Best viewed on a laptop. Stocks missing from this list? Email josh.chiat@stockhead.com.au Prices and market caps in CAD. At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Southern Cross Gold and De Grey Mining are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.

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