Junior explorer Quebec Precious Metals Corp. (QPM:TSX.V; CJCFF:OTCQB;YXEP:FSE) is selling off its non-core projects to focus on its 100%-owned flagship Sakami gold project in the James Bay territory of Quebec.
It hopes to complete a mineral resource estimate by the end of the third quarter and grow the underexplored resource to 2 million ounces (2 Moz) or more.
The project will turn heads if the resource estimate reaches those amounts, said Chris Temple, editor of The National Investor.
“They’ve already had a fair bit of drilling success,” Temple said. “What they want is … easily accessible, no-nonsense, no-brainer potential for a big, open-pit operation of 1 or 2 grams per tonne (1 or 2 g/t) that’s got a couple or 3 Moz. That’ll get anybody’s attention that’s already established in the area.”
That’s the company’s stated long-term goal, to ultimately get noticed and attract a major to develop and mine the property, Quebec Precious Metals Chief Executive Officer Normand Champigny told Streetwise Reports.
Drilling at the site over the fall and winter of 2021-2022 led to assay results of 69.6 grams gold per tonne (69.6 g/t Au) over 0.6 meter inside a longer intercept of 94 meters grading 1.32 g/t Au.
The results were “very encouraging,” Champigny said.
“We always want more, obviously,” he said. “We have some of the high-grade kickers or values from time to time, but the deposit is pretty consistent in thickness and grade.”
New Drill Results From the Sakami Project
Last month, the company released more results from its drilling at the La Pointe Extension gold deposit. Highlights included 1.61 g/t Au over 19.5 meters, including 4.91 g/t Au over 1.5 meters; and 0.84 g/t Au over 63 meters, including 1.25 g/t Au over 18 meters.
The company was formed from the merger of Canada Strategic Metals Inc. and Matamec Explorations Inc. in 2018. Some non-gold, non-James Bay projects came along with that merger. QPM’s key shareholders have supported QPM’s focus on James Bay and the sale of the non-core assets to help pay for exploration, Champigny said.
So far, it has sold off eight assets for a total of CA$12.85 million, including CA$8 million for the Kipawa-Zeus rare earth metals project in Quebec, a sale which is expected to close in September. The company is still looking to sell one remaining asset, its 50%-stake in the Matheson Joint Venture project near Timmins in Ontario, for an expected CA$500,000 in cash and shares, Champigny said.
“We had other projects that we inherited when we created the company that are not gold and not in the territory where we’re working,” Champigny said. “We’ll be selling those to others that are interested. We’ve got dollars and we’ve got shares (from the sales). So that’s been helpful to finance our work.”
What Makes QPM an ‘Attractive Buy’
Champigny said the company was started with the hopes of finding the next Éléonore mine, one of the largest underground gold mines in Quebec and right next door to Sakami, owned by the world’s largest miner, Newmont Corp.
Newmont also owns about 13% of QPM. Government-backed Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec and other Québec institutions own about 12%, and QPM management owns 1.3%.
QPM’s land package is 859 square kilometers, and at Sakami it controls a 23-kilometer-long geological contact that is favorable for gold mineralization. The James Bay territory itself is about the size of Arizona. Gold was initially reported in the area in the 1890s, but it would take more than a century and significant development in the area before it got the attention of investors.
The company has drilled over 50,000 meters in the Sakami project. Champigny said the company is drilling new targets, extending others, and continuing with geophysics fieldwork. Finding another deposit like La Pointe would be “an additional game-changer,” he said.
It’s in part that potential for new discoveries and the payoff from the existing strikes that makes QPM an attractive buy, Temple said.
“They’re in a camp, … in the James Bay region, that has had very, very little in the way of exploration for a very long time,” Temple said. “In relative terms, James Bay is still very, very young in its life.”
Quebec Precious Metals has a market cap of CA$9.9 million and 82.46 million shares outstanding. It trades in a 52-week range of CA$0.30 to CA$0.10.
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