Keno Hill, Yukon, with Mt Haldane in the distance

All pictures are company material, unless stated otherwise.

All currencies are in US Dollars, unless stated otherwise.

As I discussed recently in other articles, 2020 is shaping up to be a remarkable year, with COVID-19 disrupting the markets and real economy, prompting central banks around the world with huge stimulus packages to perform damage control. The negative real interest rates combined with a devaluating US Dollar appeared to be the perfect storm for precious metals, including silver, the metal of focus for Alianza Minerals (ANZ.V). This Kitco chart shows the explosive extent of this year’s runup of the grey metal, after years of flatlining:

As 2020 keeps unfolding as one of the most remarkable years of the last decade with COVID-19 disrupting almost everything, resulting in unprecedented drops in economic activity and considerable volatility in the markets, and a second wave of the pandemic seems to be around the corner, the mining industry seems to be looking forward, on the back of a recovering economy, especially China returning back close to normal during the summer. A tiny company that is completely under the radar of many investors, but is also looking to get back into action, is Avrupa Minerals (AVU:TSXV) with its flagship copper-zinc Alvalade project in Portugal, JV’d with MATSA (joined company of Trafigura and Mubadala, 2 commodity giants).

Goliath Gold project; Treasury Metals

All pictures are company material, unless stated otherwise.

The Critical Investor, an avid and critical mining stock investor and newsletter writer from Europe, looks for high quality companies, strong short-term catalysts and deep value. In this interview with Streetwise Reports, he takes a deep dive into the drivers behind gold's appreciation, discusses several criteria he uses to evaluate mining juniors and developers, and profiles, using his numbers-based approach, 13 junior mining companies, of which most are featuring in his portfolio.

Streetwise Reports (SWR): Gold and silver have been trading more or less sideways for the last month or so. What do you see ahead for the precious metals?

LiSTR demonstration plant at Lanxess Project site

Like most projects around the world, Treasury Metals (TML.TO, TSRMF.US) has temporarily slowing down and shutting down drilling at their Goliath Gold project in Ontario, caused by the omnipresent COVID-19 pandemic, but as it has been completing over half of their drilling program before the virus broke out, it has been reporting several sets of drill results so far this year, and still has a few batches to come. Most of the intercepts are solid, nothing spectacular, but in line with the existing resource.

Keno Hill, Yukon, with Mt Haldane in the distance

Alianza Minerals (ANZ.V) was ready for their Phase II drill program at their fully owned flagship Haldane silver project, after their Phase I drill target defining program was completed earlier during the summer of last year. The company has been busy raising additional cash for 2020 exploration, and it started out with a small financing of $250,000 at 5 cents per unit on January 30, 2020. This wasn’t really impressive, but the same financing ended up being oversubscribed unexpectedly to no less then $1.1M during February, which you don’t hear too often for tiny explorers, and provides Alianza with enough cash for Haldane for the reminder of this year.

This article by Gwen Preston has been published earlier at December 12, 2019 at Resource Maven.

All pictures are company material, unless stated otherwise.

Genesis Metals (TSXV:GIS) has been around for a decade. Over that time it worked and dropped a few projects, but more importantly it found two projects that the team really liked. The bear market made it hard to raise capital so work programs were limited. The work that was done returned good results, good enough that a strong technical team took an interest in the company early this year.

Building demonstration plant at Lanxess Project site 

After Standard Lithium (TSXV: SLL) (OTCQX: STLHF) (FRA: S5L) managed to arrange a C$5M (US$3.75M) convertible loan and guarantee agreement with Lanxess on October 30, 2019, management hasn’t been sitting on its hands. On February 26, 2020, the company announced that an ongoing capital raise, intended to raise C$6M, was closed at no less then C$12.1M. I found this to be very impressive as sentiment for lithium developers has recovered slightly on the back of Tesla’s unexpected positive results and following runup of the share price of the car and battery manufacturer, but is still neutral to negative. The proceedings will be used for the ongoing development of the mentioned demonstration plant, which is capital intensive.

All presented tables are my own material, unless stated otherwise.

All pictures are company material, unless stated otherwise.

After the first part of my interview with Rick Rule generated quite a bit of attention, I’m pleased to continue with the interview in this second, and equally extensive part, in a series of no less then four parts. As Rick is one of the best speakers in the mining sector, there is no shortage of lengthy, whitty, funny and knowledgeable answers. He has set the bar pretty high, as I am planning on inviting more big names with illustrous carreers in this industry for a likewise in-depth questioning. For now, enjoy the next topics discussed by Rick Rule.

The Critical Investor (TCI): The biggest trap for junior mining investors is averaging down in my view, as fundamentals seem to be unfazed in a lot of cases when mining stocks go down. But sometimes the world around the company/project changes. How important is the macro environment to a thesis to you and Sprott?