Geologically Newfoundland has it all, and York Harbour Metals is looking to join the fun with their copper-zinc-silver project
I quite enjoy the opportunity to write for InvestorIntel as it allows me to look at some interesting stories that wouldn’t otherwise be on my radar. There are thousands of publicly traded stocks out there and I certainly don’t have the focus or the drive to actively try and review all of them. And with being more or less locked down for the last two years one could also safely travel the world from their armchair while reviewing the plethora of small cap stocks listed on Canadian exchanges. I’ve explored parts of Fiji, Columbia, Indonesia and Chile to name a few but it seems I’m heading back to Newfoundland & Labrador fairly regularly. Ironically, I’ve actually visited “The Rock” numerous times and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in spectacular, rugged scenery, icebergs and super friendly people. But it’s the wonderful geology that the region is blessed with that has me returning time and again on behalf of InvestorIntel.
You’ve probably guessed by now that I’m having a look at junior miner with a prospect located on the western shores of Newfoundland. The company is so fond of this prospect they recently changed their name to reflect this becoming their primary focus. York Harbour Metals Inc. (TSXV: YORK) rebranded from Phoenix Gold Resources Corp. (TSXV: PXA) in February of this year. York Harbour Metals is an exploration and development company focused on the York Harbour Copper-Zinc-Silver Project, a mineral property located approximately 27 km from Corner Brook, Newfoundland. The area is known to be prospective for copper-zinc-silver-gold-cobalt volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits. The known mineralization exhibits characteristics consistent with classic mafic-type flow dominated (Cyprus-type) VMS deposits. You’ll have to go to their website to better understand the previous two sentences but they do a decent job explaining it in terms I can understand with links to additional resources if you really want to nerd out.
There are a couple of things about this particular company that I find interesting. The first is the history of this property. This is a classic story of revisiting an old, existing mine site with very little modern exploration having been carried out on the sizeable claim holdings. Copper and zinc massive sulphides were first discovered at York Harbour in 1893 where shaft sinking began in 1897 and mining continued to 1918. Activity resumed in the early 1950’s through to 1970’s where previous owners began a Sea Level Adit to enhance exploration and to become a main haulage level but it was never completed due to lack of funding. A total of 2,134 metres of underground drifting and development have been completed for which documentation is available. Drill core logs and sampling data are available for a total of 19,323 metres of historical drilling that tested eleven lenses or zones of copper-zinc-silver-gold-cobalt-bearing sulphide mineralization. I’m always attracted to companies that have a lot of historical workings they can review to preserve and optimize exploration capital.
The next thing that puts York Harbour Metals on my radar is the stock price action over the last 6 months. Junior mining stocks haven’t exactly been setting the world on fire. They tend to perform even worse when the macro market is looking weak as nervous investors have a habit of dumping their riskier investments first. Since November 2nd, YORK/PXA is up 161% posting higher highs and higher lows along the way, forming a great up trending channel. It also seems to be finding great support at the 50 day moving average. Not to say this is the only junior mining stock doing well, but I can’t say there are many (if any) that are down 25% or more over that same period that I have on my watch list.
Source: StockCharts.com
Lastly, I always like a steady stream of drill results, although I probably didn’t need to remind readers of this fact given how many times I’ve brought it up. York Harbour Metals have been pumping out the numbers over the last 4 months and there are plenty more to come. Phase 1 drill results were released Jan 17th and led to a decent spike in the share price. Highlights from that press release include YH21-06 with 52.2 metres of 0.85% copper, 91.8 g/t cobalt, 0.53% zinc and 1.75 g/t silver and YH21-09 with 11.6 m of 1.41% copper, 202.94 g/t cobalt, 0.10% zinc and 2.41 g/t silver. Results from the Phase 2 program released March 17th and March 26th also saw decent jumps in the share price with the latter resulting in a nice gap up. Highlights include YH21-18 with 25.00 metres of 2.70% copper, 9.04% zinc, 17.78 g/t silver, and 163.6 g/t cobalt and YH21-24, grading 5.25% copper, 436.5 g/t cobalt, 8.97 g/t silver, and 0.801% zinc over a drilling length of 29.0 metres. The latest price spike on April 18th came on an update on the Phase 3 diamond drilling program where the Company confirmed completion of 28 NQ-size diamond drill holes totaling 4,980 metres with visual pyrite, chalcopyrite and sphalerite of varying degrees in almost all of the drill intercepts.
If the assay results are anywhere near as good as the market’s interpretation of the visual estimates of the copper (chalcopyrite) and zinc (sphalerite) indicators we could be in for more good times at York Harbour. The last thing that I like is that it has a relatively tight share structure, with only 48.8 million shares outstanding. That makes the market cap C$62.5 million, which seems a little high to me for a junior miner without a resource estimate. However, the stock action would suggest that those a lot more knowledgeable about geology think this could be the real deal.