|
|||
Another Home RunBob Moriarty I wrote about International Tower Hill last October. The stock was $1.25 Canadian. They announced a new resource in January and I wrote about them again. The stock was $2.45 Canuk, almost a double since October. On June 25th, ITH announced another new resource. Guess what? The latest drilling in the high grade Core Zone has increased the resource in the .70 g/t high-grade cutoff by 20%. The stock is up 50% in the five months since their last report. Others are waking up to what you knew since last October. ITH is a home run. Canaccord has raised their 12-month target on ITH to $5.20 from a target of $4.65. M Partners points out that ITH is trading at less than $30 an ounce, half of what similar stage companies get for their high-grade ounces. Recent takeovers have averaged $130 an ounce so M Partners suggests that ITH should have a value of between $8 and $16 a share. The expiration of warrants in May brought in a bundle of cash so Jeff Pontius, President and CEO of ITH, is now sitting on a hoard of $32 million. The company burns $1 million a month. A back of the envelope calculation shows a guess of 15 million ounces at a .50 g/t cutoff in 12 months. The latest drill results will start showing up in about two weeks. Perhaps 20 holes a month will be released through the end of the year. A new drill program will begin in February of 2010. Look for an initial scoping study about the July/August 2009 timeframe. Once the numbers are in hand, there will be no more cheap shares of ITH. This is a big deposit and all the majors are waiting for are solid numbers regarding costs and cash flow to get real serious. The majors, across the board, have been producing far more gold ounces than they have been developing so they are hungry. This is going to be one of the hottest gold projects in the world. When the bidding starts, it's going to get real interesting. Jeff has had his metallurgy boffins hard at work studying recovery techniques. The gold appears to be highly suited to a gravity circuit recovery. That recovered material would then go through a small cyanide circuit. If that process is suitable, it would be a major game changer in capex required. I'm very proud that I have been lucky enough to be associated with Jeff and his crew right from the gitgo. Bob Bishop and I got to see their herd of projects just days after the deal with Anglo was first concluded. This is a great company with brilliant management. Investors have been and will be again in the future, richly rewarded. International Tower Hill is an advertiser and we have participated in private placements in the past. We are biased as we can be.
Bob Moriarty 321gold Ltd |
