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West Red Lake Gold Quietly Starts MiningBob Moriarty I’ve written about West Red Lake Gold (WRLG-V) several times in the past, most recently in March. The primary project of WRLG is the Madsen Mine and mill picked up for pennies about eighteen months ago. When owned by Pure Gold, the mine and mill had $350 million invested. WRLG picked it up for $6.5 million and some shares. In the best of times for Pure Gold the asset was valued at $1.15 billion. If WRLG had to recreate the mill today it would cost north of $500 million. Frank Giustra is a big shareholder and supporter. Seventy percent of shares are in strong hands of institutions, management and insiders. Only thirty percent of shares are publicly held. The Madsen mine has a 43-101 resource of 2.1 million ounces. This year the company has completed a 40,000-meter definition drill program with two drills and is in the midst of an additional 10,000 meters. Plans call for full scale production in 2H of 2025. The company is well cashed up with $25 million in the till. The company barely talks about Rowan but in addition to the Madsen Mine and mill WRLG also owns the nearby high-grade Rowan deposit with a 43-101 resource of 0.9 million ounces of gold. There has been some consideration of trucking high-grade gold to the Madsen mill but since there have been no formal studies done, the company is very quiet about potential plans. But 900,000 ounces of gold at nearly $2700 gold is still a consideration. Quietly the company announced actually starting mining ten days ago. Rather than jumping into production as Pure Gold did before their collapse WRLG is gradually easing into mining and eventually production. They guess actual production for 2H of 2025 but the test mining and bulk samples are part of a four-month program to smooth out the process. The material mined will be assayed and stored in bulk on surface to provide the ore for initial production next year. WRLG released assay results from the definition drilling taking place on the South Austin Zone of Madsen on the 26th of September. WRLG definition drilling calls for holes spotted on six-to-eight-meter centers proving more accurate data for actual mining once production begins. A major flaw to Pure Gold was their drill spacing was on twenty-meter centers. The gold was in the resource model but wasn’t continuous. Pure Gold planned for above eight-gram material but was delivering 3.5-gram rock to the mill South Austin contains a 43-101 resource of about 500,000 ounces of gold. Plans call for test mining the high-grade zone with a mind to targeting the highest grade and largest tonnage areas. Drill results were outstanding including 4.48 meters of 49.39 g/t Au and 11.2 meters of 18.46 g/t Au. A PFS is scheduled for release in Q4 of 2024. Do I need to remind investors that Q4 starts this week? The PFS will give far more accurate information about production levels and costs involved. I have always believed the cheap price of the stock has far more to do with the problems Pure Gold had than market reality. We now have near $2700 gold and one of the best management teams of any junior in Canada. It's a subjective judgement on my part but it seems to me that Shane Williams is probably the best communicator of any Canadian mining company. He comes out with regular reports so investors are aware of their incredible progress. In late May the company announced hiring Gwen Preston as the VP Investor Relations. Gwen started as a reporter with the Northern Miner sixteen years ago and later ran her own investment website. She is a high-level addition to an already great team and an excellent communicator herself. I’m on record as saying WRLG is one of my top two companies for investment in Canada. I have spoken with Shane Williams a number of times and frankly I think he is the top mine operator in Canada. While WRLG is an advertiser, I am also a buyer of both shares and warrants in the open market. Naturally that makes me biased so do your own due diligence. West Red Lake Gold Mines ### Bob Moriarty 321gold Ltd |
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