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Gold Company Announces Major Acquisition Putting It At Heart Of New Gold Rush
Company discovers a major extension to the geological formation that produced the most consequential gold discovery of the past 20 years
One of the greatest gold rushes in history is underway.
And RUA GOLD (CAN:RUA / US:NZAUF) has positioned itself at the center of it all.
The company has so much going for it.
First, RUA GOLD is new.
The company only recently started trading publicly.
Second, RUA GOLD is gold.
The company is an early-stage gold development story with multiple past-producing gold mines and a new gold discovery that has the potential to be a game-changer for the company.
Third, it’s in a great location with some of the highest-grade gold in the world in a politically supportive and safe jurisdiction.
RUA GOLD’s projects are located along the Lachlan Fold, a geological formation that has already produced an $8 billion gold discovery (one of the largest in decades).
Finally, RUA is cashed up and ready to get moving.
As part of going public, RUA GOLD has attracted C$7.5 million from professional mining investors to ramp up an aggressive exploration program.
Again, RUA GOLD has a lot going for it.
And investors looking for an early-stage, high-grade focused gold play could see a lot of potential in RUA GOLD (CAN:RUA / US:NZAUF).
But there’s much more to the story here, so we’ll start at the beginning.
The Gold Miner’s Quiet (And Growing) Desperation
The gold mining industry has a big problem.
Now, the price of gold isn’t the problem.
Gold prices have been setting new highs for years.
Gold has been in a bull market since 2000 and is still setting new highs 20+ years later.
Inflation, currency debasement, de-dollarization, rising global debts, etc. are all considered tailwinds for gold prices.
But if you go back to the start of the current bull market, you can see the problem.
Consider this.
The price of gold was right around $300/oz back in 2000.[1]
That year the world mined 2,573 metric tonnes of gold.[i]
Today, gold prices have hit highs above $2100, but gold production hasn’t changed much at all.
The world produced just 3,000 metric tonnes of gold in 2022.
Something isn’t right there.
The price of gold has climbed 600% over the last 20 years since bottoming out in 2000.
Yet the annual gold production is up just 16% -- less than 1% per year.
It’s a big problem for gold mining companies.
And one of the sources of this problem is the grade of gold that’s being mined today.
The average gold grade for big open pit gold mines over the last decade was 1.46 grams per tonne.
That’s tiny.
With that grade a gold miner must mine and process 21 tonnes of rock and ore to get a single ounce of gold.
Underground gold mines that use a shaft and are more focused, don’t get much better.
The average underground gold grade was 4.15 grams per tonne in 2021.
That’s higher. But a gold miner still must mine and process seven tonnes of rock and ore to get an ounce of gold.
These are just the average grades for the entire world’s gold mines.
The grades are low.
And the low grades are hindering expansion of gold production even though gold prices have multiplied many times over.
But that’s creating an opportunity for high-grade gold exploration companies like RUA GOLD.
Because recent history has shown how high-grade gold discoveries can explode in value.
Before we get into RUA GOLD’s high-grade gold projects, look at this recent high-grade gold story that quickly became one of the most valuable gold discoveries in decades.**
[ii]
**Note: This discovery is right along the same geological trend as RUA GOLD’s projects
The Staggering High-Grade Gold Discovery That Grew Into An
$8 BILLION Payday
Many mining engineers and investors will tell you that “grade is king.”
The following story of the Fosterville Mine is one of the main reasons why.
The Fosterville Mine is one of the most successful gold discoveries of the last 50 years.
It was found in the northern end of the Lachlan Fold, a geological anomaly in Australia and New Zealand.
The Lachlan Fold has hosted many successful gold mines since it was initially at the center of a gold rush more than 170 years ago.
But only recently has Lachlan Fold become the focus of major gold miners because of the Fosterville Mine discovery.
The Fosterville Mine had been in operation for years until exploration on the mine discovered multiple, major, high-grade gold zones in addition to the known resource.
The Fosterville Gold Mine will likely end up as one of the most consequential gold discoveries ever made.
The size alone would make it a major success.
It’s big.
The grade would make it one.
It contains extremely high-grade gold.
But together – the size and the grade – combined to make Kirkland Lake Gold, the company that owned the Fosterville Mine, into a major mining success.
Even in the face of a pretty flat gold market, Kirkland Lake shares rose from around $2.00 to more than $60.00 per share.
The 2900% run was massive.
But it could be just one of the large, high-grade discoveries along the Lachlan Fold.
And this is where RUA GOLD comes in.
RUA GOLD Targets Next Major Lachlan Fold Gold Find
RUA GOLD has made a major acquisition along the Lachlan Fold.
This is the same geological formation that produced the Fosterville Mine.
And it’s also home to many other high-grade gold mines.
RUA GOLD now has a huge stake in it too.
To see where, take a look at the map below.
This map shows the Lachlan Fold (light green zone):
Image From: RUAGOLD.com
It’s important to note this is a geological map.
So it shows Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica all as one -- which they once were.
They’re separated today, of course.
But their geology is not separated.
That’s why the Lachlan Fold stretches from southern Australia where the Fosterville Mine is located, into New Zealand, where RUA GOLD has secured its properties.
That’s why the Lachlan Fold is broken into two main regions as well.
There is the northern end in Australia where Fosterville is located.
And there is the southern end in where RUA is located.
If you back to the map again (included below), the Lachlan Fold has the “Fosterville” up top and the “Reefton” part underneath that.
Image From RUAGOLD.com
The Reefton end is where RUA GOLD is the major title holder in the Reefton Goldfield.
And further analysis from there reveals why RUA acquired it.
The Reefton Goldfield has similar geology to the Fosterville area.
It has a historically significant amounts of gold…enough to support multiple gold mines.
And it has the high-grade that has made Lachlan Fold gold discoveries so successful.
The map below shows RUA GOLD's “Reefton Goldfield” in New Zealand.
The green area of the map is the current day extension of the Lachlan Fold in New Zealand.
That’s just for perspective though.
Another zoom in will show much more about the high-grade gold potential in Reefton.
This is a more detailed map which shows RUA GOLD’s big stake in Reefton and the four past-producing gold mines located along it:
The entire area in gold to the upper right is Rua’s property.
The four highlighted areas on the right are historical gold discoveries.
But there’s a catch with them all.
As mentioned above, these four areas have all been gold mines before.
The district has produced more than two million ounces of gold historically.
Then they stopped mining them.
But they didn’t stop because there wasn’t any gold.
Instead, they stopped because they went too deep.
They would hit water and stop the mining.
Back in the 1950s they didn’t have the technology to mine below the water table.
Today that’s just an engineering issue with mines going miles deep in some areas of the world.
That’s why these gold mines now owned by RUA GOLD haven’t been explored more deeply.
There wasn’t any reason to look.
That’s all changed now because there is proof these gold mines go much deeper than previously thought.
This is the real key here.
Because this chart shows those four gold discoveries and mines have not been explored at depth:
The chart shows RUA GOLD’s projects in gold.
All of them are still unexplored at depth.
And there’s also the “Blackwater” mine on the chart that goes more than 1500 meters deep.
That’s 10X deeper than previously mined at all of RUA GOLD’s past-producing mines.
The Blackwater Mine isn’t owned by RUA GOLD, but it shows the potential for these discoveries to have much more gold at deeper levels than thought before.
That was the case at Fosterville where there was much more gold than previously thought.
And it’s where RUA GOLD will be focusing its exploration efforts.
But there could be more potential in the Reefton Project too.
LEARN MORE ABOUT RUA'S PROJECTS:
Early Exploration Already Hitting New, High-grade Gold
There is even more gold on the Reefton project than the known past-producing mines.
RUA GOLD has already announced the discovery of a high-grade gold outcropping it’s calling the “Pactolus Vein.”
This discovery is right along the Lachlan Fold trend that has all the other mines and gold discoveries. It also has the same high-grade gold indications as the other mines.
Here’s a picture of the Pactolus discovery with the high-grade gold indications noted:
RUA GOLD has already started early drilling on and around this discovery, initial assays have already returned over 9g/t over 12 meters.
It has produced the following model:
Pactolus could be another big gold discovery for RUA GOLD.
But it’s also another sign there could be much more gold in this historically gold-rich area than previously believed.
That’s exactly what happened with the Fosterville Mine before the transformational high-grade gold discoveries were made around it.
RUA GOLD currently has drills turning to find out how much more gold is contained in these high-potential targets with an exploration program that’s starting right now.
Setting The Stage For A 2024 Breakout
RUA GOLD has established an aggressive exploration program for 2024.
This chart from RUA’s investor presentation lays out the timeline:
RUA GOLD is moving aggressively forward on many fronts.
It has identified many exploration targets across its broad Reefton Goldfields projects.
But there’s even more.
The exploration program above features the company’s Glamorgan project.
The Glamorgan project wasn’t featured here much because its earlier stage than Reefton, but it has potential too.
The Glamorgan project is in the Hauraki Goldfields on New Zealand’s North Island.
It is next to Wharekirauponga (WKP) where Oceana Gold is finding high grade mineralisation and it is located 10 kilometres to the north of the Company's Waihi Gold Mine (producing 50k-60k oz per annum).
Add it all up and it’s easy to see how RUA GOLD is becoming a high-potential growth play in gold.
Conclusion
RUA GOLD (CAN:RUA / US:NZAUF) has positioned itself as a high-potential gold play in 2024.
It has acquired a sizeable land package that includes multiple projects in the Reefton Goldfields.
This project is right along the Lachlan Fold, the same geologic discovery that has already produced the most valuable high-grade gold discovery in decades.
The company has identified multiple high-potential exploration targets at past-producing mines and new gold discoveries.
It has attracted more than C$7.5 million of institutional investor capital to get things moving.
And it has laid out an aggressive exploration plan to capitalize on it.
At this early stage, RUA GOLD has all the potential to become another Lachlan Fold Belt success.
Investors should review RUA GOLD’s potential while it’s still in the early stages of development.
WATCH THE FULL FILM ON RUA:
[i] Gold Mining Output 2000 - https://www.bullionvault.com/gold-news/gold_mining_output_2008_china_south_africa_020620082
[ii] Gold Price history - https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-year-chart
Links/Resources:
Reefton stats -
www.ruagold.com/reefton-goldfield/
Historical mining in the Reefton Goldfield started in 1872, and by its close had produced 2.28 million ounces of gold from high-grade underground operations in orogenic quartz vein systems. In 1951 the shaft of the Blackwater mine at Waiuta collapsed, having reached a depth of 700 metres. Today Federation Mining is reopening this mine with new underground drives restarting where mining earlier ceased. Between 2005 and 2015 OceanaGold mined 418,000 oz of gold for ore @ 18.2 g/t Au at its Globe Progress mine near Reefton.
RUA GOLD holds the Capleston permit east of Reefton, host to several prospects. From north to south, they are: Capleston, Murray Creek, Ajax Area, and Crushington. Among exciting results from the last few years of exploration is the greenfields discovery of the Pactolus quartz vein from which sampling and assays to date have revealed high-grade gold.
8.87 g/t gold over 1 m
18.4 g/t gold over 1 m
12.55 g/t gold over 1 m
32.1 g/t gold over 1 m
34.6 g/t gold over 1 m
Today’s feature is one of those discoveries that may be in the early stages of development.
For example, the “Carlin Trend” in has been one of the most prolific in history and has made Nevada desert a gold mining powerhouse.
Since the start of modern commercial mining in the 1960s, the Carlin Trend has since produced 70 million ounces and more than $100 billion in value.
Now, there’s another one with huge potential.
It’s a geologic creation known as the Lachlan Fold Belt and it’s getting a lot of attention from the geological community.
https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/news/63319-victoria%E2%80%99s-gold-rush-ended-in-the-19th-century.-so-why-are-people-still-finding-so-much-gold%3F
Lachlan Fold Belt https://www.australianmining.com.au/the-lachlan-fold-belt-a-legacy-of-exploration/
Average grade of gold mines in decline -
https://www.miningnews.net/precious-metals/news/1444658/gold-grade-decline-slow-2022
Fosterville average grade - https://www.amcconsultants.com/experience/kirkland-lake-fosterville-gold-mine#:~:text=This%20production%20growth%20is%20supported,area%20of%20Bendigo%20in%201894.
Fosterville History -
https://www.agnicoeagle.com/English/operations/operations/Fosterville-Gold-Mine/default.aspx