By Hanxian Liang
E2 Gold [TSX:ETU] [OTCMKTS: ETUGF], a Canadian early-stage company focused on gold exploration, announced its first drill program is underway on the Band-Ore gold project, in north-western Ontario. E2 Gold have two projects now, the Hawkins Project and the Band-Ore project. Both projects lie on a gold bearing geological belt, which hosts most of the gold mines in the area.
The Hawkins Project is surrounded by multiple new mining operations developed within the past 15 years which provide up to date geological insight. The focus has been enlarging the McKinnon gold deposit with a current Inferred Resource of 6.20 Mt at 1.65 g/t Au for 328,800 oz Au. The project is accessible year-round through paved roads, logging roads and railway lines with access all year round which raises the value of the property. The Hawkins Gold Project now totals 2,553 claims, an area of about 54,400 ha (544 sq km).
The Band-Ore Project is the secondary property for E2 Gold. The first drill program on the Band-Ore Project will focus on in-fill drilling at two historic resources – the Main Zone (706,000t @ 6.86g/t Au for 155,726 oz gold) and the No 4. Zone (616,000t @ 4.84g/t for 95,668 oz gold). Property-wide prospecting activities will begin later in September 2022 to develop new targets elsewhere on the project.
Speaking about the Band-Ore project, according to the CEO: “E2 Gold was offered the opportunity to option this property for minimal up-front costs and work commitment. We focused on the historic resources, with an additional target, based on geophysical similarities. Limited work on the project over recent decades means we can add value through diligent efforts.”
Experienced management team
E2 Gold has a very experienced team. The CEO Eric Ownes has 30+ years in the exploration industry throughout the western hemisphere, and has been involved in the discovery of 7 million oz of gold. Co-Founder Ellie Owens has 10 years of technical and corporate experience. Carmelo Marrelli as E2 Gold’s CFO brings more than 20 years of financial controls and reporting experience.
Golden location
Mining is active in all parts of Ontario. There are in total 18 gold mines already established in the province. According to the Ontario Mining Association, “in the far north, mineral resource development is critical to creating employment and entrepreneurial spin-off opportunities.”
Ontario is one of the safest mining jurisdictions in the world and mining is one of the safest industries in Ontario. In the 35 years from 1975 to 2010, the Ontario mining industry achieved a 96% improvement in lost time through injury frequency and, today, performs better than the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board industry average (public and private sector). In addition to 37 mines, there are currently 21 mills for metal mines in Ontario. The province also has five refineries and three smelters for metal mines.
E2 Gold: further positive factors to consider
The company has a highly experienced team, a combination of a knowledgeable geologist combined with younger personnel who have the energy to get the job done in a timely fashion. As for the shareholding structure, this newly publicly traded company has grown a lot. Nine institution investors hold 27% of shares of E2 Gold in their portfolio as July 2022, Crescat Capital is the biggest shareholder. Via its private placing E2 Gold raised aggregate gross proceeds of $2,531,216 from Kinross Gold in July, which is an important further validation of the miner’s activities and projects.
Chairman, David Good said: “A lot of times deposits are not discovered, it’s made, since it’s a lot of hard work, and that is what we are putting in.”
E2 Gold Financials
As a junior resource company, E2 Gold has no income, and is reliant on capital markets for future funding. Overall, the successful IPO in December 2020 and subsequent listing on the TSXV in January 2021 enabled the company to ramp up its exploration activities and to set up the administrative components related to operating a publicly listed company. Through its very active outreach, shareholder and marketing programs, Although E2 Gold is confident in securing future funding, there is no guarantee that such funding will come. The only revenues of the company are derived from interest income generated from cash held in interest bearing accounts and short-term GICs at the bank.
E2 Gold had its IPO at $0.20, the share price has dropped to $0.04 as 21 of September 2022.
The stock price has ranged between 0.17 to 0.035 YTD. The price drop might have a link to the increase loss per share of $0.05 in 2022 from $0.02 2021, which was caused by a larger scale of exploration carried out in the projects, as well as granting 8,320,000 stock options.
