Lavras Gold TSXV:LGC is touting itself at the moment as ‘a fresh take on a historic gold mining centre in Brazil’: in particular it believes its LDS project is a world-class, tier one asset and is aiming to expand the existing gold resources there, as well as de-risking the project on the permitting and environmental fronts.
Led by a team that units exploration and mining experience with capital markets acumen, Lavras Gold has a tight shareholder structure with strong shareholders support. It owns a large, consolidated land package with a pipeline of 23 known gold targets at different stages of exploration. There a seven advanced gold deposits or exploration discoveries, with five uncovered in the last five months.
Investors will also be interested to know that legendary gold mining investor Eric Sprott is backing Lavras Gold to the tune of 16.6% of the current shares. Insiders own another 23.7%.
Lavras Gold: a low cost gold exposure play?
Lavras Gold sees itself as a low cost gold exposure play, when it is stacked up against peers, providing investors with exposure to both gold exploration dynamics in Brazil, plus royalty (it acquired a 2% NSR royalty from a spin out from Amarillon on the Mara Rosa exploration ground).
Mara Rosa is a strategic asset which offers a 2% NSR on exploration concessions at a site in central Brazil. This is a legacy from the spin out of Lavras Gold from Amarillo Gold Corp when it was acquired by Hochschild Mining plc in April 2022. The royalty applies to the 6000 hectares along the Posse structural trend and 59,000 hectares in regional exploration.
LDS Project
The flagship LDS project is located about 4.5 hours from Porto Alegre in Brazil via paved roads. Lavras Gold reckons this to be a unique geological system, an intrusive alkaline gold copper set up with epithermal and magmatic/porphyry characteristics. This is the first time modern exploration methods have been applied to the consolidated land package. The company is currently building an extensive geological database of the LDS site.
Lavras reckons this could be a project of scale, larger than world-class deposits like Cripple Creek in Colorado (now being mined by Newmont) or Olympic Dam in Australia (BHP). If they are right, it would be a gold mine of market-defining characteristics. Initial drill results suggest LDS has many, possibly connected, gold deposits. Some 23 gold occurrences are scattered throughout the LDS intrusive complex, and structures that intersect circular ring features are now considered prime exploration targets.
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The company is currently building from NI 43-101 resources of 1 million ounces of gold at its Butia and Cerrito deposits. It has ongoing exploration success at a number of other sites, including Zeca Souza and Matilde.
“Each new gold discovery increases our understanding of the large mineralised system that we are uncovering at our LDS Project in Brazil,” said Michael Durose, Lavras Gold’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “Our latest assay results have shown the possibility for enhancing the economic potential of our Cerrito gold deposit and may have identified its southwest surface extension. We also may have found the southern extension of Zeca Souza. We’re very excited to continue drilling and learning more about this complex system.”
Two rigs have completed 10,712 metres of Lavras’ 16,000-metre drill program at LDS, with results consistently demonstrating that LDS is a unique, large, and complex mineral system. Returned assays are a mix of bulk tonnage and high grade, a combination that yields scale and economics in producing assets.
