Morning Briefing: North Star Reject Gold Fields Bid

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

Good morning, and welcome back to the Mining Stock Daily Morning Briefing presented by the Clear Commodity Network and delivering today's top news in mining and mineral exploration. From the new ClearCom studios, here's your host, Trevor Hall.

Trevor Hall (0:18)

Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the Mining Stock Daily Morning Briefing. This is Trevor Hall, and it is Monday, September 28th, back from a full week at the Beaver Creek Precious Metals Summit, as many now transition to Denver Gold. But gold is under pressure this morning, falling roughly 3% to around $4,149 an ounce. The story is rates. The 10-year treasury yield is up five basis points to 5.21%, and that move is doing real damage to gold early this week. It's a reminder that even at these price levels, gold is not immune to a sharp move in the long end when yields break higher.

There's big M&A news this morning. North Star Resources has unanimously rejected an unsolicited takeover proposal from South Africa's Goldfields, worth approximately $38.7 billion Australian. North Star's board called the offer highly opportunistic and said it materially undervalued the company's portfolio of long life assets. The successful deal would have created the world's second largest gold producer after Newmont. North Star shares surged more than 9% at the open on the news before settling roughly 6% higher, which is the market's way of saying come back with a better price. On the critical minerals front, there is a structural workforce problem forming in North America that is worth understanding. The continent is building rare earth processing plants far faster than it is training engineers to run them. US universities award roughly 285 mining degrees per year at all levels. That's less than half the 600 a year the Department of Energy estimates the country needs. The timing tension is acute because MP Materials, Texas Magnet Campus and USA Rare Earths South Carolina Plant both commission in 2028 while a student who starts a US mining degree this fall graduates in 2030

We'll get to the news out of the miners and explorers in a moment, but first a quick mention of today's sponsor.

Today's morning briefing is brought to you by Integra Resources. Integra is a growing precious metals producer in the Great Basin of the Western United States. Their focus on demonstrating profitability and operational excellence at its principal operating asset, the Florida Canyon Mine in Nevada. In addition, Integra is committed to advancing its flagship development stage heap leach projects, the past producing Delamar Project in Idaho and the Nevada North Project in Nevada. Learn more about the business and their high industry standards over at integraresources.com.

Chris Berry (3:07)

Hi, this is Chris Berry, host of the Power Current Podcast. Throughout my investing life, I've been obsessed with a single question. What happens when commodities, geopolitics and technology collide? About 15 years ago, I founded an advisory firm to help answer this question for both companies and investors alike and the Power Current Podcast is an extension of this effort.

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Trevor Hall (3:49)

And here's what you need to know today. Talisker Resources has made a new high-grade underground discovery at the 1105 level of the Mustang Mine at its Braylor Gold Project in British Columbia. Underground development has exposed a continuous 36-meter strike length of the M1 vein, averaging 27.88 grams per tonne gold across an average true width of 0.61 meters, and the mineralization sits entirely outside of the current mineral resource boundary. Standout phase sample results included 229 grams per tonne over 0.63 meters on phase 11, and 93.1 grams per tonne over 0.63 meters on phase 2 The discovery reinforces the expiration upside surrounding Talisker's existing underground infrastructure. Trades on TSX with a simple TSK, and on the OTCQX with TSKFF.

Thunder Gold has reported the six hole of its infield drill program at the Benchtarget on the Tower Mountain property near Thunder Bay, Ontario. With hole 217 intersecting 232.5 meters, averaging 0.45 grams per tonne gold from a depth of 360 meters. The program is designed to convert inferred resources to indicated ahead of a December resource update. Thunder Gold trades on the Venture Exchange with TGOL, and on the OTCQB with TGOLF. Austral Gold has reported first results from its brownfield exploration program at the Los Nanos sector, located 2.5 kilometers from the Guanaco processing plant in Chile's Antifagasta region. The standout intersection from 23 reverse circulation holes is hole 1186, which returned 95 meters of 1.1 grams per tonne gold equivalent, including 3 meters of 8.1 grams per tonne, while hole 1197 and hole 1196 returned 20 meters of 3.12 grams per tonne and 15 meters of 3.3 grams per tonne gold equivalent respectively. Los Nanos hosts the highest grade open pit resource within the Guanaco inventory, but it is not yet included in the current mine plan, and the results indicate that mineralization extends beyond the current block model geometry. A next phase of up to 8,000 meters of drilling is planned for Q4. Austral Gold trades on the Venture Exchange with AGLD and on the OTCQB with AGLDF.