Calibre Mining wins over Pierre Lassonde

When executive chairman Doug Forster and director Blayne Johnson of Calibre Mining (TSXV: CXB; US-OTC: CXBMF) sat down at the Denver Gold Forum in mid-September and presented an update on the company’s Nicaraguan gold projects to Pierre Lassonde, the meeting concluded with the gold mogul and chair of Franco-Nevada (TSX: FNV; NYSE: FNV) agreeing to invest $2 million via a private placement for an 11.2% stake in the company.

The proceeds will be used to advance exploration and development of the company’s wholly owned Montes de Oro project, where trenching results from a 400-by-650-metre gold-in-soil anomaly include 52.3 metres grading 7.1 grams gold per tonne, 27.5 metres at 4.92 grams gold and 33.5 metres at 2.10 grams gold.

Since announcing the financing, Calibre has launched a program with more trenching and ground geophysical work at the site.

“Mr. Lassonde has been familiar with the Calibre story for the last few months,” Greg Smith, Calibre’s president and CEO, says in a telephone interview from his office in Vancouver. “He likes the story, he likes the fact that we’ve been making some discoveries and that we own 100% of the ground.”

Lassonde also likes that the company has joint ventures elsewhere on its 785 sq. km land position in Nicaragua, with middleweights B2Gold (TSX: BTO; NYSE-MKT: BTG) and Iamgold (TSX: IMG; NYSE: IAG).

The most recent batch of assays from the second set of drill holes Calibre and joint-venture partner Iamgold have drilled into their Guapinol target at the Eastern Borosi project did not fail to impress, with a highlight intercept of 6.5 metres grading 16.88 grams gold per tonne and 20.95 grams per tonne silver. The results released on Sept. 24 sent Calibre’s shares on the TSX Venture Exchange up 12% to close at 14¢, with 1.9 million shares changing hands.

In an email to The Northern Miner, Lassonde outlined why he became interested in the company. “As you have noticed the drill results have a lot of high grades, and today that’s what you need to have an attractive gold mine,” he explained. “We know that approximately 8 million oz. gold have come out of this area and as I have always reminded people: the best place to find a gold mine is beside a gold mine!”

Lassonde also noted that from a geological standpoint Calibre has found gold in three mineralized domains — epithermal veins, skarns and porphyry — and that the company has three shots at a discovery. “Between Calibre’s two joint-venture partners, B2Gold and Iamgold, some $12 million will go to drilling over the next three years, while Calibre itself will spend $3 million,” he says. “Each of us has a discovery. It will make for exciting times!”

Calibre and Iamgold struck their option deal in May. Under the arrangement Iamgold can earn a 51% interest in the Eastern Borosi project by spending US$5 million on exploration over three years and paying Calibre US$450,000. It can then raise its stake to 70% by spending US$5 million and making payments of $450,000 over a second three-year period.

The joint-venture partners are completing their twenty-fourth drill hole and Smith expects the 30-hole, 3,400-metre drill program will wrap up before year-end. Drill results from the first six holes of the program released on Sept. 2 returned intercepts of 4.8 metres of 25.7 grams gold and 35.2 grams silver; 6 metres of 14.4 grams gold and 14.5 grams silver; and 1 metre of 39.9 grams gold and 132 grams silver.

“They’re good widths and good grades, especially when you consider the program we’re doing is a fairly aggressive one in terms of jumping out on these structures,” Smith says. “All the drill holes are spaced 100 metres apart and the plan was to look for higher-grade shoots that we believe exist within these structures.”

Smith says that one of the things Iamgold liked about the Eastern Borosi project was that drilling could begin almost immediately because Calibre had already identified targets based on baseline work, including extensive surface mapping and soil and rock geochemistry. 

The project’s two deposits — Riscos de Oro and La Luna — are open for expansion and have a combined inferred resource of 4.7 million tonnes grading 2.31 grams gold per tonne and 34.99 grams silver per tonne, for 350,000 contained oz. gold and 5.29 million oz. silver.

Elsewhere in Nicaragua, Calibre is working with joint-venture partner B2Gold on a 322 sq. km land package that includes the Primavera gold project, 8 km south of the town of Rosita, and the Minnesota target, 16 km northwest. (Trenching results in July from Minnesota returned 1.76 grams gold over 62 metres.)

B2Gold has already earned a 51% stake in the property by spending US$8 million on exploration, and is committed to spending another US$6 million over the next 2.5 years to raise that stake to 70%.

“They’re great partners to work with,” Smith says of B2Gold, which owns two mines of its own in the country: La Libertad and El Limon. “They are the best example of what can be accomplished in Nicaragua.”

Smith adds that it’s also a good time to be doing exploration drilling, as prices have gone down while available drill rigs and assay labs have gone up. 

“In 2011 and 2012 the drilling companies were able to set their own prices, but things have really quieted down,” he says. And lab results that typically took between three and four months now come back in three or four weeks, he says.

“There aren’t that many companies actively drilling and discovering, so it’s good to be one of the few companies that are generating positive news.”

As for operating in Nicaragua, Smith has had few complaints. Mining is a big part of the economy, he says, and gold was the country’s biggest export in 2013.

“There is a good stable government and a modern mining law, so there is good infrastructure on the regulatory side that supports mining,” he adds.

Calibre also benefits because its land package lies between the towns of Bonanza, Rosita and Siuna, in an area locals refer to as the “mining triangle” that has a history of production, Smith says.

“Where we are there has been a history of mining and the community not only living off of mining, but used to companies developing projects and having mines.”