i-80 Gold (IAUX) offers investors a pure-play Nevada gold production, development, and exploration story. The company’s goal is to become a mid-tier producer — specifically the second-largest gold miner in the US with 400,000 ounces of annual production — by leveraging its one mine in production and three projects in development, notes Brien Lundin, editor of Gold Newsletter.
The company is well on its way toward achieving that goal. It boasts a large and growing gold and silver resource base in Nevada, which is widely regarded as the best mining jurisdiction in the world. The current resource totals are 6.465 million ounces of gold and 104.3 million ounces of silver in the measured and indicated categories, along with another 8.148 million ounces of gold and 76.4 million ounces of silver in the inferred resource category.
Those resources are growing through exploration on the company’s Granite Creek Mine (the highest-grade open pit project in North America), the Ruby Hill Mine (one of Nevada’s largest deposits) and the Cove Mine (featuring a very high grade underground deposit). A key advantage for i-80 is its Lone Tree Mine, which will process ore from Granite Creek, Ruby Hill, and Cove, and which features an autoclave to allow processing of refractory ore.
i-80 is an aggressive explorer and has been delivering ultra-high-grade hits on a regular basis. As just one example, recently reported results from the South Pacific zone on the Granite Creek project included 37.7 g/t gold over 7.6 meters, 31.1 g/t gold over 21.9 meters, 27.3 g/t gold over 4.0 meters, and 28.7 g/t gold over 16.5 meters.
With consistent results like these and with one of the most capable and proven management teams in the mining industry, no smart investor will bet against i-80 achieving its lofty goals. In fact, with a share price currently less than half of its 52-week high and with the gold price beginning to take off, smart investors will be betting on this rapidly growing producer.
