I anticipate an exciting year for copper and gold which brings me to my Top Pick for 2020; my Top Pick is Midas Gold (Toronto: MAX) (OTC: MDRPF), suggests Gerardo del Real, micro-cap specialist and editor of Junior Mining Monthly.
Midas Gold controls the world class Stibnite gold-antimony project, located in the historic Stibnite-Yellow Pine mining district in central Idaho.
In 2014, an independent Pre-feasibilty Study demonstrated potential for a large-scale, long-life, low-cost open pit gold mine that stands out from its peers.
The project boasts 6.6. million gold ounces, across all categories, and an important antimony credit that could produce nearly 100 million pounds of the important strategic mineral.
The gold is high-grade. So much so that if it were in production today it would be the fourth highest grade open pit deposit in the U.S..
Midas Gold checks all those boxes. It also checks several boxes for its largest shareholder Barrick Gold which I believe makes Midas a prime takeover target.
There is a lot of upside between the current $165 million market cap and the billion dollar plus net present value the 2014 pre-feasibility study outlined using a $1,500 gold price. Midas is expected to publish its feasibility study in Q1 of 2020 and is expected to be fully permitted by Q1 of 2021.
The recent increase in M&A is expected to continue and if recent transactions are an indication, the assets that will be bought at a significant premium will be in stable jurisdictions, have scale and significant exploration upside.
(Editor's note: Gerardo del Real chose Great Bear Resources (Toronto: GBR) (OTC: GTBDF) as his Top Pick last year. The shares rose 260%. He now says, "The success at its 100%-owned Dixie project in the Red Lake district of Ontario has allowed Great Bear to expand its already aggressive drill program to a remarkable 200,000 meters. There is a lot to like in the context of what I expect will be a pivotal year for gold and the better juniors in the space.")
