Yale Resources Board of Directors has Industry Great
By Greg Nelson
June 25, 2007
How does the presence of a player like Wayne Gretzky affect a hockey team? Sure he helps it win games, but what else? Because of his prowess on the rink, ticket sales go up. He brings a certain amount of prestige and notoriety to the team and the home city. He attracts skilled players who want to play with him and learn from the very best the league has to offer.
It’s no different in mining, especially in the current superbull. Stars are made. Fortunes are made. Everyone wants to work with the stars because they have proven time and time again that they can deliver beyond what anyone expects. Yale Resources (TSX.V:YLL), a silver/gold/copper junior exploration company with three properties in Mexico is lucky enough to have on its board of directors, one of the greats in the Canadian mining industry, Richard Hughes.
Mr Hughes is revered primarily because he was instrumental in discovering the gold deposit at Hemlo, Ontario in the 1980’s. Hughes started two exploration companies, Golden Sceptre and Goliath Gold, disovered the deposit and secured rights to a large land package in the Hemlo area. Stock prices for both companies, which began in the $0.20 range, ran up to $94.00 and $96.00 respectively at the top of the market. Subsequent to the discovery, both companies were acquired by Noranda, which built the Golden Giant mine and operated it under the flag of Hemlo Gold Mines. The mine had a 21-year life and mined in excess of 6 million ounces of gold. The average gold grade was 10 g/t gold. Production peaked in the early 1990’s with approximately 500,000 ounces of gold per year. It was a massive deposit which made many people – not least of all Mr. Hughes himself – very wealthy.
Mr. Hughes was also pivotal in the Balmoral discovery in Quebec approximately 30 years ago, which led to the creation of the Balmoral Mine, a mine that produced for about 13 years. Stock prices began at $0.10 and ran up to $40.00 before lower gold prices coincided with Balmoral running out of economic grade ore.
The Sleeping Giant mine north of Amos, Quebec, another notch in Hughes’ exploration belt, has been in production for 15 years. Those stocks were Perron Gold, which started at $0.12 and hit a high of $7.00 and Dorville started at about $0.20 and went up to $13.
If Mr. Hughes had the golden touch then, he doesn’t seem to have lost it. He is President and owner of Hastings Management Corp. and oversees the activities of several junior exploration companies. Many of them are doing well at the moment, partly, many think, because the Hughes name is attached. Investors have begun following whatever Richard Hughes is involved in.
Recently, Hughes’ Golden Chalice Resources (TSX.V:GCR) exploration team put a drill hole in the ground at its Langmuir property south of Timmins Ontario and intersected 1.14% nickel over 72.50 meters, including two high grade zones of 2.23% nickel, 0.22% copper and 0.20g/t platinum over 17.50m; and 1.74% nickel, 0.12% copper and 0.20g/t platinum over 13.10m. The results, reported on May 16 caused GCR stock to skyrocket from below $0.30 to a high of $4.05 over the following weeks, before settling back down around the $3.00 mark. Since the initial results, Golden Chalice drilled a second hole and encountered similar mineralization.
What was “Langmuir” before is now “the Langmuir Discovery.” In an interview with, Stanley Hunt, who after 25 years in the industry could barely contain his excitement about Langmuir’s potential, Hughes himself said “we have something that looks quite significant… this has the smell of something big about it…There’s blebs of massive sulphides within the disseminated nickel right through the rock. These little blebs would indicate to us that there’s probably a massive sulphide source somewhere either to one side or most likely at depth, which would be more like a Voisey’s Bay or a perhaps Norilsk deposit, the largest deposit in the world, which is located in Russia.”
Wouldn’t it have been nice to be in on the ground floor on that one? In an interview with CEOCFO Interviews and News, Hughes said, “We look for something big. There are lots of little mineralized narrow veins, but the odds of finding a mine are one chance in a thousand from a prospect. However, our odds are one chance in thirty-five. We beat the odds considerably.”
So how does it bode for Yale Resources have Hughes on the team? It’s a boon: Because of his track record of creating value and discovering mines, no doubt, he helps win games. But what else? He attracts talent. He has connections. Money seems to follow him like a lost dog that won’t go home. And investors want a piece of whatever he does. As Yale Resource President Ian Foreman said in an interview about his stellar board of directors, “In this industry successful people will continue to be successful and good management will create a successful company. The question will just be then, How long does it take for that company to be successful? ”
Even if success takes a while, Yale gives us reason to be hopeful. Reporting on June 11, Yale announced that the recent phase I drill program on its Zacatecas project returned a highlight intercept of 1,340 g/t silver over 0.80m. Keeping in mind that Yale shares outstanding are 19,609,223 and the stock is trading in and around the $0.30 mark, Yale still offers plenty of upside potential.
This article is intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered as a recommendation to buy stock in any company. Although the author has made efforts to verify the information contained herein, the accuracy of all the information cannot be guaranteed. As always, it is recommended that you commit considerable time to completing your due diligence before buying stocks in publicly traded companies. A fee has been paid for the creation and distribution of this article.
