TORONTO (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Today was a great day for Bonaventure [TSX-V:BVT] shareholders although with news released very late in the day, it was not yet reflected in the share price which along with the junior sector in general and uranium names in particular, has been somewhat savaged over the last few months.
Bonaventure confirmed today what all longs had been hoping for, and the reason that I would imagine the majority of shareholders went long originally – that the vast uranium mineralization at the company’s flagship K9 property continues to depth.
The crux of the press release was the following “The exploration team has been able to recognize key uranium-bearing lithologies, alterations and structures, as observed at surface in 2007. The average 150 m long drill holes show continuous radioactive zones with spiky downhole radiometric signatures which have been correlated with uranium-bearing radiometric highs recorded in updip surface outcrops, thus adding to the three-dimensional picture of the K9 uranium corridor.”
Being a simple white collar sort of chap and wanting to obtain some clarity on what exactly this geological talk all meant, your correspondent put in a phone call to BVT President Jean Lafleur who despite the flu was in great spirits about results to date.
Essentially how that paragraph above translates into normal Anglo Saxon prose is that the company is hitting the same rocks they see at surface and the exact same stuff. It is radioactive everywhere the full length of each drill hole.
The scintillometer readings were not included because the downhole scintillometer is not yet calibrated properly – but within about a fortnight as they work to find the correlation between their ground scintillometer and the downhole scintillometer, Lafleur will know exactly what grades he is getting in every hole. Assays will probably take another month or so.
The point is however that with the CPS numbers flying all over the place what is clear is that the company believes that they are hitting core that is as expected, or better - and every hole is radioactive.
This leads your correspondent to the conclusion that the scenario (and math) below which followers of our articles on this company have seen before, is being borne out – but maybe bigger because holes are radioactive all the way down (three times the depth that we are using) and with the rocks the same as at surface (higher grades than we used).
K9
The 100% owned 161.5 sq km K9 in the James Bay mining district of Quebec has all of the earmarks of a Rossing style deposit – potentially bigger based on surface anomalies.
Here is the math:
7,000 metre long anomalous uranium corridor * 750 metres width * 100 metres depth * 2.7 Specific Gravity = 1,417,500,000 tonnes of rock.
Bonaventure is collecting average surface grades of 3 pounds of uranium per tonne. This gives 1,417,500,000 billion tonnes * 3 pounds/tonne = 4,252,500,000 pounds of uranium.
Now we cut the grade in 1/3 to reflect grades closer to Rossing style as the 3-D volumetrics of the deposit become known. This gives us 1 pound/tonne and 4,252,500,000 pounds / 3 = 1,417,500,000 pounds of uranium at K9.
If one risk-adjusts the number by 90% discounting for things like a grade half as high, uranium only down to 50 metres, and uranium over just a fraction of the total area, one gets 10% of 1.4 billion pounds of uranium, or roughly speaking about 140 million pounds of uranium at K9.
Were this to transpire, Bonaventure would be sitting on the biggest uranium resource of any listed junior in Canada to our knowledge – surpassing Aurora [TSX:AXU] with about 100 million pounds and a market capitalization of C$400 million.
Valuation
With about 120 million shares out and at our 90% risk-adjusted number of 140 million pounds of uranium at K9, BVT would have 1.15 pounds of uranium for every outstanding share.
If K9 comes up with what it looks like it could have, Bonaventure’s closest comparable would be Aurora, which currently trades at roughly $4 of market capitalization per 43-101 pound of uranium in the ground.
This suggests a share price north of C$4.60 for BVT, not including any of the company’s other assets.
Conclusion
As scintillometer results are published and then assays, our 90% risk adjusted number will have to be more like a 40% or 30% or 20% risk adjusted number, because even without the 43-101 we will be able to calculate exactly what the tonnage, and therefore, pounds in the ground will be. What that means is that assuming Bonaventure continues to hit these radioactive holes, BVT longs will have something to smile about, and at first appearance, their patience appears to have been vindicated – now it just needs to be reflected in the share price, which it inevitably must. Bonaventure looks to be on to a huge uranium find.
The author is long Bonaventure Enterprises in accordance with the conflict and disclosure policy.
