Minera Alamos will in den kommenden 18 Monaten gleich zwei Goldminen in Betrieb nehmen. Kai Hoffmann, CEO der Soar Financial Group, war vor Ort auf dem Santana-Projekt in Mexiko und hat die Liegenschaft und die Vorbereitungen unter die Lupe genommen. Hier finden Sie seinen Site Visit Report in englischer Sprache. Dieser Report wurde erstmals am 28. November auf www.oreninc.com (einer Partnerseite veröffentlicht), ist aber keinesfalls veraltet.
An Anecdote
Hell of a philosophical start to a site visit report. But don't worry, we won't go all Seneca on you. However, the title perfectly describes the current situation at Minera Alamos. And us investors (yes, I do own shares, warrants and options in the company) oare the lucky ones that get to benefit. The first phase has started, and opportune investors are already up over 100%. I am repeating myself now: don't worry. There is plenty of upside left for potential new investors into MAI.v. After our recent site visit to Santana, I am more convinced than ever before. Let's start this site visit report to Minera Alamos's Santana project in Mexico off with a brief anecdote about how I came across the company. Back in early 2016, it was the first week of February to be exact, I had the opportunity to market with CEO Darren Koningen in Zurich, Switzerland. Sentiment was still bleak - the markets only picked up in the spring - but we managed to put a decent meeting schedule together for the team and even helped raise some, not a lot of, capital at C$0.10 for the company. Jump to mid-2016, the junior mining market was finally catching a bid from investors, MAI shot up to a high of C$0.29, everybody was happy, and investors had the chance to take money off the table. After that it went quiet and the stock trickled back down to a low of C$0.085 at the end of 2018.
The Merger
We lost sight of the company from mid-2016 until about January 2018. During a trip to the Vancouver Resources Investment Conference we heard a rumor that Corex Gold would be merging with Minera Alamos. And indeed, only a few short days later, both companies announced their intentions and we met up with Doug Ramshaw, formerly the CEO of Corex and now the President of Minera Alamos, while we were still in town. LinkedIn dates my first post on Minera Alamos back to October 25, 2018. Exactly 12 months ago, Minera Alamos announced a new discovery: 95.7 meters of 1.47 g/t gold equivalent from the newly discovered Divisadero zone. The stock was trading at C$0.13 back then. The merger with Corex was rough to say the least. It created a company with a ton of shares outstanding, close to 300mn, and brought in investors that wanted out. Minera Alamos was under constant selling pressure. We followed closely but mentioned MAI only to investors and contacts that we were certain would understand that the company needed time to get its act together. There was no rush to pile into the stock. Patient investors were able to bottom fish the stock at C$0.10 or below. On top of it all, Minera Alamos had close to 83mn warrants from previous financing rounds outstanding. Half of the warrants had an exercise price of C$0.10 and put a massive lid on the share price. At Oreninc we used the Minera Alamos stock chart to show investors how detrimental excessive warrant overhang can be for the share price of a company. Fortunately, roughly 80mn warrants expired or were exercised earlier this summer so that the capital structure looks much cleaner now. And surprise, the share price has more than doubled since. Today, MAI is trading at C$0.21 and a market cap of C$77mn. We are of the strong opinion that the jump in gold price is not the only reason for the doubling in Minera Alamos's share price.
Travelling to Mexico
But let's get back to the main theme of this report: our site visit. We have been in Doug Ramshaw's ear for a while. We wanted to see the projects in Mexico to get a better understanding of what the company is trying to do and achieve. "Seeing is believing" - since I am admittingly neither a geologist or an engineer, going on site, seeing the project with my own eyes, getting a feel for the location and more importantly, spending a lot of time with management, during the day and after-hours, is key for me. Presentations can only tell you so much. The mining industry is one of very few sectors where you have direct access to management. I remember being an intern at Deutsche Telekom, Germany's largest employer with over 250,000 employees and there, speaking with the CEO was like an audience with the Pope. Not so in junior mining. I make every effort to use those opportunities and learn. For some reason, I keep ending up on the very early morning flights out of Vancouver. The flight for Mexico City left YVR at 6:40am. The taxi picked me up at 4:45am - way too early. I met MAI President Ramshaw at the airport, and we shuttled down south together. At MEX we met up with another analyst on the tour, had some lunch and boarded our second flight of the day to head back north to Obregon, the second largest city in Sonora with roughly 400,000 inhabitants.
The Agenda
At the airport in Ciudad Obregon we were met by the MAI team consisting of CEO Darren Koningen, VP Exploration Miguel Cardona and the VP of Project Development Federico Alvarez. After we dropped off our luggage at the hotel, we went for dinner at a nearby pub where we got a first introduction to the company and discussed the plans for the next 24h. Luckily, we decided to leave for Santana only at 7:30am on the next day. For a site visit, that is late. We are used to much earlier departure times. Since it was an easy 2,5h drive to Santana, there was no need to push it. We left on time and drove in a north-easterly direction on paved Highway 117 until we were about 12km from the project.
Getting there
We took a right onto an unmarked dirt road and drove the final 30 minutes to site. Since it was the end of the four-month rainy season when we visited, it was probably more rugged than usual and will definitely need some upgrading. Regular 30- or 40-ton trucks won't have any troubles travelling on it, but excessive wear and tear can be prevented. No big deal and an easy fix for the company. Also, a great opportunity to get the community engaged and hire local help to do some grading with a dozer. Our first stop took us the current project office which also houses a couple of beds for overnight guests. It is fully functional with a small kitchen, air-conditioning, bathrooms and a shower. Internet was rather hit and miss and cell reception was only available in one corner of the building. Or at the tops of Nicho and Nicho Norte for that matter. The site office will need upgrading as activities at Santana pick up and Minera Alamos transitions to becoming a producer. But again, no showstopper and another easy fix as things ramp up in Sonora.
The ...
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