Nebu Resources (nbu-v) is looking to make 2010 a defining year in the company’s recent history.
Originally set up as a uranium company, its shift to gold came early in 2009, when higher gold prices coincided with an opportunity to move into one of the world’s most prolific gold mining camps.
And company founder, current president and chief executive, Brian Murray, didn’t have to go far to make the move.
Nebu controls seven non-contiguous claims that cover 8 sq. km of the West Timmins mining district. The company was able to grab market share as a gold play in a short period of time, thanks to some stellar results from the drill bit.
In early November 2009, Nebu announced results from the first 8 holes of a 10-hole, 1,200-metre drill program at its North Denton property in West Timmins.
The program focused on an area adjacent to Lake Shore Gold’s (lsg-t) land position roughly 35-km west of the main part of the Timmins gold camp.
Highlights from the results included what Murray called “one of the highest grade drill hole intersections ever drilled west of the main Timmins Gold camp.”
The hole alluded to is DE-09-4, and its assays are indeed impressive, as it returned 4.7 metres grading 98.41 grams per tonne from 78.3 metres down-hole, including 413.57 grams gold over 1 metre.
Nebu says the interval came from a sulphide-rich quartz vein and that it contained several sightings of fine gold. It also notes sulphide mineralization is dominated by pyrrhotite and includes lesser amounts of chalcopyrite, pyrite, sphalerite and arsenopyrite.
While the overall significance of the intersection is not yet known, the results complement results from other holes released a few weeks prior.
It was in fact, those results that initially propelled Nebu’s stocks up the ranks of the market.
Nebu shares climbed as much as 76% over the two weeks following the Nov. 12 release of the results which were highlighted by:
• DE-09-5 — 5.9 metres grading 8.45 grams gold and 4.5 metres grading 5.96 grams gold.
• DE-09-6 — 1.1 metres grading 4.46 grams gold. The hole was drilled in an area between drill holes 4 and 5.
Taken together, the results of the three holes have Nebu postulating that the vein system has a more northerly strike than originally believed. This means that the best mineralized veins were missed in some of the other holes drilled.
As for the holes that did strike gold, Nebu says they show mineralization to be shallow — ranging from 15-55 metres below surface.
No deep drilling has been completed in the area, where exploration hasn’t been carried out since the 1940s.
The company followed up its positive drill results with news it had raised $655,000 through a private placement made up of 2.18 million units priced at $0.30 per unit.
The units were made up of one flowthrough common share and one warrant with a strike price of 50¢ for a term of 2 years.
Nebu says the funds would not only go to West Timmins, but also to its recently acquired Burntbush project in northeastern Ontario.
Of note in the financing was the fact that the main subscribers were company officers and directors — a good indication that the people driving the project have faith in the project.
Some of the directors acquiring the stock were the newly arriving Duane Parnham and Jacob Willoughby.
Positioning itself to move up to the next tier of gold exploration, the company thought it was time to bring in new board members. �
Parnham, who will be coming on as chairman, is best known in the industry for his role as founder, president and chief executive of Forsys Metals (fsy-t) — a company that has developed a significant uranium play, Valencia, in Namibia.
Parnham also serves as chairman of Universal Power (unx-v), a company with offshore oil concessions in Namibia.
Willoughby established his name at Paradigm Capital. Nebu says his substantial network of mining company executives, as well as institutional equity fund managers across the globe, will benefit the company.
Cal Bruner and Roger Peacock, who had been with Nebu since its inception, stepped down to make way for the new additions.