With the price of gold likely surging back toward $1000, prospectors are busy staking claims looking for those pounds in the ground. One such junior vying to be Ontario’s next gold producer is Augen Gold (TSX: V.AUJ, Stock Forum). 

Augen Gold’s 24,000 hectares of mining claims are situated in the Swayze Greenstone Belt and has geology similar to the Kirkland Lake (40 million ounces of production) and Timmins gold camps. The property is located about 100 km south of these as well as the Hemlo gold properties. These claim blocks are year-round road accessible. 

Recent studies by the Geological Survey of Canada and the Ontario Geological Survey have confirmed that the Swayze Greenstone Belt (SGB) is the western extension of the mineral-endowed Abitibi Greenstone Belt (AGB). The major structural zones that host the world-class mesothermal gold deposits of the Timmins and Kirkland Lake areas have been indicated to wrap around the northern and southern margins, respectively, of the batholith and extend into the SGB. A series of felsic porphyritic intrusions occur along the southern Swayze belt that are closely associated with gold mineralization. 

At the center of Augen Gold’s holdings is the Jerome mine, which has historic production of greater than 50,000 ounces of gold and a historic resource of 118,326 ounces of gold based on over 60,000 metres represented by greater than 200 diamond drill holes. Subsequent surface and underground exploration programs performed up until 1989 expanded "probable and possible" resource estimates to 577,495 tons with a grade of 0.20 oz/ton gold. It is important to note, however, that these estimates are not yet NI 43-101 compliance and the company is in the process of completing this process in the coming months. 

Assays received from the first two holes drilled during its winter diamond drill program intersected 15.13 g/t gold over a core length of 8.35 metres between 133.65 metres and 142.00 metres, which included an interval of 3.60 metres grading 31.32 g/t gold. 

Risks to this speculative gold stock include the current challenging stock market environment as well as the fact that this explorer needs to do more drilling to prove its resource. 

Michael Fowler, Augen Gold’s President and CEO, is a former analyst at Desjardins Securities with more than 30 years experience in the mining industry. He was also involved in the discovery of the Cigar Lake uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan. 

Fowler said the company has yet to determine whether this will be an underground or open pit mining operation (or a combination of both). This deposit has a grouping of veins close to the surface which, if open pit is feasible, means that grades greater than one gram per tonne could make this resource economic.  

Fowler suggests that the claims alone could be worth at least $1000 per hectare which, given Augen Gold’s nearly 25 million shares outstanding, would value them at about $1 a share. Augen Gold currently has about $2 million in the bank.

Disclosure: The author owns shares of Augen Gold