Bernier-Tempelman-Kluit

Peter Bernier and Dirk Tempelman-Kluit of Prosper Gold. Here they are in 2011 winning the AME BC's H.H. "Spud" Huestis Award Excellence in Prospecting and Mineral Exploration, after their Richfield Ventures, sold to NewGold for $500 million.

Investors are abandoning two Canadian mineral exploration darlings of 2010  after a summer drill program turned up less than outstanding results.  These investors may be forgetting that investing in mining is all about the people and exploration often requires repeated kicks at the can.

Prosper Gold CEO Peter Bernier and geologist Dirk Tempelman-Kluit built BC gold explorer Richfield Ventures to a ~$500 million dollar takeover from New Gold (NGD.T) in April 2011. Richfield's Blackwater property is now a key development asset in the New Gold pipeline and contains over 10 million ounces of gold.

The duo returned to mineral exploration in British Columbia for their next venture, Prosper Gold, which raised $3 million at $0.50 with a half warrant at $0.75 in May 2014.

The company put out news from the Summer 2014 exploration program on September 23rd which obviously didn't meet investors' expectations. Shares in Prosper have reached an all time low of 9 cents per share.

Before forming Prosper Gold, management spent two years looking at over 200 projects, finally optioning the Sheslay project from Firesteel Resources (FTR.V). Prosper can earn up to an 80% interest in the property in the next couple years by making payments and occurring certain expenditures on the property.

prospermap

Prosper Sheslay Project regional map. (Image: Prosper Gold)

As you can see from the above map the Sheslay project is in a prospective region of Northwestern British Columbia for copper-gold porphyry deposits. Initial drill holes are on par with similar deposits in the area in terms of grade. The Prosper team will now need to increase the size (tonnage) of the potential deposit with further drilling. The area will continue to see increased exploration as a new power line has been constructed up HWY 37 to power the new Red Chris mine of Imperial Metals (III.T). It is still early days at the Star project but it's not out of this world to predict that Pete and Dirk can find another sizeable deposit.

Pete Bernier, the company president and chief executive officer, comments: "In less than a year, the company has nearly tripled the drill data, and has grown exploration prospects laterally and to depth. As a result, Star has developed into one of British Columbia's new copper-gold project districts, with several new targets defined for future drilling including Star North, Star East, Copper Creek and Pyrrhotite Creek."

Management are well aligned with shareholders with Mr. Bernier owning 4,375,000 common shares (~14%) and Mr. Tempelman-Kluit  owning 3,685,714 common shares (~12%).

As of 11:59pm ET September 30th, 2014
Filing
Date
Transaction
Date
Insider Name Ownership
Type
Securities Nature of transaction # or value acquired or disposed of Price
Sep 30/14 Sep 30/14 Bernier, Peter Direct Ownership Common Shares 10 - Acquisition in the public market 300,000 $0.085

(soure Sedi.ca)

Prosper Gold data:

  • Share price: $0.09 (close on Oct 1,2014)
  • Shares outstanding: 31,061,042
  • Market cap: ~$2.8 million

Of note for any potential Prosper investors is that it will be at least 6 months before they will be active working on the project again and they will need to raise significant money for the 2015 exploration program.

Can Peter and Dirk unlock the geological potential of the Star project? Investors will have to see what happens in the 2015 exploration season.

Company website: Prosper Gold

* This is not investment advice. Always do your own due diligence.