Economic mineral discoveries are always the culmination of years/decades of hard work and the accumulation of efforts of a team of people. Money, blood, sweat, tears and then suddenly the drill intersects the right rocks, and voila! Magic happens.

As is often said of a discovery hole, it makes the company an overnight success - that was years in the making. And so it could be with Idaho gold explorer Ophir Gold (TSX-V:OPHR, OTC: KPZIF) and its Breccia Gold Project located near Salmon, Idaho. Ophir is commencing its maiden drill program at Breccia in the next few weeks. The drill program will consist of 3,000+ meters of diamond drilling, targeting a low-sulphidation epithermal gold system at Breccia. Ophir will be focused on testing the ‘boiling zone’ of the epithermal system at Breccia, this is the zone where the highest precious metals are typically found in similar deposits such as the massive, ultra high-grade Hishikari Gold Mine in Japan.

The Ophir Gold team has put three years of hard work and planning into the Breccia Gold Project and we are on the cusp of the first drilling at this project in nearly 40 years. Historical drilling at Breccia and a recent bulk sample offer clues that only the very top of the epithermal system has been touched, leaving potential that the best part is yet to be unearthed at further depth. 

Breccia saw gold production nearly a century ago, but the property hasn’t seen any modern exploration techniques and it has not been drilled since the 1980s. Multiple high grade quartz veins, averaging an ounce of gold or more per tonne run parallel through the 1,500 meter Breccia. Although these were mined out long ago in the 30’s, if Ophir’s geologists are correct (that the boiling zone is deeper and the system is intact), these high grade quartz veins could potentially coalesce at depth, making for a major gold discovery.

Even better are the results of recent magnetics and sampling, which indicate the system could be much longer than 1,500 meters, and could host parallel stacked vein systems. 

The Breccia Gold Zone (BGZ) saw extensive soil sampling back in the 1980s that identified a 1,500 meter by 20 meter wide zone that returned an average grade of nearly 5 grams/tonne gold:

There has been no mining at Breccia since the 1930s and the last drilling was in the 1980s. The two diamond holes drilled in the 1980s reportedly produced 30+ meter intercepts at just under 5 grams/tonne gold. Hole DDH1 was drilled oblique across the mineralized structure. DDH2 was a vertical hole drilled for metallurgical core, and was mineralized from top to bottom. 

A conceptual historical resource report identified 700,000 ounces at an average grade of more than 4 grams/tonne gold. This means that Ophir is sitting on what is likely already an economic gold deposit using today’s US$1,800+ gold price with the potential for significant expansion, which will be proven out through modern diamond drilling. 

Ophir has 49 million shares outstanding and C$2.5 million in cash in its treasury, which means that at C$.18 per share Ophir’s enterprise value is not even C$7 million. A little more than a shell company valuation. If we consider drill results that produce anything close to historic widths and grades at Breccia, it would likely support a market cap many multiples of the current valuation. And the downside risk is very low relative to the potential upside of OPHR.V shares

The Breccia Property has essentially been frozen in time for the last several decades, and the project has never been properly drilled using modern exploration techniques and deeper diamond drilling. The historical resource alone more than justifies the current market valuation, the upside exists in the potential for a new high-grade gold discovery that could move Breccia into the rare category of a 1,000,000+ ounce high-grade gold deposit in a top tier mining jurisdiction

2020 exploration at Breccia discovered a strongly mineralized vein system that outcropped proximal to the Breccia Gold Zone. Outcrop samples assayed up to nearly 60 g/t gold and a boulder sample assayed 69 g/t gold and 27.5 g/t silver. 

Perhaps an even more important feature to note is the chemical composition of the soils and observed rock textures are consistent with the thesis that the Breccia Zone is located in the uppermost parts of a low sulphidation epithermal gold system. 

If 4-5 g/t gold is the average grade in the uppermost parts of the system, what are the grades in the deeper parts near the boiling zone? 

The answer to that question could be very exciting for Ophir Gold shareholders. And the company is only weeks away from beginning to answer this question, as well as many others with the commencement of the maiden drill program at Breccia. 

Ophir is a drill speculation, but it’s the sort of rare drill play that doesn’t come around very often - a drill speculation with the sort of drill targets that offer grand slam home run potential and substantial evidence that Ophir could be well on its way to making a new discovery at Breccia. I hold a position in OPHR.V shares and I will be buying more shares this week. 

Disclosure: Author owns OPHR.V shares at the time of publishing and may choose to buy or sell at any time without notice. Author has received compensation for marketing services from Ophir Gold Corp. 



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