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1. Management is fully aligned with shareholders and owns 19% of the issued and outstanding shares of the Company. The CEO has so far invested C$1.7M, including $200,000 during the last private placement in July 2020, $200,000 in the previous private placement in July 2019 and $200,000 in the private placement in November 2018. Management has been directly involved in the discovery of 5 gold deposits in Brazil with 43-101 resources of +5Moz in total and sold their last company, Magellan Minerals to Ross Beaty’s Anfield Gold which merged with Trek and Newcastle Gold to form Equinox Gold in December 2017
2. 43-101 Compliant Resource – current resources of 200,000oz (Indicated) + 800,000oz (Inferred) values the Company at US$31 per oz in the ground giving investors significant risk protection
3. Recent Discoveries – Include the Alonso target which was identified in Feb 2020 with surface values of 11.6 – 200.3g/t gold and the Medusa target identified April 2020 with surface values of 1.1 – 82.1 g/t gold. Drilling in 2019 resulted in discovery of 2 new high-grade zones, Machichie; 3.4m @ 36.9g/t gold and Morro da Lua; 2.8m @ 19.5 g/t gold
4. District scale potential – Cuiú Cuiú produced 2Moz of placer gold and was the largest historic placer gold producer in the Tapajos region which produced an estimated 30Moz of gold during the world’s largest gold rush from 1978 to 1995 (source: ANM Agência Nacional de Mineração (National Mining Agency). Two deposits have so far been discovered at Cuiú Cuiú but high-grade drill intercepts have been returned from 8 other targets within a 5km radius and require further drilling to identify significant resources
5. News flow – the Company recently announced the commencement of a 25,000m drill program with the RC rig it acquired in February 2020. The acquisition of this rig should allow the company to drill for approximately 10% of the cost of recent contract diamond drilling resulting in the rapid and cost-effective evaluation of targets. At least 10 targets including the high-grade Alonso and Medusa targets will be tested in the coming months
6. Important Neighbours – Eldorado owns the fully permitted +2Moz TZ project which is located just 25km to the SE of the Cuiú Cuiú project. A decision to commence construction on this project would have significant positive implications for the value of Cabral
The strategy of the Company is to demonstrate that one or more economically viable gold deposits exists within the Cuiú Cuiú project, which could provide feed to a central milling facility. This ultimately may lead to either production or to a sale of the Company.
Work conducted by the previous owner of the project prior to 2012 was focused on the identification of a large low-grade gold deposit amenable to bulk-tonnage open-pit mining. No work was done on the project from late 2012 to early 2018 when Cabral acquired the project. Since early 2018 Cabral has been focused on outlining the high-grade potential of the project which has three main aspects as follows;
1. Zones of continuous high-grade mineralization have been identified within the existing low-grade gold deposits at MG and Central and require further definition
2. High-grade drill results have been returned from at least 8 other target areas within a 5km radius of the MG and Central deposits but require further drilling to define additional resources
3. Several new high-grade and undrilled targets have recently been identified at the project, notably Alonso (where 24 surface samples averaged 91g/t gold) and Medusa (where surface samples collected over a 350m strike length averaged 26 g/t gold)
No – Brazil has a large and diverse economy and a well developed resource sector. Some of the world’s largest gold mining companies have active mines in country and the climate allows for exploration 12 months of the year.
Brazil has a current population of 212 million and is the world’s fifth largest country by area covering an area of 8.5 million square kilometers. It is a major producer of natural resources including soy, beef, orange juice, iron ore and bauxite (for alumina). The economy is currently the world’s eighth largest and amounts to US$2.05 trillion accounting for 2.54% of global GDP.
The country has an active mining industry which contributes significantly to the economy through precious & base metal exports, with transparent title with competitive tax rates, and a 1.5% government royalty rate on gold production. Approximately the 60% of land surface is underlain by highly prospective Pre-Cambrian rocks of same age as West Africa.
A number of gold mining companies are active in Brazil including Kinross Gold which produced a record 619,000oz of gold from the Paracatu mine in 2019 making it Kinross’ largest operation in global terms, and the largest single gold mine in Brazil. AngloGold Ashanti operates several mines in Brazil including Serra Grande in Goias (123K oz in 2019) and the Cuiaba complex in Minas Gerais (362K oz in 2019). Yamana’s Jacobina gold mine produced a record 159,000oz during 2019. Equinox operates 4 gold mines in Brazil including Aurizona, Fazenda Brasileira, RDM and Pilar. Production guidance for these operations during 2020 is between 245,000 and 270,000oz. Lundin Mining paid Yamana a total of US$800M to acquire the Chapada gold copper mine in mid-July 2019 which is expected to produce 85,000 to 90,000oz of gold and 51,000 – 54,000t of copper during 2020. Great Panther Mining operates the Tucano Mine in northern Brazil which is expected to produce 120,000 to 130,000oz of gold during 2020.
Mid-tier producers with operating mines in Brazil include Jaguar Mining which operates two gold mines in Brazil and produced 74,000oz during 2019 (Eric Sprott owns 48.9%), Aura Minerals, which operates the Ernesto – Pau a pique mine in Mato Grosso which produced 56,000oz in 2019, and Serabi Gold, which operates two underground gold mines in Para in the Tapajos region and expects to produce 45,000 – 46,000oz during 2020. OZ Minerals also operates the Antas gold-copper mine in Para and is developing the Pedra Branca mine.
The Cuiú Cuiú area is one of +100 areas where placer gold was washed from the streams and rivers during the gold rush from 1978 to 1995. During this period, according to the ANM* (Agencia Nacional Mineracao) an estimated 20-30Moz of gold was recovered from the streams. Cuiú Cuiú was the most productive area during the gold rush and produced an estimated 2Moz of placer gold which suggests that it could host the largest primary gold deposit in the region.
By comparison the adjacent TZ project of Eldorado produced an estimated 200,000 oz of placer gold during the gold rush. The primary gold deposit that produced this placer gold at TZ has been drilled off and is 2Moz, implying a ratio 1 : 10 (for every ounce of placer gold produced from the streams, 10 ounces occur in the underlying granitic rocks). Given that Cuiú Cuiú produced 2Moz of placer gold or 10x the amount of placer gold as TZ, then Cuiú Cuiú could ultimately hold a very large gold resource.
The other key distinguishing feature about Cuiú Cuiú besides the quantity of placer gold which was produced historically is the fact that multiple deposits are clearly present at Cuiú Cuiú. The two deposits that have been identified so far, MG and Central, are 5km apart and other discoveries are likely as exploration drilling progresses. Note that high-grade drill intercepts have so far been identified in 8 other targets within a 5km radius of the Central and MG deposits.
The original 2011 resource estimate was completed by Pincock, Allen and Holt who were of the opinion that top cuts were not applicable to the resource estimate and hence the calculation considered the actual drill results. Micon took the opposite view in 2018 and imposed top cuts which ranged from 2 g/t gold to 20 g/t gold on zones. It is noteworthy, there is a large difference in both grade and contained ounces between the 2018 estimate determined with top-cuts imposed and the estimate without any top cuts, particularly in the Inferred portion of the resource (see table below).
For comparative purposes the TZ deposit which is owned by Eldorado Gold and located just 25km to the SW of Cuiú Cuiú has a global top cut of 25 g/t gold and is hence significantly less impacted by cutting than the Micon estimate for Cuiú Cuiú .
Further drilling and inclusion of additional high-grade intercepts could result in significantly higher top cuts for the Cuiú Cuiú resource. Additional high-grade drill data should also allow for the reconstruction of wire-frame models to break out zones with high-grade gold mineralization which were not separately defined in the previous resource estimates. This should mean that rather than being considered statistical outliers and subject to aggressive top-cuts, the high-grade mineralization at Cuiú Cuiú would be considered as a distinct and separate statistical population with higher top-end cuts, and hence a lot more of the high-grade mineralization within the deposits would report to the resource.
The drill campaign conducted during 2019 was designed to test the down-dip and along strike continuity of high-grade mineralization within the existing MG and Central deposits. This confirmed that the mineralization in both deposits includes multiple narrow but continuous high-grade zones that are surrounded by lower grade envelopes. Based on the limited drilling conducted in late 2019, the largest of these zones at MG occurs in the central part of the deposit, where high-grade gold mineralization (+10g/t gold) extends up to 350m along strike, up to 10m true width and at least 200m down-dip.
The recently discovered Machiche zone, located 600m north of MG and drilled for the first time in early 2019, exhibits the same continuity in terms of the continuity of high-grade gold mineralization both down-dip and along strike.
The Company has no revenues and thus far has been dependent on equity raisings from the capital market to fund its ongoing exploration activities. The current market is valuing junior exploration and development companies at a huge discount to the gold price. The current Indicated and Inferred resources that Cabral has so far defined, equate to an enterprise value of just US$31/oz (Sept 2020). During the last gold cycle from 2008 – 2011 junior Companies with similar stage projects in Brazil were valued at US$50-150 per ounce in the ground.
In addition, and perhaps more significantly, the project is saddled with the historic sentiment that it is a low-grade project. The current resource, based entirely on historic wide-spaced drilling targeting bulk-tonnage mineralization is low grade. For the Cuiú Cuiú project grade averages 1.2 g/t gold and includes Indicated resources of 5.9Mt @ 0.90g/t (200,000 oz) and Inferred resources of 19.5Mt @ 1.24g/t (800,000 oz). This resource is not large enough, or high grade enough, to sustain an economic mining operation. However, that is history, Cabral is focused on targeting high-grade gold, and the market is only just beginning to catch on. Resources are frequently calculated following the completion of most exploration drilling, but in this case the initial resource is only the first step in demonstrating the overall potential of the project which is expected to grow significantly with future exploration and drilling, in terms of total ounces, grade, and economic potential.
The current salary of the President and CEO of the Company is C$125,000 per year. The CFO is paid the same amount, and the Executive Chairman is paid C$90,000 per year. These salaries are generally on the low end of the range for executives at other junior exploration companies. In line with other companies of this size active in this sector, all employees including management are entitled to stock options.
Furthermore, since late 2016, the CEO has invested approximately C$1.7M of his own money into Cabral and is currently one of the largest shareholders which means he is aligned with shareholders. This includes $200,000 during the July 2020 financing, $300,000 during the July 2019 financing and $200,000 during the November 2018 financing.
The company elected to suspend field activities on site on 1st April 2020 as a precautionary measure, but restarted operations on site during mid-July 2020 following a significant and sustained drop in the infection rate. The Company has implemented a number of on-site protocols to mitigate the risk of infection including the regular testing of employees .
The Company funds a health clinic for the small village of Cuiú Cuiú which represents the only health support in the community. This clinic provides medicines and treatment free of charge for all members of the community of Cuiú Cuiú, regardless of whether patients are employees (and their dependents) of the Company.
The drill program that was announced in late August 2020 is an aggressive 25,000m RC drill program which aims to define one or more high-grade deposits at Cuiú Cuiú by drill testing at least 10 targets, most of which are OUTSIDE of the existing two deposits at Central and MG. Several of these targets are currently untested and have high-grade boulders on surface (including Alonso where 24 samples from surface boulders average 91 g/t gold and Medusa (where surface boulders average 26 g/t gold). Other targets that will be the subject of the current drill campaign include Central SE, where previous drilling returned 27m @ 6.9 g/t gold, and Machichie where previous drilling returned 3.4m @ 36.9 g/t gold. This program is expected to continue well into 2021 and will result in a steady stream of drill results.