Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (TSX.V: BAY) (OTCQB: ATBHF) is a publicly traded Canadian minerals exploration company focused on exploring high-grade copper and gold deposits in North America. The company owns the Storm Copper Project and the Seal Zinc Deposit in Nunavut, Canada, and is currently exploring the Buckingham Gold Vein and critical metals prospects in central Virginia. Aston Bay is also in the advanced stages of negotiation on other properties with high-grade critical minerals potential in these areas.
The company believes in responsible exploration and carries out its work programs to the highest standards of social responsibility, environmental stewardship and health and safety. Aston Bay cares about leaving a net positive impact on the communities in which it works and engages with local representatives, Indigenous groups and government agencies to build respectful relationships through dialogue and collaborative processes. Depending on the stage of exploration, these efforts may include employment, contracting, training, community benefits and other agreements.
Aston Bay conducts exploration through safe, socially and environmentally responsible and sustainable work practices. The company embeds core values of health and safety throughout its operations by adhering to strict health and safety standards and practices that meet and/or exceed industry standards and government codes and regulations.
The company is headquartered in Toronto.
Projects
Storm Copper
The high-grade Storm Copper Deposit is located 112 kilometers south of the community of Resolute Bay, Nunavut, on western Somerset Island, just south of the past-producing Polaris Pb-Zn Mine. The property comprises 173 contiguous mining claims, including the Storm Copper and Seal Zinc projects, covering an area of approximately 541,795 acres.
The property has good access to established shipping lanes, and the landscape provides favorable conditions for development of roads and a protected deep-water port. Exploration is supported through excellent infrastructure in the nearby hamlet of Resolute Bay.
Aston Bay is partnered with American West Metals (ASX: AW1) at Storm. American West is responsible for all exploration expenditures, having aggressively advanced the project toward production and earned an 80% interest. This affords excellent optionality to the company’s shareholders, as Aston Bay is free carried with no required expenditures until the completion of a bankable feasibility study.
American West recently completed an Australian JORC-compliant Maiden Resource Estimate for Storm; the North American 43-101 compliant resource estimate is expected in Q1 2024. American West is cashed up and plans a multimillion-dollar resource expansion and new discovery drilling program for the summer of 2024.
The Buckingham County Gold Project
The gold-bearing system at the Buckingham County Gold Project in Virginia lies within a belt hosting past producing mines, current gold mines and advanced gold explorations, stretching through Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
Buckingham hosts a “Kirkland Lake-style” high grade gold vein returning values consistently over one ounce gold per ton and is underexplored both at depth and along almost one mile of strike length. These types of veins have excellent ESG qualities, as they are typically mined using a small footprint underground method, with gold extracted using simple and environmentally friendly gravity methods.
Market Opportunity
The World Gold Council, the industry association for the world’s gold producers, estimated in 2023 the physical financial gold market, which is made up of bars, coins, gold ETFs and central bank reserves, is worth nearly $5 trillion. The council reports that gold mine production adds approximately 3,500 tons of the precious metal to the world’s supply annually, equivalent to about 2% growth.
This historical scarcity and relatively slow production of new supply, as compared to other commodities, is a primary reason gold has retained its value for millennia, according to the council.
A report from Acumen Research and Consulting, a global provider of market intelligence and consulting services, valued the global copper market at $304.1 billion in 2022 and forecast that it will reach a market size of $496.8 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 5.1% over the forecast period.
The report identifies a growing demand for copper in the electronics industry, as well as an expanding copper supply due to increasing production from existing mines and the rising number of mine development projects in developing nations, as driving factors in the rising value of the copper market.
Management Team
Thomas Ullrich is CEO and Director of Aston Bay. He has over 30 years of experience in mineral exploration and geoscience. Before joining Aston Bay, he was Chief Geologist North America for Antofagasta Minerals plc, investigating copper potential through extensive property evaluations and management of drill programs in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Prior to that, he was Senior Geologist for Almaden Minerals.
Sofia Harquail handles Investor Relations and Corporate Development at Aston Bay. She has over 15 years of experience in the private and public sectors of the mining industry. Before joining Aston Bay, she worked as a consultant for the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada and for exempt market dealer Red Cloud Financial Services Inc. Ms. Harquail holds an M.A. from the University of Uppsala in Sweden and received her CPIR designation from the CIRI/Ivey Investor Relations Program. She also sits on the board of the Young Mining Professionals Toronto and is CSC Certified.
Aston Bay has a talented Board of Directors bringing broad experience from across the industry, encompassing resource expansion, mine development, mergers and acquisitions, and mining finance.
Ms. Jessie Liu-Ernsting has over 15 years of experience in the mining industry, spanning capital projects engineering, debt capital markets, private equity and corporate strategy at several firms, including Hudbay Minerals and Resource Capital Funds. She is currently VP Investor Relations and Communications at G Mining Ventures Corp.
Mr. Jeffrey R. Wilson has over 25 years’ experience in the mining industry, having served as a director, officer and advisor of multiple public and private companies in the mineral exploration and mining investment industries. Mr. Wilson is currently President & CEO of Precipitate Gold Corp.
Mr. Gary O’Connor has over 40 years of diverse experience as a mineral exploration and development professional in the management of successful resource projects as well as the evaluation, technical due diligence, and supervision of large mineral exploration and development projects through-out the world. While with Freeport, Mr. O’Connor worked on the due diligence and discovery of a major gold fraud on the Busang gold “deposit” in Kalimantan by Bre-X.
Mr. Mark J. Pryor is a geologist with a 40-year track record of successfully advancing multiple precious metal, copper, coal, REE and Li projects from discovery through to exploitation. He is currently Executive Vice President of the Exploration Division at The Electrum Group.
