Spec Value Rating for Silver Range Resources Ltd
Why is Silver Range Resources Ltd a 2025 Favorite?
Silver Range Resources Ltd (SNG-V): Bottom-Fish Spec Value rated Favorite
Silver Range Resources Ltd was made a Bottom-Fish Spec Value rated 2025 Favorite because it is the American equivalent prospect-generator-farmout junior of another 2025 Favorite, Eagle Plains Resources Ltd. Spun out a long time ago from Strategic Metals Ltd, the Yukon prospect-generator which remains a shareholder of Silver Range, has under Mike Power and John Gilbert the junior developed a focus on southwestern United States, in particular Nevada's Walker Lane, though they are expanding into Arizona. The Walker Lane received a lot of attention during the 1980s after gold had stabilized in the $350-$400 range and heap leaching became a new method to extract gold from oxidized low grade ore. The Walker Lane, unlike northeastern Nevada where Carlin-type deposits became the rage after Barrick discovered Goldstrike in the mid 1980's, is home to copper porphyry systems such as Yerington and epithermal systems which range from low sulphidation epithermal deposits created by hotspring activity to the intermediate and high sulphidation epithermal deposits associated with the periphery of porphyry systems. Bodie and Comstock are the most famous high grade epithermal deposits in the Walker Lane that emerged from the early prospecting waves in the mid 19th century. Until recently the perception has been that the Walker Lane's high grade epithermal potential has been exhausted and what remains are low grade open-pittable, heap leachable deposits such as Hasbrouck near Tonopah owned by <B>West Vault Mining Ltd</B> or Goldfield being developed by Centerra. These are seen as proxies for higher real gold prices.
In recent years there has been a revival of interest in high grade gold-silver epithermal systems driven by evolving concepts such as alteration geochemistry. Prospects that previously failed to yield any joy through shallow drilling of modest outcropping mineralization are undergoing a rethink where juniors like Silver Range compile historical data and collect new information from the field through sampling and geophysical surveys. Hyperspectral Aster data is an example of new tools that identify alteration systems with large footprints as proved to be the case with the 13 million ounce Silicon-Merlin epithermal system discovered by AngloGold in southwestern Nevada. Digital technology fed multiple data sets allows unprecedented 3D visualization geologists can use to identify new targets. This is what Silver Range does differently on a much enhanced scale than available to past explorers. For a while it was able to attract farmout deals with Australian companies or private American groups. The increasing severity of the resource junior bear market has slowed down farmout activity, exacerbated by the NIMBY mentality adopted by the USFS and BLM with regard to permitting drill programs. The "deny and delay" tactics are a problem for resource juniors because although not hidden beneath barren cover rock, the type of targets developed by juniors such as Silver Range are still effectively blind. They require scout drilling to deliver geology that allows vectoring in on more focused drill targets. Silver Range is thus a proxy for the speculation that the incoming Trump administration will force the USFS and BLM to stop behaving like America's health insurance companies.
Silver Range was made a Favorite partly because it is well positioned to secure farmout deals for projects such as East Goldfield if an exploration bull market returns to the junior resource sector. Another reason is that deals it did where it sold 100% of projects for a royalty and a meaningful equity stake are starting to bear fruit. Late last year one of these partners finally went public, which gave Silver Range a chance to liquidate its paper and bring its treasury to $1.7 million so it is no longer limping along as during the past year. 2025 may also be the year when Silver Range finally gets liquidity for the 10% equity stake it received in Broden Mining in exchange for its Keg silver-zinc-lead deposit in the Faro District of southern Yukon. Mining stopped many decades ago and left a reclamation mess which Broden plans to fix by redeveloping the Faro District in a manner that Alexco did with the Keno Hill silver-zinc-lead district in 2006. The project has stalled because Broden has been unable to get one of the First Nations groups in the area to sign off even though the Yukon government supports the Faro District redevelopment. This FN group, however, now needs approval from the government to proceed with an unrelated mining project and may cease to be so recalcitrant. 2025 may be the year when Broden gets the green light for Faro, and this would be important for Silver Range because its 10% equity stake could be worth $10-$20 million to an institutional buyer. If Silver Range gets a non-dilutive cash windfall of this scale it will be in an excellent position to include scout drilling to boost the farmout prospectivity of its projects.
