Barry FitzGerald: Garimpeiro weighs in like Errol Flynn on Tassie gold prospect

Gold prices are at super levels, and veteran resources scribe Barry FitzGerald is intrigued by Tasmanian explorer Flynn Gold.

This stock takes its name from another swashbuckler to operate in Tasmania, Errol Flynn. No word on any link to Olivia de Havilland, though.

“Garimpeiro” columnist Barry FitzGerald has covered the resources industry for 35 years. Now he’s sharing the benefits of his experience with Stockhead readers.

Garimpeiro recently banged on about how junior gold explorers were due a re-rating in response to the stellar performance of the gold price in 2024.

Putting aside the minor stumble in response to Donald Trump’s election victory (it is still a magical circa $4050/oz in Aussie dollars), things have never been better for producers, developers and explorers.

That has come though in the share price performance of the producers and developers in the year to date. But the explorers have been struggling to pull the investors in.

Fair enough too. Absent a big time discovery, the average explorer has little more than blue sky appeal on offer, and the likelihood of having to return to the market cap-in-hand to replenish the coffers in the not too distant future.

But if an explorer can start building an investment case by initially establishing a stock exchange compliant "exploration target" at its flagship project, it can expect to start drawing in some investor interest.

If the exploration target has some scale to it, all the better.

In like Flynn

It’s for those reasons that Garimpeiro’s attention during the week was drawn to Flynn Gold (ASX:FG1). It only joined the ASX in 2021 as an explorer with a focus on the north-east corner of Tasmania.

Its name is a tilt to Errol Flynn, the swashbuckling Tassie-born film star of the 1930s and 1940s who first called in to Morobe in PNG for a spot of gold fortune hunting before moving on to Hollywood.

The company’s biggest backer since day one, Melbourne businessman Colin Bourke, reckons there just might be a family connection to Flynn too as Flynn is his wife’s maiden name from Launceston family roots.

Maybe so. What is more certain is that the company’s market performance has been anything but swashbuckling since its listing.

Earlier in the week, its shares were trading at a princely 3.2c for a market cap of $8.3 million or an enterprise value of $6.5m after cash of $1.8m is taken in to account.

To its credit the company has stuck to the task in NE Tassie at its flagship Golden Ridge project. So much so that it now has something to hang its hat on – the establishment of a maiden exploration target announced on Friday.

It is a good sized one, ranging from 450,000-520,000oz depending on low and high volume and grade expectations. Flynn shares popped higher to 3.4c in response, a welcome gain for sure but still leaving Flynn in the sub-$10m category.

Time for some comparisons

Plonk a project with a similar sized exploration target (the size and grade is conceptual, and more drilling is required to advance to a compliant mineral resource estimate) in Western Australia, and it is likely Flynn’s market cap would be a multiple of where it is today.

That reflects Flynn being all on its lonesome in NE Tassie, notwithstanding it is operating in a historic gold producing region.

That does though give it trailblazer status in pursuing the modern day geological theory that NE Tassie is home to an extension of the same rocks found in Victoria that in recent times yielded the ultra-high grade Swan Lode discovery at Fosterville, as well as the success at Sunday Creek near Melbourne being enjoyed by Southern Cross Gold (ASX:SXG).

The Swan Lode is petering out but Fosterville, now owned by Canada’s Agnico Eagle, continues on as Victoria’s biggest gold mine and one of the world’s most profitable per ounce of gold produced thanks to its still impressive grade of 8.6g/t.

Fosterville is only a small part of the $C58 billion Agnico Eagle, while Sunday Creek is very much the flagship of Southern Cross, which now has a market cap of $620m.

Sunday Creek comes with an exploration target of 1-1.6Moz of gold equivalent (it comes with antimony) which was announced in January.

But it is expected to have much more in the tank. The same goes for Flynn’s Golden Ridge where the exploration target is based on less than 30% of the prospective ground.

Flynn managing director Neil Marston said the declaration of the exploration target was a “significant step forward to our next goal of defining a maiden JORC mineral resource for the project.”

“There is potential to significantly increase the tonnage and grade at Golden Ridge with in-fill and expansion drilling which will be a major focus for the company in 2025,” he said.

The views, information, or opinions expressed in  this article are solely those of the columnist and do not represent the views of Stockhead. Stockhead does not provide, endorse or otherwise assume responsibility for any financial product advice contained in this article.

Originally published as Barry FitzGerald: Garimpeiro weighs in like Errol Flynn on Tassie gold prospect