Southern Cross Gold

Southern Cross Gold (SXGC) - previously Mawson Gold -  is an exploration and development company with 1 million gold equivalent ounces at its 100% owned flagship Rajapalot gold-cobalt project in Finland. Rajapalot is a grass roots discovery, and the recent PEA over the project shows it is a development opportunity with a manageable capex and good operating margins.

It has low geopolitical risk and access to relevant skills and infrastructure. Its European location and cobalt by-product places it to benefit from the EU’s push for low carbon and critical minerals self-sufficiency. If in production today, Rajapalot would be the EU’s 6th largest gold mine anlargest cobalt mine.

The PEA articulated not only the opportunities around the current resource, but highlighted the value of the exploration that remains on its project. Southern Cross’s intention is to demonstrate potential for resource expansion - both through down-plunge drilling of the open-at-depth Rajapalot deposits, and across its 18,000 ha land package where other significant prospects have demonstrated wide spread mineralisation including Rompas (6m at 617 g/t).

Southern Cross is also advancing high-grade Victorian gold projects, most notably its Sunday Creek gold project. 

The Company is also earning in up to 85% into the earlier stage Skelleftea North gold project in northern Sweden. A maiden 6 hole program included high gold grades intercepts such as 0.4m at 132 g/t gold.

Southern Cross is trading at a discount to its fundamental value. Long running peer average multiples for development stage assets in Tier 1 jurisdictions are closer to 0.3x, which highlights a significant re-rate potential from Southern Cross’s current 0.02x multiple based on Rajapalot alone.

Continued exploration success, particularly regional potential for Rajapalot ’repeats’, further compounds the potential. Peers such as Rupert Resources (TSXV:RUP) show the scale of the potential of the Nordics – a jurisdiction comparatively underexplored from a global perspective.

The strategic nature of EU-sourced cobalt, produced ethically from renewable power, and with fewer transport emissions to feed local auto battery makers, provides both political and potential financing support, on top of its economic contribution to the Rajapalot project.

Exploration

The Rajapalot project is located in the Perapohja Greenstone belt, separated only by a granite intrusion, to the northern Central Lapland Greenstone belt which hosts Europe’s largest gold mine (Agnico’s Kitilla) and the Rupert’s Ikkari 4moz maiden resource.

The majority of the inferred resource was drilled out between 2018-2021 and has been the sole focus for Southern Cross , s MAwson, in Finland during that period. Earlier discoveries, however, included the Rompas trend, which is 8km to the west of Rajapalot, and where high grades were observed which included 6m at 617 g/t Au.

This potentially demonstrates the tenor of gold mineralization across a 100 sq km and asks the question ‘where else has gold accumulated’ across the 100% owned land package.

Southern Cross has recently completed a detailed magnetic survey which highlighted structurally favourable locations for gold mineralization in the central part of the property, centred between Rompas and Rajapalot, and coincident with a large surface geochemical soil anomaly.

The target structures, dated the same age as the regional mineralising event, create ideal conditions which show commonality with other large gold discoveries in Finland. Given the area is almost completely blanketed in till, Southern Cross has initiated a low cost systematic till geochemical sampling and base of till drilling program over the 30+ targets which have been identified, prior to deeper diamond drilling.

Additionally, the deposits that make up the Rajapalot project are all open at depth. By way of example, the Palokas deposit has 30.8 metres at 5.1 g/t AuEq as its deepest intersection. The prospect for resource growth of the existing deposits remains high.

PEA

Southern Cross’s recently completed PEA has successfully demonstrated the value of the discovery at Rajapalot (US$211m NPV5 post tax). With an initial capex of US$191m and post-tax IRR of 27%, the project is financeable – particularly considering the low jurisdictional risk of Finland.

One of the key takeaways from the PEA is the low all-in sustaining cost of US$824/oz Au. This is driven by productive underground mining conditions, simple metallurgy with high recoveries, cheap renewable grid power and a skilled but relatively inexpensive workforce. Importantly the PEA benchmarks well against costs of other similar, and nearby, operating mines.

The project configuration is conventional, with limited infrastructure needs given its location 30 minutes outside of Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland. This not only reduces capital and operating costs, but also execution risk.

By designing an underground operation only and placing the infrastructure outside of more sensitive environmental areas (Natura 2000), the Company is factoring in up-front a configuration which is intended to be deemed ‘no significant impact’ in the EIA, which is the simplest (but not sole) permitting pathway.