Greetings Contrarian,

This is The Next Big Rush, your daily drop of mining/energy investing news. Where we come together and facepalm in unison.

Here are the highlights:

😦 Rare Earths Project Halted

🤜🏼 Arizona Sonoran Hits Again

🥷🏻 $100m Gold Stolen In Toronto

👀 Gold Junior To Acquire Massive Position In PNG

😦 Rare Earths Project Halted

Vital Metals, the sole rare earths producer in Canada, has decided to halt the construction of its Saskatoon processing facility due to the uneconomical nature of marketing an intermediate product from the plant.

The company has also determined that the scale of mining at Vital's North T zone in its Tardiff rare earth project in the Northwest Territories is not currently financially viable.

Vital Metals is undergoing a three-month strategic review of the plant as it looks to conserve cash and seek new funding sources and partnerships to develop a sustainable business model.

The company had previously slowed down construction of the plant in December 2022, citing doubled costs of around C$55 million.

Vital Metals recently completed a drill program of over 6,600 metres at its Tardiff deposit, with assay results and a resource update expected in the second half of the year.

Ouch.

🤜🏼 Arizona Sonoran Hits Again

Arizona Sonoran Copper Company Inc. (TSX:ASCU | OTCQX:ASCUF) announced 6 infill holes from the Parks/Salyer Pre-Feasibility Study focussed drilling program.

Highlights:

368.7 m of 0.70% Cu/T

327.4m of 0.56% Cu/T

443.2 m of 0.68% Cu/T

Assays from another 10 drill holes expected by the middle of May.

🥷🏻 $100m Gold Stolen In Toronto

A massive gold heist at Pearson airport has left investigators baffled about who stole the 3,600 pounds of gold, worth over $100 million at current spot prices.

The robbery is suspected to have been carried out locally, and police are looking into organized crime elements in the region.

While ports are often used by criminal elements to move or steal goods, it is still unclear how the gold was taken out of the airport, or if some of it is still on site.

Investigators do not believe the gold was stolen to fund terrorism, and protocols were not activated to shut down parts of the airport.

The investigation is ongoing.

It surely gives the term GTA a whole new meaning.

👀 Gold Junior to Acquire Massive Position In PNG

A new sponsor to the newsletter, Fosterville South Exploration Ltd. (TSXV: FSX) (OTCQX: FSXLF) (Germany: 4TU) has entered into an agreement with privately held Wild Dog Resources to acquire a significant land package in Papua New Guinea, where the current team and board has had massive success in producer K92.

K92 went from a project purchased for approximately C$2m several years ago and is now a C$1.6b high-grade gold producer.

Highlights Of The Deal:

• 2166 sq. km land position assembled via acquisition of a variety of EL and ELAs

• including 614 sq. km project contiguous with and SE of K92 Mining Inc exploration tenements

• including 130 sq. km project contiguous with and NW of K92 Mining Inc. tenements, 10km from mining operations

The total PNG land package to be acquired by FSX includes both early stage and advanced stage exploration targets with high grade epithermal vein and porphyry style mineralization present.

FSX has a decent cash position and the right experience in an extremely prospective region.

Can this team do it again?

We’ll be watching closely and bringing you the updates.

Happy Speculating!

The Editor

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.