http://seekingalpha.com/article/1170...

TGR: How about a company like AuEx Ventures Inc. (TSX:XAU)?

BC: That’s a pure exploration company. I visited their project a couple of months ago and, actually, I recommended buying that one subsequent to the visit. These are very, very smart guys with something like 10 to 12 projects ventured out to other people. That tells me the projects they turned up were good enough for someone else to spend their money on. So AuEx gets carried in the exploration without having to spend a dime.

Now the best property I looked at was Long Canyon in Eastern Nevada. This is a new discovery. It’s a Carlin-style deposit or system that they are now 49% participating partners on with Frontier Explorations. Frontier’s managing the project; they’re doing a fantastic job and, so far, they’ve delineated a northeasterly trend that covers over 1.5 kilometers and is up to 300 meters wide.

They do not have a resource estimate on this yet. They’ve got a lot of drill holes into it and hope to have one out by sometime in February and this’ll just be an initial resource in what could develop into a real gold system of merit. The mineralization is oxidized, near surface. It’s in a great location, permittable, eight miles off the freeway. There’s power, water, everything, so this looks like a low cost high margin deposit. I like this quite a bit but have not come to terms with the structural controls so am not willing to "guesstimate" a resource figure now.

TGR: How does that compare to the other projects they have? You mentioned they have 10 to 12 joint venture projects going right now.

BC: The others are much more early stage explorations. For example the West Pequop project, they’ve got in a joint venture with Agnico-Eagle Mines (TSX:AEM). Agnico’s going ahead and earning 70%, and AuEx, I believe, is 30% carried through a feasibility study. They’ve had a lot of success drilling good mineralized holes. To my mind, they have not yet put it together so that they’ve got enough to claim or prove up a significant resource. But it’s an intriguing system; it’s a Carlin-style system, and Agnico’s going full steam ahead on that, trying to find where the deposit is if one exists. The other projects are more early stage exploration, where a partner is drilling a few holes or doing some work. They’ve got a strategic alliance with Agnico in Argentina and they’re also doing some work in Spain.

TGR: As a geologist, when you look at their projects in Argentina and Spain, is there a high probability they will produce high-yielding gold projects?

BC: Argentina, certainly. They’re down in the Patagonia area, which is a Jurassic-aged volcanic plateau, not too dissimilar from Nevada today. So there’s known deposits down there, some good ones and it’s relatively unexplored. They’re using good exploration techniques they developed in Nevada. So, certainly, Argentina is a good place to be exploring and politically I think it’s okay if you’re in the right province and they’re in the right province. Spain has some historical productions and I don’t know enough about their exploration to comment on what exactly they’re chasing over there.