Bellavista lifts lid on grand plan to unlock big high-grade Pickle Crow gold project

The Steve Parsons-led crew at FireFly (ASX:FFM) timed the company’s pivot to copper with the 2023 acquisition of the Green Bay copper-gold project in Newfoundland to perfection.

With the help of commodity prices and a typical Parsons focus on growth via the drill bit, FireFly’s market cap has grown from $100 million to $1.7 billion in the intervening period.

But as a result of the pivot, FireFly’s original reason for existing – the high-grade Pickle Crow gold project down in Ontario – was pretty much left sitting on the shelf.

That was despite an aggressive drilling program in 2022 increasing the resource at the historic operation (1.5Moz at 16g/t gold between 1935-1966) by 24% or 530,000oz to 2.8Moz at 7.2g/t gold (inferred).

It is one of the biggest gold resources held by ASX gold explorers/developers. And it is definitely the highest grade.

Believe it or not though, the gold price averaged “only” US$1,940/oz in CY2023 and the decision to pivot to copper at Green Bay was taken.

Gold has more than doubled to US$4,827/oz since, prompting Parsons to get Pickle Crow back on the value generation train, not inside FireFly, but in another company he and his mates are associated with, Bellavista Resources (ASX:BVR).

In a deal announced in February and due to be ticked off by shareholders later this month, Bellavista is to pick up the running at Pickle Crow, with former De Grey Mining boss Glenn Jardine having first been installed as Bellavista’s MD back in November last year, along with former De Grey CFO Peter Canterbury as Bellavista’s finance director.

Jardine and Canterbury arrived at Bellavista after the May 2025 takeover of De Grey by Northern Star for $5 billion in scrip, with De Grey having turned its Hemi discovery in the Pilbara into an 11.2Moz monster and a future 530,000/oz-a-year producer.

That experience necessarily grows ambitions. And for the former De Grey pair of Jardine and Canterbury the vehicle of choice is Bellavista, formerly a WA-focussed base metals explorer of some success.  

The acquisition by Bellavista is to be settled in shares which FireFly will distribute in-specie to its shareholders. When it is all said and done, Bellavista will have about 210m shares on issue.

At Thursday’s share price of 59c, that makes for a market cap of $124m.

That’s not a lot compared with Bellavista’s ASX peers. The existing resource base at Pickle Crow is bigger than all of them except Minerals 260’s Bullabulling, and its grade leaves them all in the shade.

Yet Bellavista’s indicated market cap post the pick-up of Pickle Crow is the smallest of the lot by a big margin. It’s $120m market cap compares with a range of $240m to $1.8 billion for the nine others sampled.

There is one big difference though. The projects of Bellavista’s peers are all in Western Australia, not the other side of the world.

Still, Pickle Crow sits in a 40Moz historical gold province and has access to key infrastructure requirements. And then there is the example of success that FireFly has had at Green Bay, also on the other side of the world.

Jardine gets excited:

Jardine does not come across as an excitable type. But at the Resources Rising Stars “Gather Round” in Adelaide last week, he said he was excited by the upside at Pickle Crow on two fronts.

First there was the exploration upside, both in and around Pickle Crow and at the Sioux Lookout prospect which sits along strike from the 2.9Moz Goliath gold deposit owned by Canada’s C$410m NexGold.

Bellavista is well funded to get cracking on the exploration front as it pulled in $35m in equity on striking the Pickle Crow deal with FireFly.

But it was on the second front that Jardine seemed most excited – the presence of 1Moz of gold grading 4.1g/t in the first 250m of the Pickle Crow deposit, mined previously for its high-grade gold (15/g/t) in quartz-gold-tungsten veins down to 1500m.

“Historically, this was a deep underground gold mine mined from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s when they produced one 1.5Moz at half an ounce a tonne,” Jardine told the RRS gathering.

“And historically, that has been what everyone has thought about Pickle Crow – how you go about expanding that resource and developing it.

“But what is really interesting here, and this project just gets better and better every time we look at it, is that if you look at the resource there within the top 250m of that resource unconstrained, there is a million ounces at 4.1g/t in the top 250m.

“And there is 2Moz at 4.2g/t in the top 550m. In anyone’s language, that’s exceptional.”

He said because of the deep underground history at Pickle Crow, the near-surface potential had been overlooked. The sub-US$2,000/oz gold price in 2023 did not help.

But now the gold price has more than doubled and with one million ounces at 4.1g/t sitting in the top 250m, Pickle Crow is “really begging for exploitation and a new look”.

Bison Resources (ASX: BSR):

Junior resource company initial public offerings have not been a happy hunting ground for investors in recent times.

But there is always an exception and on Thursday the exception was the $5.5m IPO of Bison Resources (ASX:BSR), with the 20c shares opening at 32c and closing at the high for the day of 65c for a market cap of $43 million.

That’s as good as could be expected for a grass roots explorer on a cluster of gold, silver and base metals prospects in Nevada in the same neighbourhood as big mines and projects owned by others.

The Nevada address no doubt helped Bison stampede its way to listing success, as did the particular location of the four projects (Ruby Lake, Cherry Springs, Bald Peaks and Medicine Range) on the southeast end of the prolific Carlin Trend.

Then there is the support that came from investors that have followed the success of the key players at Bison have had with previous adventures in the US, most notably at Sun Silver (ASX:SS1) and Black Bear Minerals (ASX:BKB).

Sun Silver was listed in a $13m IPO in May 2024. It is now a $206m company on the strength of its Maverick Springs silver project with its 539Moz silver equivalent resource and firming development plans.

Bison’s projects are 10km to the south of Maverick Springs.

Black Bear was previously known as James Bay Minerals. It was a $6m lithium IPO back in September 2023.

When the lithium market cooled it shifted its focus to the Independence gold project in Nevada, and the Shafter Texas project in Texas. It now has a market cap of $103m.

All that shows the backers of Sun Silver, Black Bear and now Bison know what the market wants.

And given the grouping behind all three have developed a contact book that can deliver previously overlooked assets and opportunities, it is assumed that Bison too could beef up before long.

In the meantime, it will be the maiden drilling program at Bison’s projects that will drive interest in the stock from here.