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The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Reflects success, offers wider awareness of Alaskan company North of 60 Mining News – June 2, 2023
Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse
Contango ORE Inc. May 30 announced that the Alaska-based mineral exploration and mine development company is set to join the broad-market Russell 3000 and Russell Microcap.
Founded in 2010 to explore the mineral potential discovered on the Tetlin property by Chairman Brad Juneau while exploring for natural gas in eastern Alaska, Contango ORE is a homegrown mining company that is slated to be a gold producer in 2024 with the completion of the Manh Choh mine that stemmed from Juneau's discovery.
As the Peak Gold deposits at what is now being developed into the Manh Choh mine expanded to more than 1 million ounces of high-grade gold, so did the company.
This includes Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse joining the company as president and CEO and forging a partnership with Kinross Gold Corp. to develop a mine at Manh Choh that will ship the high-grade ore to Kinross' Fort Knox Mine near Fairbanks, Alaska, for processing.
Contango holds a 30% interest in the Peak Gold Joint Venture developing Manh Choh and is slated to receive roughly 65,000 oz of gold per year from the mine once operations begin, expected next year.
Contango is also advancing the high-grade Lucky Shot gold project in Southcentral Alaska toward development, which will add to its annual gold production once a mine is established there.
The company also owns several earlier-staged gold, silver, and copper exploration projects in Alaska and is looking for additional opportunities both in and out of the Far North State.
The coming inclusion on the Russell 3000 and Russell Microcap reflects the Alaska-based mining company's accomplishments and will bring greater awareness of the company as it builds upon that success.
Each year, the Russell Indexes captures the 4,000 largest U.S. stocks, ranking them by total market capitalization. Membership in the U.S. All-Cap Russell 3000 Index, which remains in place for one year, means automatic inclusion in the Large-Cap Russell 1000 Index or Small-Cap Russell 2000 Index as well as the appropriate growth and value style indexes.
Based on the April 28 reconstitution process for the Russell indexes, Contango ORE is slated to be included on the Russell 3000 and Russell Microcap indexes after the U.S. market opens on June 26.
"We are pleased with Contango's inclusion on the Russell 3000 index preliminary list as it marks another important milestone for the company, and with it will bring broader market awareness for the company as we advance the Manh Choh project to production," said Van Nieuwenhuyse.
Russell indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for active investment strategies. Approximately $12.1 trillion in assets are benchmarked against Russell's U.S. indexes.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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