By Ted Niles and Kevin Michael Grace

ResourceClips.com featured a number of companies in 2010. Here’s an update on five of them:

Golden Hope Mines Ltd GNH:CA
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Though the Bellechase-Timmins area of Quebec’s southeast Beauce region was, as Golden HopePresident Frank Candido observes, the site of “the first Canadian gold rush,” the following 150 years saw it largely untouched. Until now. In September Golden Hope reported assays from its Bellechase Gold Project up to 7.19 g/t gold over 10 metres and 3.68 g/t over 34 metres (including 103 g/t over 1 metre). Candido commented, “We believe that what we have is not just a deposit but an entire belt. Where we’re drilling represents less than 5% of that belt—it’s probably around 1%. We have a nuggety deposit. By that, we know for a fact, that no matter what the assay results are, the average grade will forever be around 2 grams. When we did an 800-tonne bulk sample this year, we came out with an average grade of 3 grams. The grade is probably even better than that — between 3 and 4 grams.”

Golden Hope continues to drill at Bellechase to achieve its objective of proving the first gold resource estimate for southeastern Quebec. Having recently completed a private placement financing of $3.7 million, Golden Hope could be well-positioned to do so.

Romarco Minerals Inc R:CA
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Not quite 40 years before Canada was having its first gold rush in Bellechase-Timmins, South Carolina was in the throes of its own. This led to the Haile Gold Mine—just outside of Kershaw, SC—which, by 1900, was one of the largest gold producers in the eastern United States. As with so many of these historic mines, there was a strong sense that Haile’s surface was only scratched.Romarco Minerals bought the property in 2007, and since January 2008 has been, in President/CEO Diane Garrett’s words, “drilling 24 hours a day: about 800 holes over 200,000 metres.” In September Garrett told ResourceClips.com that the Haile Gold Mine is “one of the most significant discoveries in our industry in the last 10 years.”

Drill results continue to bear out Garrett’s words, with Romarco reporting most recently (October 28) assays including 4.1 g/t gold over 51.2 metres, 1.3 g/t over 68.6 metres, 4.2 g/t over 33.4 metres and 10.9 g/t over 66 metres. More important is what these near-surface, high-grade results mean: the possibilty of an open-pit scenario. As Garrett explained, “If we can do that, then we can move it up into the mine plant quicker. Which will add more to the economics and the production profile.” Romarco’sgraduation in November from the TSXV to the TSX further confirms that its star is on the rise.