HighGrade is a unique weekly online magazine delivering to readers the high-grade cut of mining industry news from around the globe. read more
LOVE me, love me not. Investors have revealed their love affair with mining stocks has been more lust than devotion. Not that it’s been one-way deception. But how much faith investors can place in company operating and project development cost, and profit, forecasts over the coming year is going to become more apparent in the next month or two.
Quote of the Week“Recent debt market jitters and global stagflation concerns have brought risk aversion well and truly back into vogue. In this environment, we see gold equities as worthy of inclusion in the portfolio.” – Macquarie Research
PROOF of Anvil Mining’s bona fides have been delivered in spades with a stunning $C296.6 million raising last week amid the turmoil of world equity markets.
GIVEN the likes of Ivanhoe, CuDeco and Xstrata’s ambitious underground plans at Ernest Henry, it’s fair to say the Cloncurry copper region of north western Queensland has a good quota of huster, bluster, and hyperbole. In contrast Exco Resources looks to have on its hands a rock solid, realistic and deliverable project that should come into production early next decade.
CANADA’S Pacific Rim Mining is scaling back its workforce in El Salvador as it slows down exploration on its El Dorado, Santa Rita and Zamora-Cerro Colorado gold projects until it receives a mining permit for El Dorado as anti-mining campaigning increases in the run up to presidential elections in 2009.
CHARTERS Towers gold miner Citigold Corporation is much maligned in some circles, however, it is undertaking a drilling program which may cause sceptics to swallow hard. In fact the drilling program comprises one hole. Citigold refers to it reverently as the Deep Hole.
POOR Telfer performance and geothermal-power exposure suggest Lihir Gold might be a more interesting target for gold corporates than fellow significant Australian independent producer Newcrest Mining.
MINING service sector analysts say some excellent buying opportunities have emerged in an “oversold” section of the market, with demand for engineering services in particular showing no signs of abating and earnings upgrades increasingly likely on the back of strong work flows and new acquisitions.
MIRROR, mirror on the wall, where is the best value pure resources play of all? While some point investors immediately towards iron ore, copper or oil, the equities research team at Macquarie Bank say look no further than the much maligned ugly sisters, coking and thermal coal.
TAKE heart all you directors of junior mining companies cowering in your trenches and thinking the world has come to an end just because your share prices have been falling.
IT WAS a few weeks ago now, but it will take far longer for the memory to fade – the memory of Ivanhoe Mines executive chairman Robert Friedland barking like a dog while expressing his views about gold, onstage at the World Mining Investment Congress in London.
BRONWYN Barnes did not follow a typical path into the mining boardroom. Her start in the industry came only nine years ago when she joined Anaconda Nickel under Andrew Forrest – a “wonderful introduction to the mining industry”.
If recent events are anything to go by, there are more than a few mining executives out there who Mediterranean’s Ghost would hate to be stuck with in a game of Monopoly.
CASH is king. There are probably few arguments as to the truth of this from general investors, but never more so than in the current markets.
ROBERT Gallagher likes the outdoors and likes keeping busy. Currently he is trotting the globe to get to know the various properties and people he has working for him as the CEO of New Gold,the company with the heavyweight board and clearly one of the more promising mid-tier producers currently emerging in the rather callow gold space.
INTERESTING times in China for Garry Frere, the managing director of ASX-listed Pacific Ore. A feasibility study for a heap leach copper and copper-zinc development using Pacific Ore’s BioHeap technology is now underway, and the implications, if successful, will clearly be company changing. Naturally the sceptics aren’t convinced. Not yet anyway.
NAME three people who have most influenced you in your career/life?
KEY fertiliser bellwether, North American company Mosaic, believes it is the “calm before the storm” in terms of pricing, with inventories at record lows, demand strong, farm income up, and, most importantly, rising input costs.
IVANHOE Mines boss Robert Friedland barking like a dog must have created amusement at the recent World Mining Investment Congress in London. It’s not the first time, though, the magnate’s howling and yelping has been directed at gold.
ONCE a Rio man, always a Rio man seems the case with Newcrest Mining’s CEO Ian Smith. According to the experts, Newcrest’s UK roadshow presentation contains enough material information to warrant five separate news releases were it in the hands of less conservative companies.
AUSTRALIAN mining technology and service companies: are they followers and imitators, as suggested by veteran industry observer Peter McCarthy of AMC Consultants, or are they world leaders and innovators? That question, predictably, has got a few people stirred up.
GLENGARRY Resources seems your quintessential Aussie battler of a stock, trudging away in the backblocks of the outback and rarely (very rarely) offering shareholders too much in the way of a win over the past decade or so. However, longshots do come in every now and then and Glengarry working in the Great Sandy Desert is a quinella of blue sky and nothingness.
