Operating costs, Minara, tin, Andean
August 11 - 17, 2008
WITH commodity price reversals in train operating costs have come back onto the radar big time in the past few months, and it’ll be interesting to see if the mining industry can improve its transparency in this regard should it be left to prove its bona fides sans screamingly high metal prices.
Minara, Newcrest, Western Areas, optimistic drillers
August 4 - 10, 2008
MINARA Resources continues to live up to the clichéd view of the mining sector held by the critics. Namely a serial destroyer of capital. All of which makes the creeping interest of the smart chaps at Glencore over the years rather curious.
Merrill's gold picks, St Barbara, HudBay, Azumah
July 28 - August 3, 2008
WRONG sport for winter downunder, but the batting order for Australian gold companies has been chosen by Merrill Lynch.
Aditya Birla, Alcoa, oil shale, Kingsgate
July 21 - 27, 2008
WHOA betide investors caught with shares in copper basket case Aditya Birla. Disappointing quarter after disappointing quarter is the sad story of this inappropriately ASX-listed company, with Credit Suisse more or less giving up on the stock this week.
Glengarry, Western Areas, nickel positives, uranium simmers, Boart, Kev
July 14 - 20, 2008
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.
Independent consultants
July 7 - 13, 2008
THE industry consolidation theme in the mining consulting field has gone out the door, literally, at Downer EDI unit Snowdens in Perth where three of the 21-year-old consulting group’s senior personnel have now departed to form a new small player in the sector.
Gold, Aditya Birla
June 23 - 29, 2008
JUST about every single possible reason for gold to be storming ahead has emerged in recent months, not that you’d know given the performance of equities. Short of nuclear war, it’s difficult to imagine many more things that need to be in favour of the gold price, and by proxy gold equities, though as always with those that make a living from overseeing market transactions, you can be sure they’ll find some reason or other to buy or sell.
Indophil, Kagara, Bass
June 16 - 22, 2008
KUDOS to Richard Laufmann of Indophil Resources. In a business world resplendent with rhetoric, Laufmann has done what very, very few other company directors do – he’s actually put his money where his mouth is. And in the process he’s made a mockery of the likes of Macquarie.
Mantra line still pleases
June 9 - 15, 2008
WHILE no one touches John Borshoff when it comes to making hay from the return-to-uranium theme of recent years, the boys from Mantra Resources, including the very sharp Ian Middlemas, continue to also reap a very tidy harvest indeed.
Reed, Genesis, Carbine, Anvil, nickel doom
June 2 - 8, 2008
NICHOLAS Curtis should know a thing or two about the world of exotic minerals, and his name amongst that always secretive group of faceless “institutional investors” lends Reed Resources’ Barrambie vanadium project in Western Australia an instant deal of credibility.
Centaurus, Magna Mining, Dwyka, Boart Longyear, Saracen
May 26 - June 1, 2008
WHO better to learn from then the master Andrew Twigmiester Forrest? Such seems the case for Richard G Hill, an executive officer at Twiggy’s totally forgettable foray into the gold business earlier this century who has done rather well with a Brazilian focus.
Pioneer, Whinnen, Brockman, Gindalbie, Metals X, and analysts
May 19 - 25, 2008
PIONEER Nickel shareholders will be hoping for a change of luck at their exploration company after nearly five years of fruitless wanderings in the Australian outback.
Gryphon, Mineral Deposits, Breakaway, Cameco
May 12 - 18, 2008
YOU don’t have to be rocket scientist to suspect there could be some fine drilling results coming out of the office of Gryphon Minerals over the course of 2008, with so-called sophisticated investors from Euroz getting set on the ground floor earlier this month.
Bass, Abra, Western Areas, HudBay
May 5 - 11, 2008
IF THE market happens to overlook the good news first time round, there’s no harm in giving it a second chance, according to the team at Tasmanian explorer and miner Bass Metals.
The bird has flown … Heron, Sundance, Murchison, Platinum Australia
April 28 - May 4, 2008
YOU win some, you lose some in the resources caper, and in the case of Heron Resources you can do it almost simultaneously and with panache.
Equinox, Aditya Birla, Terramin, copper
April 21 - 27, 2008
WHILE investors and to a much lesser extent brokers feel the pain of a distressed market, investment bankers and corporate types world-wide seem to be swimming in a sea of transactions and advisory roles.
MetalsX, Ecuador, Kingsgate, Cawse
April 14 - 20, 2008
TIN miners would likely be wearing quite a smile this week with the metal at $US21,500 per tonne and forecasts from a shindig in Hong Kong suggesting it could be on its way further north for all the usual commodity reasons.
Geopolitical copper, Dominion
April 7 - 13, 2008
ANOTHER big copper deposit in a difficult jurisdiction is set to slowly loom onto the horizon as every bit of dirt with even a hint of the red metal in the current pricing regime is dusted off and brought to market.
Kagara, House of Were, Abra, Hunan, Image, Meteoric
March 31 - April 6, 2008
WHILE it is a given that reporters are next-to clueless when it comes to mining, exploration and markets, the analyst world does have the ability to throw up its share of curious pronouncements on occasion. Take the case of Goldman Sachs JBWere and Kagara Zinc, for example.
Turkey slap
March 24 - 30, 2008
TURKEY has reaffirmed its status as one of the more difficult investment destinations for miners with Inmet Mining Corp the latest casualty.
A fraction out, thanks
March 17 - 23, 2008
RELATIONS between the mining industry’s various ‘factions’ – geology, geophysics, geotechnics, mining, metallurgy – can be fractious, but it seems that as long as the orebody at the Angas zinc-silver-lead project in South Australia is where it is supposed to be all will be forgiven over an earlier slip-up by the rock-kickers at Terramin.
New game, same name
March 10 - 16, 2008
JOSHUA Pitt has been around this resources caper a long time. He has no doubt seen them come and go … the good, the bad and the aesthetically challenged.
Bonwick looks to refill golden cup
March 3 - 9, 2008
CHRIS Bonwick has previously spoken of the halcyon days in 1990s working for Resolute Samantha as its Chalice gold project churned out the cash. And so it’s probably no great surprise to find that Independence is one of the bidders for one of the better small gold mines to come on the market in recent years.
AA positive about MMX?
February 25 - March 2, 2008
COULD a return of Anglo American to the Australian iron ore sector be on the cards? Possibly so if you believe a fleeting reference made to MMX in a recent Merrill Lynch ‘big picture’ style report on the global mining sector.
Carrapateena clouds gathering?
February 11 - 17, 2008
RUDI Gomez could be forgiven for wondering if he’s being softened up for a lower ball offer than he might once have expected for his Carrapateena copper-gold find from Teck Cominco after the Canadian major listed a litany of negatives this week from the fourth quarter of 2007.
Downes looks around
February 4 - 10, 2008
CASHED-up Ironbark has raised $A5 million in equity from Standard Bank to expedite development of its Citronen zinc project in Greenland and, apparently, to engage in a bit of M&A.
Damned if you don't
January 21 - 27, 2008
WHAT exactly can the board and management at Perilya Mines do to climb out of the horrendous hole the company has fallen into over the past six months? Damningly for an established miner, the company currently appears to be trading on little more than cash backing.
It's cheap working in Brazil ... just ask Mirabela
January 14 - 20, 2008
YOU got to hand it to those boys from Brazil (via Perth’s salubrious western suburbs). The Mirabela Nickel boys that is; managing director Nick Poll, chairman Bill Clough, and executive director and Verona Capital principal Craig Burton.
Lions on the prowl, sharks circling
December 17 - 23, 2007
LION Selection and XSTRATA have some convincing to do, while KERRY Hamanis starts spending his squillions and the boys at BATAVIA Mining seek their next fortune.
Broker gains strong exposure to Maximus ground
December 10 - 16, 2007
PATERSONS Securities and its blessed clients are the proud new owners of nearly 26 million shares costing $A5.15 million in Maximus Resources. That’s the reward for being underwriters to a $A9.48 million non-renounceable rights issue that attracted $A4.32 million worth of applications.
Pushing but no shovelling
November 26 - December 2, 2007
GUNSON Resources is in a public spat with the Central Land Council (CLC) of Australia, which it accused last week of dragging its heels on a request to explore for uranium as a possible co-mineral to gold and copper at the Tennant Creek project in the Northern Territory.
Heron enjoys threesome
November 19 - 25, 2007
PLAYING the big boy suitors off against each other just beautifully in the past week has been the little bird with the alluring nickel assets, HERON Resources.
Raising the stakes
November 12 - 18, 2007
HERALD Resources is keeping mum about the arrival on its register of Perilya Mines, but the world could soon get an idea how the long-frustrated Michael Wright and Terence Allen feel about the whole affair with the mooted $A100 million equity capital raising being organised by Euroz.
Elephant is a Cat
November 5 - 11, 2007
THE elephant in two rooms in the mining equipment business is about to be revealed as a very large Cat.
Tour de force
October 29 - November 4, 2007
ROBERT Friedland’s corporate jet is yet again racking up the air miles, with the corporate roadshow designed to drum up support for an IPO of Ivanhoe Australia now in North America having already winged its way through Europe and down to the reformed convicts with money in Melbourne and Sydney.