LA PAZ, Mexico – Pediment Gold spent two years negotiating with surface rights owners across its vast Baja Peninsula concessions, called the San Antonio Project and got the majority of property rights owners to accept payment for their parcels.
The ejido payoff is now. Pediment (TSX: T.PEZ, Stock Forum) VP of Exploration and Geologist Mel Herdrick and a tight team of young negotiators got 133 of the 145 ejido property rights owners for the San Antonio gold property to sign on the line.
The San Antonio project, in my recent visit, appears to offer the prospect of an entire district for gold mining on the Baja California peninsula. Pediment controls mineral rights for concessions surrounding nearly all of San Antonio, CEO Gary Freeman says.
Mel Herdrick, back home this week in Hermosillo on the Mexico mainland, is in the midst of a second gold and silver project, (see detailsvia Stockhouse) for Pediment Gold’s La Colorada concession about an hour or less from the Sonoran city.
“It is always good to have them on your side – the ejido community,” CEO Freeman says about those who have long-standing property rights thanks to government agrarian reforms. (The Mexican Government owns mineral rights; individuals and communities own surface and water rights.)
The ejidos are becoming central to Canadian miners’ efforts to move it along when it comes to silver and gold assets. Surface rights owners represent the best and worst of land reform in Mexico:good because second and third generation grant holders are upholding a tradition of tending the land, raising crops, cattle and so on.
But, bad, as even Mel Herdrick, married to a Mexico native, says, “because it creates division as well as cohesion, especially with the advent of Internet communication. Everyone seems to want unreasonable amounts of dinero for land that is barren and best suited for mining.”
Just today, Oremex Resources (TSX: V.ORM, Stock Forum), one of the lowest-priced silver assets in Mexico’s Durango state, reaffirmed its money commitment to fixing botched relations with the village of Tejamen.
Oremex’s new CEO, Michael R. Smith, hopes he and his team can repair mistakes made by previous Oremex managers from Montana and Canada. “Some of these things seem pretty basic, like cutting down trees,” Oremex Board chair John Carlesso told me recently. “But you put that in with, say, language differences, perhaps a lack of respect for local traditions, and it adds up.”
As for Pediment Gold, Mel the geologist (pictured above at San Antonio. All photos are by Thom Calandra), Gary the rough-and-tumble financier who runs a strict ship, and that coterie of native negotiators are fast moving toward becoming a cheap (on a peer-basis) two-project plank in the world of Mexico silver and gold.
The resource in the measured and indicated category at La Colorada on the mainland is 605,000 ounces of gold and 5.13 million ounces of silver within 19.25 million tones. Some 582,000 ounces of gold and 6.19 million ounces of silver are contained within 20.07 million tonnes are in the mix as well.
“Because this is the first of a quotable number we have, I think it is significant … but there are two satellite deposits not completed as part of the resource,” say Mr. Herdrick.
I have yet to visit La Colorada but learned that another prospector whose first initial begins with “P” has been perusing the project.
This “P” company’s set of deposits in the Palmerjo area are much like La Colorada. “We were talking about getting together in January to do some on-site comparisons,” Mel Herdrick says.
In addition, at least one other small gold prospector active in northern Mexico, Animas Resources (TSX: V.ANI, Stock Forum), has close ties to Mr. Freeman and Pediment.
Mel Herdrick told me two additional zones -- Mina Verde and Veta Madre – are sort of hidden from the mix right now at La Colorada. “We have added holes to ‘em and there are definite resources there. Plus there is a run-of-mine leach dump with about three million metric tons that is coarse and fine and provided the original leach material. We drilled four holes into that which ranged from 0.5 to 1 gram, mostly in the coarse chunks.”
As for San Antonio on the peninsula, that I have seen. Nearly every meter of it. I find the looming mine as pleasurable as Punta Mita and the swank Cabo resorts some two hours’ south of La Paz. Must be gold fever.
I place Pediment’s San Antonio and surrounding concessions in a category of prospective gold mines that will be up and running within 18 months.
Pediment’s resource update just confirmed 1.54 million gold ounces in the measured and indicated category – at a 0.4 gram per metric ton cutoff. Another 111,000 ounces go into the inferred category. Data for these assertions come from 242 historic and new drill holes across 43,000 meters and 26,000 gold assays.
Pediment’s Canadian-listed shares (they trade as well in the United States) are skirting $1.50 a share. The stock, says colleague David Banister of Active Trading Partners in New England, “has a nice chart pattern with 4 week base.” A fund I hear was selling 400,000 shares for tax reasons into year end and are about done, so I believe PEZ is about to move to $1.80 ranges over the next 30 days. (See chart courtesy of ATP.)
I have no ownership of Pediment Gold shares at present. Our subscriber service Ticker Trax several weeks ago placed Pediment into the speculative mix.
Analysis: It is not often that operators attempt to keep their promises. CEO Gary Freeman has been fortunate to raise dough for Pediment at the correct moments in a sliding scale of gold fluctuations across the latter part of this decade. His team includes Mexicans who understand what second and third-generation surface rights owners want from Canadian miners: a fair price, the possibility of employment at a working mine … and a heck of a fiesta once in a while. Oh, and don’t knock over every tree on the landscape, bueno?
(Please see Thom’s San Antonio report.)
Colombia: Land grab like Mongolia ‘02
Just back and planning the next trip to Colombia by year’s end. Each time I tour the country’s gold, copper and energy projects, I am reminded of Mongolia 2002, when Ivanhoe Mines’ (TSX: T.IVN, Stock Forum) Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold porphyry caught the fancy of a nation … and the mining industry worldwide.
Colombia is mystifying. There are so many purchases, land swaps, political palanca [lever –ed] shifts and strategy sessions going on with so many properties/regions/districts, that I spend most weekday mornings on the telephone and the Skype, trying to sort it all out.
Keeping track of what Bob Allen’s Bullet (and Continental Gold/halted-security Cronus Resources from Colossus-man Ari Sussman in Toronto) owns in the country … and what the Carringtons, Bob and Gloria at Colombian Mines (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum), are assembling there … and how Rahim Jivraj’s private MercerGold from Vancouver, B.C., is cultivating Guayabales next to Marmato (with Canadian Shield’s Keith Laskowski as consultant) … oh yes, and soon-to-be potent Medoro Resources (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum), which I long have owned, and which looks to control the entire Marmato mountain, loopy wildcatters and all, and then perhaps take a run at trustee-held Frontino Mine … and yes, we have not even mentioned Georges Julliand’s Titiribi … and Zancudo in Antioquia … and all of the other long-held properties in Colombia that are controlled by European mining aficionado Georges Juilland.
Titiribi on-site operator Phil O’Neill, on his way to a small holiday on the Mayan Riviera, tells me the Sunward group controlling the historic mine and concession there has had discussions with the owners of the old Zancudo mine. Phil adds, “It is not currently part of our Titiribi property package; however, at the right price it would make sense to consolidate more of the area. Things in Colombia have gone nuts of late and the issue I believe will be what the right price is.”
Right price right now. Adrian Hobkirk’s Caerus Resources (TSX: V.CA, Stock Forum) looks so cheap, it might be scraping rock like a caveman’s knuckles in Bucaramanga, where it is assembling concessions. So does CMJ, even with its massive appreciation of late. Colombian Mines is only a $20 million company. Less even.
Some 40 percent of Colombia has not been geologically mapped, Bob Carrington at CMJ tells me over a pickaxe at one of the camino reales across his Yuramalito property.
On the private front, 32-year-old Rahim Jivraj in Vancouver is putting together what he hopes is a MercerGold package of (for now privately held) properties that lead pony the Antioquia/Caldas parade with Guayabales. This gold-dusted wonder and active cooperative I have seen, courtesy of Keith Laskowski and the Carringtons at CMJ. This one, as yet not public, is without a doubt in my frame of mind the best (and cheapest) Marmato area play in Caldas and Antioquia departments. Non-trading, that is.
Once the folks at Medoro – among them NYU-trained Venezuelan ex-pat Vicente Mendoza – take their Marmato efforts to Wall Street and your street – and possibly purchase the Frontino Mine at Segovia, the value of privately-held Guayabales and Mercer vehicle likely will quintuple overnight. Ditto for CMJ and several other Marmato-area prospects in and around Antioquia and Caldas departments.
In the category of “area plays & road shows,” I also expect Bob Allen and Ari Sussman and Stuart Moller’s Continental Gold (Buritica, Berlin and other properties) to arouse interest in separately owned Colombia concessions when Mr. Sussman of Toronto and his team take their reverse-takeover financing and stock market debut on the road in January.
On the Guayabales front, I learn this week that several financiers are seeking to parcel promising Marmato-area properties into something larger. Medoro perhaps? Bob Allen’s Bullet portfolio of more than 30 Colombian properties and mines? Georges Juilland’s Titiribi?
“In essence, Medoro bought one side of the Marmato mountain (via now defunct Colombia Gold Fields) for $90 million and Mercer bought the other side,” Rahim Jivraj in Vancouver tells me, “for just $4 million.” The Guayabales payment to private surface rights owners is $4 million over four years.
“I’m working hard to ensure we are trading by no later than April,” Rahim tells me from a break from skiing in British Columbia today (Monday). “Medoro has 2.3m oz Au measured and indicated with another 1.1m inferred on the Colombia Goldfields land parcel; I understand that there’s another 2.5m in a non compliant report on the Colombia Gold parcel; I haven’t heard what resource exists in the ‘zona baja’ where MinerosNacionales produces a reported 25,000 oz a year but understand that they are within 100 meters of the (Guayabales) property boundary.”
Rahim continues, “We have the same rocks, geology and know that gold is there because of the artisanal production on our side. The major differences are that we don’t have several parties to deal with to consolidate the area and we don’t have a town on our side so we’re open-pit amenable.”
Thus, Stockhouse audience, the attraction is the same that is luring scores of miners to assemble makeshift mills and operations in these rolling hills: Guayabales is 100 to 300 meters from the Northwest corner of Medoro’s Marmato underground complex. Medoro hopes to consummate purchase of the lower half of Marmato from Mineros Nacionales sometime in the next three months, Medoro VP of Exploration Vicente Mendoza tells me during a December tour of the property. (Photo of Mr. Mendoza at Marmato above.)
Upper Marmato, controlled by Medoro Resources (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum), is showing that with a cutoff grade of 0.30 g/t Au, the wildcat zone of this politically conflicted and overrun mountain almost surely will have not less than 3 million ounces of measured and indicated gold resources. This is according to data and other logs in my possession.
Boosting Medoro’s efforts on the Marmato and Frontino fronts are Mr. Mendoza, a Venezuelan with an NYU pedigree and longstanding ties to Colombian government and some of the best native geologists in the region, among them one who was at the Frontino Mine in the 1970s.
The Medoro team is also allied with the multi-billion-dollar success of Pacific Rubiales (TSX: T.PRE, Stock Forum), a Colombian energy company whose newfound oil projects were engineered with the financing and political pull of several Canada and Bogota executives. These include Frank Giustra (mentioned today in a Vancouver Sun article), Sally Eyre of Endeavour Financial (TSX: T.EDV, Stock Forum) in Vancouver and Serafino Iacono of Bogota and Cartagena.
As for historic Titiribi (gorgeous little town)90 minutes outside the city of Medellin that I hope to visit later this month or early next. Says operator Phil O’Neill, “We have some very good news. We just secured La Muriel Mining from the Juilland brothers while in Asia with Michel Juilland. This is the company that is the underlying owner of the Murindo copper/gold prospect in Colombia. It is part of a JV with Rio Tinto. It is certainly one of the world's best un-drilled copper prospects and the gem of Colombia.”
More notes: Candente Gold now has the cash backing of Frank Holmes’s U.S. Global asset management firm in San Antonio, Texas. A hard-hitting and ultra-skeptical geologist/analyst also appears to be on board El Oro’s gold train. Candente Gold and its El Oro project in Mexico are raising as much as $10 million in two loads, or tranches.
On a cheap basis, Candente also promises a post-holiday present – one share of the new gold company for every five Candente Resource (DNT) shares owned. Candente Resource, active on the copper and gold fronts in Peru, is one of 12 Ticker TraxPlanetary Prospects.
Bob and Gloria Carrington’s and Nate Tewalt’s Colombian Mines (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum) was the company that essentially handed over the Guayabales property to MercerGold some months ago. CMJ let its option to purchase the property lapse so that it perform new drilling at La Escuela portion of its Yuramalito Gold Project.
Colombian Mines’ Yuramalito Project is one of four Colombia properties and is not more than 15 km as the crow flies from El Marmato.
Geologist Bob Carrington has been assembling and managing Colombia gold, coal and other properties as a geologist and a CEO since 1993. Colombian Mines (CMJ) is one of just a handful of companies DECLINING at present to raise additional shareholder-dilutive money in the Colombia land grab.
Coming in January
Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, Jan. 17-18. I’ll be there with Ticker Trax workshops.
TC on TT™
Ticker Trax™ and Thom Calandraare fresh back from Colombia and Peru. His reporting in the subscriber service recently highlighted Fortuna Silver and Focus Ventures, both in Peru. (Photo of Thom Calandra at Fortuna’s Caylloma Silver Mine in Peru courtesy of Fortuna’s Carlos Baca.)
(Please see:Thom Calandra’s Stockhouse articles. Thom does own each of the Planetary Prospects in subscriber-supported Ticker Trax™. Thomowns shares of Medoro Resources and has for 18 months. He owns Candente Resource, a Planetary Prospect of Ticker Trax™.)
Ticker Trax™
Please see tickertrax.comto learn more about this wealth service and its 11 Planetary Prospects. Also, please see its breakout feature examinations of two Ghana gold prospectors, one Guyana prospector and gold producer and one molybdenum mine in British Columbia proceeding toward its own metals factory. Subscribers, please click here for password-secure Ticker Trax.
For an index of free Thom, please click here.
HOLDINGS:Thom’s stock holdings are listed for all Stockhouse members on www.Stockhouse.com under the “portfolio setting” for user TCALANDRA. It is public and free to view. He also owns recently minted gold and silver coins and shares of two private companies, one in South Africa and one in the DRC (Congo). Thom does not do private placements or accept payment in return for coverage. Thom participates in select company-sponsored and company-paid tours of mining sites after examining the properties off-site for many months and in some cases, years. Focus and Fortuna were sponsored tours. I do not own the shares.
THOM CALANDRA of Ticker Traxhelps his audience find value in a quagmire of investment choices. Thom co-founded and was executive VP of news for CBS MarketWatch andMarketWatch.com. As the voice of Thom Calandra's StockWatch and The Calandra Report, Thom pegged $300-ounce gold as a long-term hold and dyed his hair blonde multiple times as gold surpassed $400, $500 and $600.
Ticker Trax™ is published by Stockgroup Media Inc. Ticker Trax is an information service for subscribers and neither Stockhouse nor Thom Calandra is a broker or an investment advisor. None of the information contained therein constitutes a recommendation by Mr. Calandra or Stockhouse/Stockgroup Media that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction, or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person. Ticker Trax does not purport to tell or suggest the investment securities subscribers or readers should buy or sell for themselves. Subscribers and readers of Ticker Trax should conduct their own research and due diligence and obtain professional advice before making any investment decisions. Ticker Trax will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a reader’s reliance on information obtained in the reports. Subscribers and readers are solely responsible for their own investment decisions. Opinions expressed in Ticker Trax are based on sources believed to be reliable and are written in good faith, but no representation or warranty, expressed or implied, is made as to their accuracy or completeness. All information contained in Ticker Trax should be independently verified. The editor and publisher are not responsible for errors or omissions or responsible for keeping information up to date or for correcting any past information. Ticker Trax does not receive compensation of any kind from any companies that may be mentioned in the report. Any opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. Owners, employees and writers may hold positions in the securities that are discussed in Ticker Trax. PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL THOM SEEKING PERSONALIZED INVESTMENT ADVICE, WHICH HE CANNOT PROVIDE. Copyright 2009 all rights reserved.