ON THE WAY TO GHANA – We’ll see more prepay gold transactions – like the one that Rio Alto (TSX: V.RIO, Stock Forum) just unveiled for its Arena gold oxide project in Peru.
A New York City hedge fund to be named later says Rio Alto’s Alex Black will provide $24.5 million as the mine gets up and running and notches environmental approvals and construction permits. In return, the hedge fund gets 36,800 ounces of gold spanning 40 months from first gold production.
As gold prices rise, gold payment structured like so provides what those folks in NYC call UP-side. Just back from Peru, I am looking for any gold-copper-silver property that can cement a transaction sidestepping paper and embracing metal. In Peru, our two copper candidates, in our service Ticker Trax, are John Black’s Antares Minerals (TSX: V.ANM, Stock Forum) and Joanne Freeze’s Candente Copper (TSX: T.DNT, Stock Forum).
Both are in the select world of copper properties that hold more than six billion pounds of the metal. In Antares’ case, it is more than 13 billion pounds of contained copper. Both Candente and Antares have Canada-traded shares sized up at a penny or, at most, two pennies or so for each pound of in-situ copper. That is cheap on anyone’s valuation table.
Antares, which got its start from an Internet stock shell called Planet Ventures about six years ago, almost certainly will demonstrate a fresh and potent price level for copper company purchases, one that sits in a four-cent to six-cent in-situ range. The plush premium for Antares might occur within 12 months’ time, largely because of the size and grades of its Haquira holding and its 10-kilometer distance from the massive Xstrata Ferrobamba copper project. (For the entire Antares profile, please see ouron-site Stockhouse coverage. We here at home own no shares of Antares.)
As for other real-metal prospects: Candente Copper and Candente Gold (TSX: T.CDG, Stock Forum) are what we call Planetary Prospects of our Ticker Trax service. At home, we own each of the 13 Prospects. All are in the money. All are companies or trends we research on-site and in depth – over many months and even years.
Much of what Candente Gold’s Señor Enrique Bernuy in Peru and Joanne Freeze in Canada are examining at their gold properties in Peru has caught our attention. (Please see our landscape shot of one of those Peruvian properties.) Mr. Bernuy, Candente Gold’s in-country geologist, makes a case, possibly a powerful case, for low and high-sulfidation gold zones at a high-altitude prospect called Fredito. Silver to boot. Mr. Bernuy is steadfast in his belief Fredito is part of the same volcanic belt at the La Rescatada deposit in the nearby Arasi, where he cut his teeth as a geologist. (For our on-site coverage of Fredito, please visit www.tickertrax.com.)
Colombia: Carla Resources and its La Gran Colombiana Mine and other holdings in and around Segovia and Remedios are now part of my notebook. Carla Resources’ principals are Jaime Gutierrez and Jorge Jaramillo Pereira, both 48. I have met them. Mr. Gutierrez has a long family history, as in more than a century, of operating gold and other metals refiners and construction companies. Mr. Pereira worked at Colombia’s Ministry of Mines for 16 years – into 2007. Carla owns 32,000 hectares of titles and applications to title in Antioquia and Choco departments.
Carla Resources is quite possibly the next cog in someone’s big wheel, Mr. Jaramillo Pereira tells me. Carla, he says to me the other day in the gold-rush city of Medellin, is in conversations with Louis Saenz of Peru, Rugby Resources of Australia, Medoro Resources (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum) and Continental Gold, among others. Also: B2Gold. (We here at home own no shares of Continental, B2Gold, Rugby.)
Mr. Gutierrez sits on the board of Bob Allen and Ari Sussman’s Continental Gold (TSX: T.CNL, Stock Forum). (Please seeour profileof those two Colombia prospectors.) Both Jorge and Jaime tell me Carla Resources quite possibly could see itself aligned in the same power-axis as Continental Gold or Bob Allen’s large Colombia portfolio of properties, Grupo de Bullet.
Mr. Gutierrez also has a take on Medoro Resources’ continued and hard-won efforts to extract the maximum potential from historic mines at El Marmato and Frontino Mine, both in Antioquia. “Look,” he tells me over a coffee in Medellin, “Frontino is a Pandora’s Box. No one no matter how many assays and tests knows whether Frontino has another four million ounces of gold. Or eight million ounces. The only thing we know is that the people who work on behalf of Medoro, Serafino Iacono for instance, and Juan Manuel Pelaez, have a track record of success with government, with labor and with sticky financial issues. These people know how to handle ‘bad’ things in Colombia, which is a very good country. Plus, they made a lot of money with (oil producer) Pacific Rubiales (TSX: T.PRE, Stock Forum) in a very short period of time. A lot of their connections here made money, too. That can’t hurt.”
We here at home own shares of Medoro, which Mr. Iacono and others have guided into a consolidator of real-metal, as in producing, Colombia gold mines. The Medoro shares stem from our ill-timed (as in muy expensive) purchase of predecessor Ian Park’s Colombia Goldfields some three years ago. Today, the shares are extremely active. For the first time in a very long time, my Medoro stake is “in the money.” I am told Salida Capital, a Canada bank and asset manager, was visiting Medoro’s El Marmato in Antioquia this week.
El Marmato and the Frontino Mine are at opposite ends of one of the most promising gold (and copper) districts in the world – in the Department of Antioquia, Colombia. I shall be returning to Colombia in mid-May, two weeks before the presidential election. Our Ticker Trax audience has been following developments at two Planetary Prospects with real-metal gold and copper concessions in that country. There is this week several potent bids being made for gold and copper projects across Colombia, once South America’s largest gold producer.
For now, I am off to Ghana to visit for a second time our Planetary Prospect in that longstanding West Africa democracy. (Please see a selection of our coverage.)
What else: This was from a Ticker Trax report to subscribers earlier this week. I continue topurchase – three months after our tour of South Africa – shares of Platinum Group Metals (T.PTM and PLG). I need more platinum in our holdings here at home. I also have faith that R. Michael Jones and his team will take their South Africa platinum properties into production at a pace that keeps everyone – shareholders, government, empowerment groups and bankers – at stand-up attention. I have no intention of tracking Platinum Group Metals as a Planetary Prospect. We here at home own private shares of Mr. Jones’s neighbor on the Bushveld Complex, Robert M. Friedland’s Ivanhoe Platinum & Nickel.
Platinum Group Metals today (Thursday) said a South Africa agency approved transfers of the final parts of mineral property rights in its Western Bushveld joint venture project. This is similar to a closing of title. Mr. Jones says – as he told us several months ago at the project – that he and his team are sizing up three or four “strategic alternatives” on how to finance the Project 1 Platinum Mine.
Ticker Trax
Please see Stockhouse for a selection of our Ticker Trax research and our password-secure library for subscribers. Thom Calandra owns shares of each of the 13 Planetary Prospects in Ticker Trax.
InvestFest 2010
InvestFest in Las Vegas – Join Stockhouse for a drink on the house June 4 at InvestFest.The gathering will feature investment masters who are making headway in today's marketplace. I’ll be there. It’s called InvestFest 2010. Please visit:: www.stockhouse.com/products/investfest2010.
WHEN: June 3 to June 6.
WHERE: Green Valley Ranch Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada. That’s a five-star resort minutes from the Vegas strip.
Special Offer to Ticker Trax subscribers: $197. Please book your resort rate as well by calling 1-866-782-9487. Quote: InvestFest.
Several speakers will be distributing gifts.They include:
- Brain Tracy’s book: “The Way to Wealth: Success Strategies of Wealthy Entrepreneurs”
- Garrett Gunderson’s book: “Killing Sacred Cows”
- Bill Walsh’s CD Program “The Ultimate Success Secret”
- Two grand prizes of a Whistler Lodge Presidential Suite in British Columbia, Canada.
(All photos by Thom Calandra.)
Thom Calandra and his family own shares of each of the Planetary Prospects in Ticker Trax. Thom’s family holdings are available for all to see on Stockhouse, the Canada publishing company. Thom’sholdings are listed for Stockhouse members at www.Stockhouse.com under the “portfolio setting” for user TCALANDRA. It is public and free to view. He and his family own recently minted gold and silver coins and shares of about 22 public and two private companies. Thom Calandra and his family own each of the Planetary Prospects in Ticker Trax. For the password-protected Ticker Trax library, please see: www.tickertrax.com/Login.aspx.
THOM CALANDRA of Ticker Trax helps his audience find value in a quagmire of investment choices. Thom co-founded CBS MarketWatch and MarketWatch.com. As the voice of Thom Calandra's StockWatch and The Calandra Report, Thom pegged $300-ounce gold as a long-term hold in 1999 and in 2000. He has been covering life-sciences and natural resources since 1988.
Ticker Trax™Please see tickertrax.com to learn more about this wealth service and its Planetary Prospects. For an index of free Thom Calandra articles, please click here. For an entire explanation of our strategies, research methods and disclosure procedures regarding all aspects of Ticker Trax and our Stockhouse reports, please visit our readily available Stockhouse articles. Please see this one in particular: Core Box Revealed.
Thom Calandra and Stockhouse produce this and other free reports. Please visit Stockhouse.
Ticker Trax™ is published by Stockhouse Publishing Ltd. 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 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 2010 all rights reserved.