COLOMBIA – It is official in my book: Colombia is heads-away the leader for grass-roots metals exploration. Only West Africa comes close.
The nation is drawing asset managers and sell-side analysts seeking the next Ventana Gold and the next Medoro Resources (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum). They want to replicate the rapid success of Ari Sussman and Bob Allen’s Continental Gold (TSX: T.CNL, Stock Forum) and its Buritica Gold Project in Antioquia.
“Not too many companies reporting good drilling results that can also demonstrate the system can be large,” Mr. Sussman tells me as he too heads to the city of Medellin this week for an umpteenth time.
Continental Gold is the junior prospector that has outpaced nearly every other since I started going to the beloved Paris of South America quite frequently two years ago. Continental Gold has the beauty and vast potential of its Buritica Gold Project, which is a producer and which I have seen.
CNL enjoys plentiful capital ($57 million just reported in its most recent placement of equity) thanks to eager institutional investors. Just as importantly, its main geologist and VP of exploration, Stuart Moller, is a workaholic. Buritica’s latest headline number: 14 meters of 446-gram-per-tonne gold). I asked Ari Sussman, the CEO and a Toronto financier who also runs Colossus Minerals of Brazil, whether any of the amazing Buritica gold and silver assays from several weeks ago regarding drill results neglected to mention holes that were duds. He said there were none.
I head to Antioquia this week amid the prolific Middle Cauca Belt to view at least two speculative properties. They include one next to Buritica and one next to Colombian Mines’ (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum) Yarumalito. This is my 11th or 12th trip since 2008.
As for fresh perspective from the folks on the ground there, Bob Carrington of Colombian Mines (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum), Paul Zweng of Bellhaven Copper & Gold (TSX: V.BHV, Stock Forum) and a couple of others, including in-country geologists for battered Antioquia Gold (TSX: V.AGD, Stock Forum), have the goods and the histories to inform audiences. There is a financier or two, such as Mr. Sussman or historic Frontino Mine operator Gran Colombia Gold’s (TSX: V.GCM, Stock Forum) Serafino Iacono, and they too have something relevant to say about gold, copper and silver prospecting in a grassroots place such as Colombia.
“We knew this day would come,” says Mr. Iacono, a politically-connected Bogota businessman and former director of El Marmato mine operator Medoro Resources. “We just did not know how long it would take to get these capital inflows across the mining spectrum.”
The nation once was South America’s largest gold producer. Now it is one of the world’s fastest growing sources of verifiable and prospective gold (and copper and silver and iron ore and coal).
Bob Carrington of Colombian Mines, whose shares I own, has been in-country for a span covering three decades. Mr. Carrington, a Nevada resident, moves slowly and deliberately yet his tiny Colombian Mines controls a vast amount of hectares across Colombia. “I know most investor have very unrealistic expectations or lack of understanding of what precious metal investments can do and the difference in a mature exploration theater vs. a frontier area like Colombia.”
Mr. Carrington, president of CMJ to fellow geologist Nate Tewalt’s CEO position, continues, “This is not a mature exploration environment like Nevada, Ontario or most of North America. The promise and curse of frontier exploration areas is that we are starting essentially where the USA and Canada were circa 1950. You walk up the creek looking for the tail end of the elephant sticking out of the ground and then you start pulling on it.”
Mr. Carrington says most geologists typically start “with almost no data as we would consider it in North America, no reliable property or local data and no drill holes. So every company here is building a data base equivalent to the last 40 years of exploration in Nevada. The production is going to come and when it does, it will be big. I predict, and have since I first started working in Colombia in late 1992, that Colombia will give Nevada a run for its position as a major world gold producer in the not too distant future.”
Dr. Paul Zweng, for his part, has notched prospecting and corporate success in Mongolia and in Peru and now is turning heads. His Bellhaven Copper & Gold (TSX: V.BHV, Stock Forum), whose shares I own in large amounts, in several months has ripped into the country, secured a gold-copper porphyry near historic Titiribi and Zancudo in Antioquia and just published sturdy, and some say substantial, drill data. Please see:Bellhaven’s Porphyry Payoff.
Two months after we gain the property (in May) we start drilling in July,” he says about La Mina, which I have seen. “Now I have in my pocket a hole with 142 meters of +1 g/ton gold equivalent.”
The Stanford University-trained geologist says his goal is to test whether each of the four mineralized centers at La Mina can host, on average, one million ounces “or better of contained gold. So far we have drilled three holes at La Cantera (supplementing the six that were drilled by AngloGold-Ashanti and Bema Gold in 2006 … and two holes at the Middle Zone (assays pending). No holes have been collared yet at the North Zone or at El Limon. So it is still very much early days before we can be definitive regarding whether we will achieve our goal or not. That said, we believe we are off to a good start.”
We’ll have more for our Stockhouse and Ticker Trax audience from these prospectors and from others, including Brandon Rook of Batero Gold (TSX: V.BAT, Stock Forum) and new CEO Maria Araujo of Gran Colombia Gold. I own and also research on behalf of our Ticker Trax audience several Colombian prospectors, including Bellhaven, Colombian Mines, Antioquia Gold, Caerus Resources and (a tiny amount) Medoro Resources.
TOURS: Colombia properties I am looking at this week are, like most in my world, in Antioquia. One of them is El Cafatel next to Yarumalito, a CMJ property. The other is nearby CNL’s Buritica. The company is Caerus Resources (TSX: V.CA, Stock Forum).
THE NOVEL: It’s here, complete and for your reading pleasure: PABLO BY NUMBERS by Thom Calandra. It’s about the world of natural resources … and pain … and joy. Funny, too.
New Orleans in October & San Francisco Hard Assets in November: This autumn I will be making two or three appearances outside of prospect tours. One of them is in New Orleans, where I appear each year at Brien Lundin’s New Orleans Investment Conference. Another is San Francisco in November. If you’d like to join our Stockhouse and Ticker Trax audience at the late-October show, please register and pay up at this link: REGISTER FOR NEW ORLEANS. You get a discount on the price at that address. It’s my favorite investment show – along with the longstanding San Francisco Hard Assets conference in November, when I will be presenting a workshop.
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HOLDINGS: Thom’s holdings 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 30 public and two private companies.
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.
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