Resources on the uptick: Some energy, some speculative oil. A little uranium, but not much of it among the equities. Timber is up. Fracking is up.
Down? In resources, nearly all the metals, with the possible exception of tungsten and one or two obscure rare earth element developers, keep intact their track records for immense capital destruction.
SALMON UPSTREAM: I just talked to Nikolas Perrault at Colt Resources (TSX: V.GTP, Stock Forum) in Portugal. Colt's chief tells me today (Friday) from Lisbon that a 10% senior-note raise of as much as $15 million is "separate" from Colt's 45-cent Hong Kong $5 million financing.
The senior-debt transaction for the gold and tungsten developer is just out, with a New York City dealer called TerraNova Capital doing the marketing. (Details)
These notes give holders Colt warrants at 45 cents a share in exchange for their cash. The holders also get to choose their interest rate payment twice a year -- in cash or stock. The dilution, not accounting for the interest rate payments, amounts to about 20 percent of current GTP shares, fully diluted (165 million shares).
Como um salmão nadando contra a corrente. (That is Portuguese, and translated metaphorically, it means: Colt shares look like they are going far higher in coming weeks. Literally, it means, "like a salmon swimming against the current.")
What is risky here is that interest rate payment. If holders take it in cash, they get more shares the lower the stock falls on a volume-weighted basis that averages the previous 30 days' GTP (in Canada) price before the payment date.
Looks like a salmon-killer if Mr. Perrault and his team fail to keep the stock price up.
Nikolas, a Quebecois who lives in Lisbon with most of his team, tells me he and his connections are working on several fronts: a bankable feasibility study on the company's Boa Fé Gold Project in southern Portugal; a partnership of some type (or outright sale?) for the tungsten project in northern Portugal; that cluster-shtupped Hong Kong financing that has been delayed since March or so; and something else, ineffable perhaps and certainly unstated ... but (TCR view here) possibly a fresh resource asset or change in control.
"I am confident the Hong Kong financing will come through," Mr. Perrault says. "I think our stock price in the past three or four weeks has outpaced most other late-stage resource developers."
I have heard from a couple of shareholders thus far, and they are neutral on the senior notes, which will pay for the gold feasibility study. The notes are backed by the gold property, by the way ... and not the tungsten project or its attached convent and vineyard/winery.
Yet those who own the shares and follow it each day are positive overall about Mr. Perrault's financing streams. The salmon again swimming against the current.
I am holding my GTP shares for the moment and continue to hold out hope that Mr. Perrault has something in his stream.
Look it, the credit tightening in China, in my view, almost surely is holding up the shipment of a newly formed Hong Kong fund's promissory note (or contractual pact) to Colt. Who knows whether there is a lawsuit there or not?
Colt shares in the wake of this announced financing Thursday are holding steady near 30 cents Canadian.
This time, I think, it will be different, in Colt's case. Just look at the 10-day stock chart these past three weeks.
Someone was buying to move the shares back to 30 cents Canadian. I only know that Nikolas Perrault has a working minerals development team in Portugal, and that he and his executives in recent months have been all over the place, including Canada, Dubai, China, Hong Kong and so on.
Like I said, look at the stock chart in late June. GTP shares are one of our TCR 8. I likely will add to our 172,000 shares here at home.
Finally: Rango Energy's CEO is in town (San Francisco). The leader of RANGO's team, Harp Sangha of Vancouver, along with exploration petroleum geologist Vincent Ramirez of Carson City, Nevada, continue to stick to their predictions that the current drilling at Kettleman Middle Dome will make national (USA) headlines in coming weeks.
Well, if we are talking oil-gas trade journals, even 1,000 barrels a day on confirmation might be good enough for headlines. But real NATIONAL HEADLINES, as in USA TODAY, might require a California strike of four times that. We'll see. The energy fields of central California have made fortunes (Occidental Petroleum) and lost 'em (Zodiac).
I do not own Rango shares (RAGO in USA). The firm to which I offer my consultation, Torrey Hills Capital, performs investor outreach for Rango Energy, which thankfully has no relation to the actor Johnny Depp. Rango is paying Torrey Hills in stock (bulletin board).
I visited Kettleman Middle Dome and mostly liked what I saw; what I did not see was the bluntnosed leopard lizard on the leased Bureau of Land Management Land.
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