TIBURON, California -- I am just back from Cambodia, where our volunteer medical team assisted the ANK Foundation's efforts to educate villagers on CPR, treatment of cuts and burns and a big winner: using rhythm beads to time menstrual cycles.
Naturally, we also scoured Angkor Gold's gold-silver and copper projects in tbe nation of 15 million people, moi for a third time in less than 3 years. See photos.
Our man in Ban Lung headquarters, chief geologist and exploration manager Kurtis Dunstone, gave us a rundown and tour of current development work at wholly operated properties and one joint venture project at Phum Syarung, not far from the Vietnam border with Cambodia in the northeast. Kurtis celebrated his 40th birthday during our tours of Angkor Gold properties.
Angkor Gold (TSX:V.ANK, Stock Forum) is one of the TCR 8. I was purchasing more last week. The company's chief executive, Mike Weeks, is sticking to a plan of methodical development and sale (or partnering) of properties in its seven-license exploration portfolio of concessions
This is a note to say we will be reporting more about facts gleaned from this trip, such as which property is likely to reap a fresh partner, and why the new Wild Boarprospect (early stage) might provide evidence of continuity of mineralization across Angkor's properties at China Wall and the surrounding forested area of Andong Meas.
The head-honcho geologist, Zimbabwean Adrian Mann, a self-described 69-year old white Rhodesian (his words) who earned a doctorate in the science of rocks on the continent of Africa, says he has 20 prospects that he will develop further during the next two years. Exploration funds for the moment are coming from what has been a steady run of fresh money from India and China partners or property buyers.
This is a good time to be in Cambodia. One of the youngest nations in the world, per capita. (This in the wake of generational gaps created by the Khmer Rouge massacres of the 1970s.)
Cambodia is growing so fast, most of the capital city's bicycles are now motor bikes and cars -- even pulling the tuk-tuks across steaming Phnom Penh, where every other vehicle is a truck, an earth mover or a crane, it seems like.
In the photo link above, on Google-Plus, you will see where we came upon a family at a mom-pop service station and food vendor counting their money: lots of it. The Cambodians love money, love transacting it and love ensuring that every transaction is exact. Honesty is the policy.
Still, the 5-year-old helping out in that counting shuffled over to me and said, politely: "Go Away." I think he meant, 'Stop taking photos, silly,' and not, 'Take your freely accepted dollars somewhere else, like to Vietnam.'
Back to Angkor Gold: I have to believe oil-gas leases are next on the auction block to loyal westerners with 5-year and 10-year timelines in the country. ANK's operators are among the best connected westerners doing business in Cambodia. Adrian Mann's exploration efforts continued through the drought in metals equities that we saw from March 2011 through the very present. Perhaps this is why Angkor Gold's shares are in a top percentile among metals equities worldwide for holding onto their total dollar value during the selloff.
Not just that. I'd like to take a moment to encourage you to take a look at Angkor Gold's social progress among the villages where it practices its prospecting craft. See:community development section. Social director Delayne Weeks, Mike's wife, is making fast headway on a training center for computer users, innovative gardening of cash crops such as hot chilies, and my favorite, an English teaching center. Also: water wells, pumps, water retention devices, medical instruction, medical supplies.
Please join a flock of investors and good hearted folks from Alberta, Canada, who support the ANK Foundation's efforts via Rotary Club and individual donations. Each year, these projects -- heck, the entire country -- are getting cleaner, more efficient and more self-reliant. Some of the attached photos give a sense of how clean and spot-on things are -- at Okalla for example, where water tanks enable villagers to harvest rain.
In the meantime, my coming week is slightly problematic, with two medical exams of my left hip and overall catch-up after almost two weeks in the field with the Angkor Gold team and gastroenterologist and ANK Foundation board member Francis A. Farraye and his two connected registered nurses: Jennifer Farraye, daughter, and Rochelle Remily, sister-in-law. They hail from Boston and New York City.
My technical friends tell me the coming week will knock the socks off the gold (and metals equities) market in a big way, in a good way. I think so, too. Nearly everything we follow for our TCR audience is 20 percent to 30 percent above its lows.
I am keeping in touch with David Banister, our man (not Robert Redford on that sailboat) in New England. Here is his latest chart:
Mr. Banister operates www.ActiveTradingPartners.com. I do not patronize market technicians, but this one has a five-year track record of success in my notebooks. Monday, gold continued higher, toward $1,300 an ounce.
Finally, new subscribers ask: What is the TCR 8?
Simply, it is companies -- eight of them -- that are:
1. likely to see large gains in a resources boom;
2. currently cheap;
3. in possession of properties and assets I personally have seen.
They are:
Solvista Gold
NuLegacy Gold
Angkor Gold
Atico Mining
Gold Standard Ventures
Gran Colombia Gold
Pilot Gold
Colt Resources
I own all of them. They all are intensely speculative. One of them, Gran Colombia Gold (TSX:T.GCM, Stock Forum), is a producer of gold and silver and grappling with survival issues that (I believe) will be put to rest. But not before the company proves its Segovia operations will "rescue" cash flow for the cash-strapped company with relatively expensive operating costs. GCM still must prove it can match a self-set figure of $950 an ounce in all-in sustaining costs for producing gold at Segovia: an almost 20 percent improvement,
(On the subject of survival, a recent $4 million bridge loan from GCM executives and insiders, while helpful, also gives those insiders the inside line on a $7 million private placement currently in the works. The placement units have yet to be set in price. The interest-free loan shows how close to the precipice Gran Colombia really is.)
Everything about Gran Colombia Gold is bathed in controversy. The stock right now is outpacing gainers among worldwide metals equities, but then, GCM shares had fallen to levels last seen in the Ice Age, or something like that. The value of its denominated gold and silver notes also were (and are) hit hard. The silver ones trade publicly and sparsely. With $100 as par value, those notes now sell for $42. With their coupon, the notes are now yielding 12 percent for fresh investors.
Back to the TCR 8. These are companies that have no guarantees attached. Of the lot, Atico Mining is the other actual producer of metal: gold, silver, some copper at El Roble in Colombia. I have tried to shy away from junior companies that turn to the equity faucet frequently but have had mixed success. This is because every time I turn around, there is one in the works, most recently Gold Standard Ventures (TSX:V.GSV, Stock Forum).
If I were someone with little exposure to metals equities, and looking for early positions in companies with staying power, I'd be buying shares of Angkor Gold right here. Also, Atico Mining (TSX:V.ATY, Stock Forum). NuLegacy Gold also is priced as cheap as the Nevada dirt it is stirring.
Final final note: Our reports cannot guarantee coverage of each and every event among those 8 companies. Or that those 8 will remain the same. Still, I try to wait out these awful droughts.
We also provide plenty of ideas here based on first hand information -- and not just in resources. We occasionally look at energy companies, bio-medicals and the rare duck that quacks "Cheap!" regardless of industry.
For the latest news flow on those 8 companies, rely on news wires and press releases. Please.
Thank you.
Thom Calandra
@thomcalandra for Twitter