Plus: Angkor Gold | Platinum Group Metals | Ivanhoe Mines
I am in
Ban Lung, Cambodia. Fresh off briefings from Mesco Gold (India company and ANK partner) about its developing gold mine in NE Cambodia.
Fresh off briefings from Angkor Gold in Ban Lung about that royalty producing mine. Fresh off gem hunting with the Angkor Gold team -- zircon digs in Ratankiri Province.
See:Thom at FB?.
?Angkor Gold (ANK in Canada) as I put this together on our Tuesday midday is shuttling a group of investors from China and Canada across its
Okalla and
Katieng prospects. Yesterday it was the
Otray prospects, including one called China Wall with continued sniffs of copper, moly and gold.
All of Angkor Gold's contract drillers and staff geologists (including chief geologist, 70-year-old
Adrian Mann) are into the final four to six weeks of four diamond-drill-rig exploration programs for copper, molybdenum, gold, lead and zinc. ?All of Angkor Gold's properties but one are in far
NE Cambodia, where intrusive igneous trends travel into the kingdom from proven mines and deposits of minerals in Laos and Vietnam.
On the gems: I have been to this gem-digging area in NE Cambodia twice over the years, and this third time, the large
zircons, 4 carats and more, are few and far between.
Zirconium silicate is dug in harsh conditions: slim holes of 10 meters to 05 meters deep. The holes often collapse. Suffocations alas, are far less rare than the discovery of large zircons.
The stones are gaining in popularity. Zircons are reddish, rusty, brownish. They usually turn bluish,
aquamarine, when heated in an oven.
This small operation was snuggled between rows of rubber trees at a plantation in the most prolific area of zircon digs, called
Baw Gaew. (
See photos from today. Cambodia is overrun with rubber tree farms -- a cash crop.
)
This article in modern jeweler explains a little bit about the current fad of zircons:
https://www.modernjeweler.com/web/online/Colored-Gemstone-Gem-Profiles/Cambodian-Zircon/1$336
The province of Ratanakiri also is the setting for
Angkor Gold's mineral concessions, all but one across 1,400 square kilometers of licenses in the kingdom.
Angkor Gold's field headquarters for the country of Cambodia is in the booming city of Ban Lung. (
Photo above: author and ANK's Mike Weeks at gem site)
Ban Lung is also where most of Ratanakiri Province's best zircon stone cutters live or work. A Canada professor,
Paula Pillonen, spent time at Angkor Gold earlier in the year researching the stones. This is one of Paula's
photos of small zircons from the area.
I'll have more about
Cambodia and Angkor Gold (ANK in Canada) in the coming week. The nation is extending a 6.5 percent economic growth streak into what looks like a fifth year.
Construction is everywhere. The main road between the cities of Kratie and Ban Lung is seeing vast improvement. We cut almost an hour off the nearly four-hour trek. (It takes 7 to 8 hours to Ban Lung driving from the capital of Phnom Penh.)
I am just back from a sixth visit to the developing
Mesco Gold mine, at Oyadao. It looks good, with two adits, a vertical shaft on the way, and office buildings, labs and training center nearly complete. Angkor Gold has a 7.5 percent net smelter return, a royalty, tied to gold mined and processed at the Mesco mine, whose mineral discovery Angkor Gold made in 2012.
Mesco, an India company, could be producing -- or at least stockpiling -- an initial 250 tons per day of ore at 6 grams gold per ton as soon as late 2015.
Earlier photos -- November 2014. Mesco executives tell me they intend to see the mine reach 2,000 tons per day of ore.
Platinum Group Metals
?This just in from
Mike Jones, who pings me from Hong Kong this morning. Mr. Jones of
Platinum Group Metals is on his way to Tokyo?. Platinum Group Metals 20 minutes ago unveiled a $20 million Japanese cash injection for its platinum exploration in South Africa.
Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. will provide the next USD? $20 million of joint venture funding at PLG/PTM's ?Waterberg projects?. I own Platinum Group Metals and shares of its platimum-plotting neighbor, Ivanhoe Mines. Have since 2003.
?Speaking of, here in Cambodia, as I interact with China and Canada investors and execs, I continue to connect dots between Ivanhoe's copper, zinc and platinum projects and IVN (ticker Canada)'s China equity connections -- largely multi-mineral producer
Zijin Mining. ?
Zijin in China's Fujian Province is the nation's second largest primary copper producer, a zinc miner and the first or second largest gold miner there. Zijin owns 10 percent of
Ivanhoe Mines via a cash investment of USD $82 million.
TCR takeaway: At some point we could see Zijin purchase outright or own a majority stake in Ivanhoe's Kamoa copper and zinc project in the DRC Congo. If that happens, Zijin will need to raise cash. Also: Ivanhoe might separate into two companies the DRC component of zinc and copper at
Kamoa and Kipushi and the Bushveld platinum group metals component in South Africa.
-- Thom Calandra
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Thom Calandra & TCR are researchers and investors. They are not registered investment advisers. The research and material they offer to subscribers are meant as editorial opinion.