Without stuff, you’re nothing: Colombia
- Speculative purchase: Colombian Gold Mines (CMJ)
- Marmato: Back again (MRS)
- Inter-Citic Minerals shoots higher (ICI) Looking at
MEDELLIN - Across much of this city of four million people, there is – how shall we say – a love of beauty. As in cosmetic surgery. Best in the world, I am told.
One Colombia television series, “Sin Senos No Hay Paraíso,” is often referred to in this once wild-west and now gorgeous valley of orchids and high-rise lifestyles, as “Without T—ts, You’re Nothing: Narco Girls.”
A woman, a well-known miner, told me this in Bogota. I heard it again here in Medellin, where I lived briefly many years ago.
Here in this nation of 40 million, without a large heart and bold maneuvers in the simmering world of gold mines and oil fields, you ain’t nothing.
I have little time right now for a full report. Our tours of many properties here in the departments of Antioquia and Caldas are reaping potent rewards in some cases. Here are some quick notes:
-- Today I head yet again (for a third time) to the totally stupefying hill of gold dust known as Marmato, which is being consolidated by Medoro Resources (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum), a fast-growing company with deep political connections. Expect great detail about Marmato, a mountain of broken dreams, streaks of Persian blue cyanide dripping like tears down 
multiple landslides. And untold (and some fully reported) gold riches. I have owned shares of predecessor Colombian Goldfields (Ian Parke and Stewart Redwood) for almost two years now at steep losses, after having fallen in love with this occupied high and low zone mountain of wildcat miners, mills and vast resources. That is all about to change – the steep losses part, that is. Medoro has the will and the way and is negotiating the purchase of another property here, the old and troubled yet potent Frontino Mine, legendary in this country. Yet I have no intention yet of naming this a speculative purchase or a Planetary Prospect, not until I learn more from Vicente Mendoza at the property … and I shall not be selling my shares at three times the current price (which is about 46 cents a share). Please see our earlier report and the four-part profile we completed in May 2008, with photos. Many of the wildcat mills there still are turning daily profits from the mineros ilegales. See the original Thom Report. Photo above is Exploration Insights’ Brent Cook and Thom Calandra at Marmato earlier this week.
-- Colombia Mining (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum): I have seen 100 percent-owned Yarumalito bordering Antioquia and Caldas Department in Colombia. The shares – fewer than 20 million of them – sell for 60 cents Canadian. This is a moon shot. I do not own the stock. Robert and Gloria Carrington run the homespun company. What I saw will turn heads in coming months. I am considering the company as a Planetary Prospect of this service.
-- Several subscribers have been worried crazy about BioCryst Pharma’s (NASDAQ: BCRX, Stock Forum) deep drop to 7 from 12 . We own all 65,000 shares still and I expect great developments with leukemia drug forodesine, with H1N1 treatment peramivir and with worldwide sales partnerships. Nothing has changed in my coverage of BioCryst, which is going on four years now – 13 months for Ticker Trax and before that – privately for a hedge fund.
- Oremex (TSX: V.ORM, Stock Forum): This tiny thing in Mexico’s Durango state is attempting to salvage a ravaged ejido community by previous ownership. John Carlesso and Grant Hall, whom I shall see in Colombia, have been working on this silver situation for about a year or more. Continental Gold’s (TSX: T.CNL, Stock Forum) (a Bob Allen spinoff of nine Colombia properties engineered by Toronto’s Ari Sussman) Stuart Moller, the lead geologist and VP who is heading a Colombia project I will have much more to report about in coming days and weeks, tells me new CEO Mike Smith, formerly Barrick, is the one person to take Oremex’s potential 50 million-ounce resource to new heights. He has a lot of work ahead of him, and I do not own the shares. But if he succeeds in mending fences, the shares rise 10-fold from their current 16 cents. Oremex just raised a half-million Canadian dollars on the promise of its silver.
- Gary Freeman and Mel Herdrick’s Pediment Gold (TSX: T.PEZ, Stock Forum) – it is all here and sent first to Ticker Trax subscribers during the past several weeks since our Baja, Mexico visit. The shares are reflecting the company’s sealed deals with ejido surface rights owners. Thom Calandra report here. The company’s managers, including CEO Gary Freeman, confirmed the new pacts in a press release. We here at Ticker Trax are considering the company as a 12th Planetary Prospect. I have yet to see La Colorada project on the Mexico mainland.
Several Planetary Prospects of this service (11 exist) are receiving fresh respect this week.
Joey Freeze’s Candente Resources (TSX: T.DNT, Stock Forum)has lined up financingfor the spinoff, Candente Gold in Mexico. The lead investor is a large manager of natural resources mutual funds in the USA. I know the group personally. Several directors also are said to be taking cash positions in the new company.
Inter-Citic Minerals (TSX: T.ICI, Stock Forum), after revealing a potent (step-out) drill hole at Dachang in eastern China, is finally shedding its 70-cent past with authority. CEO Jim Moore and back from China, discussing a potential partnership with a China miner/prospector. I will have further information as it arrives. (We repeat this paragraph from last week’s report.)
Great Basin Gold (TSX: T.GBG, Stock Forum) shares are outpacing comparable gold miners with operations in Nevada and South Africa. The company tells me it is producing gold with its freshly-scrubbed mill at Hollister in Nevada. CEO Ferdi Dippenaar says the appetite for risk is rising for South Africa companies with Nevada assets. GBG shares have long lagged proper valuation for the several hundred thousand ounces of annual gold that will be pulled from thinly veined Hollister Mine in Nevada each year, starting about now.
Questions about our 11 Planetary Prospects? Feel free to call or slog me: thom.calandra at stockhouse.com. I have great interest right now in exploring several nations -- Ghana, Mexico, Peru, Haiti, Indonesia and my beloved Colombia, where I am planning to spend a great deal of time the next two years. They are all primed. I am in Colombia right now and Peru later this week: see itinerary at your leisure.
(All photos by Thom Calandra. Thom owns shares of our 11 Planetary Prospects.)
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