Piece of PEZ for resource candy
- Pediment’s fresh resource estimate at La Colorada
- Colombia is nuts … tranquillo
HERMOSILLO, Mexico – This just in from Mel Herdrick in Mexico, where the VP of Exploration for Pediment Gold (TSX: T.PEZ, Stock Forum) this week spent an evening hoisting a few with 133 of the 145 eijido property rights owners for its San Antonio property on the Baja Peninsula.
Tall Mel, speaking to me this morning now that he is back home in Hermosillo on the mainland, had this to say about a freshly-scrubbed gold and silver resource estimate (see detailsvia Stockhouse) for Pediment Gold’s La Colorada project, about an hour or less from the Sonoran city:
“Because this is the first of a quotable number we have, I think it is significant … but there are two satellite deposits not completed as part of the resource,” say Mr. Herdrick. (Subscribers know that Pediment Gold is not yet a Planetary Prospect of this service but is one I follow, courtesy of CEO and President Gary Freeman, who was also hoisting celebratory drinks with Mexican property rights owners at the San Antonio gold project on the Baja.)
Pediment, thanks to Mel, Gary (tough financier who runs a strict ship) and a small coterie of native negotiators, is fast moving toward becoming a cheap (peer-basis) two-project plank in our favorite world of Mexico silver and gold. Colombia 
(TSX:: V.CMJ, Stock Forum) and West Africa (OTC: XTGR, Stock Forum) are in our TT mix as well.
Measured and indicated at La Colorada for PEZ is 605,000 ounces of gold and 5.13 million ounces of silver within 19.25 million tones. Some 582,000 ounces of gold and 6.19 million ounces of silver are contained within 20.07 million tonnes are in the mix as well. Please see the details as our TT specialties are: getting in early, getting to know the dynamics of the project, reporting on developments.
Mel, once again speaking to me today, adds, “There are the two additional zones of the Mina Verde and Veta Madre that we have added holes to and there are definite resources there. Plus there is a run-of-mine leach dump with about three million metric tons that is coarse and fine and provided the original leach material. We drilled four holes into that which ranged from 0.5 to one gram mostly in the coarse chunks.”
Yes, geologists sometimes talk like that. Yes, I think Mel is one of the most thorough VPs of Ex out in Mexico right now. And yes, Mel’s boss, Gary Freeman, sometimes rubs people the wrong way. But not people who want to make lots of dough.
We at Ticker Trax are putting Pediment into our speculative mix. It is not often that operators attempt to keep their promises. Gary Freeman has been fortunate to raise dough for Pediment at the correct moments in the sliding scale of gold fluctuations across the latter part of this decade. His team includes Mexicans who understand what long-standing second and third-generation property rights owners want from Canadian miners: a fair price, the possibility of employment at a working mine … and a heck of a fiesta once in a while.
In a way, I feel conflicted. I want to purchase the flag-nogging egg nog out of PEZ shares – in part because of Mel and Gary but also because of reports I am getting from two analysts whom I trust implicitly. Still, I must as the TT guy: 1. Wait until I see La Colorada. (Please see Thom’s San Antonio report.) 2. Until I see the mainland property, I only can watch and wait. I’ll be checking it out very soon.
MEXICO: On the Mexico front -- I have been accumulating more Candente Resource (TSX: T.DNT, Stock Forum) shares. It is soon to become copper-centric in Peru, from where I have just returned. Joey Freeze’s spinoff, Candente Gold, now has the cash backing of Frank Holmes’s U.S. Global asset manager in San Antonio, Texas. A hard-hitting and ultra-skeptical geologist/analyst also appears to be on board El Oro’s gold train. Candente Gold and its El Oro project in Mexico are raising as much as $10 million in two loads, or tranches.
On a cheap basis, Candente also promises a post-holiday present – one share of the new gold company for every five Candente Resouce shares owned.
I wanted to add something Mel in Hermosillo told me today about Paramount Gold (TSX: T.PZG, Stock Forum), that Chris Cruppi thing in Mexico that appears to be holding its own on the AMEX:” Yes I think they – Paramount – are including us are in a group of about five to 10 companies with good projects in northern Mexico. They definitely have a good group of deposits developing. The set of deposits in the Palmerjo area are much like La Colorada, and Larry and I were talking about getting together in January to do some on site comparisons.”
In our Ticker Trax world, there are few similarly “cheap” propositions right now. If you want all of the ones we still regard as ultra-cheap on metrics compared to peers and NAVs, they are Ghana’s X-tra Gold (OTC: XTGR, Stock Forum); Candente;BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: BCRX, Stock Forum); and yes, I bought more this week and now own more than 65,000-odd shares outright; and Premium Exploration (TSX: V.PEM, Stock Forum) in Idaho – whose shares appear poised for large gains in coming weeks.
Finally, I put our latest Planetary Prospect on the cheap list: Bob and Gloria Carrington’s and Nate Tewalt’s Colombian Mines (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum). Colombia is the hottest prospecting nation on the planet right now for gold, some silver and copper. Energy too – Luis Giusti’s Alange Energy (TSX: V.ALE, Stock Forum) is worth a look on the oil front AND I HOPE TO BUY SOME SOON.
Colombia is mystifying in at least one way: there are so many purchases, land swaps, political palanca shifts and strategy sessions going on with so many properties/regions/districts, that I spend most of my mornings on the telephone trying to sort it all out.
Just trying to keep track of what Bob Allen’s Bullet (and Continental Gold (TSX: T.CNL, Stock Forum) /halted-security Cronus Resources from Ari Sussman in Toronto) owns in the country … and what the Carringtons at CMJ are doing there and how Rahim Jivraj’s private MercerGold from Vancouver in B.C. is cultivating Guayabales next to Marmato (with Canadian Shield’s Keith Laskowski as consultant) … oh yes, and the soon-to-be potent Medoro Resources (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum), which I long have owned and that hopes to control the entire Marmato mountain and take a run at trustee-held Frontino Mine … and we have not even mentioned Titiribi and Zancudo in Antioquia … and all of the long-held properties in Colombia that are controlled by Swiss mining aficionado Georges Juilland.
Baffled? Tranquillo y tranquilla. Calm, say the British. (Ka-owm.) I apologize in advanced for any Colombia contextual or location snafus … and even misspellings. That is how excited I am about all of this stuff right now.
Titiribi on-site operator Phil O’Neill, on his way to a small holiday on the Mayan Riviera, tells me today (Friday) that the Sunward group controlling the historic mine and concession has had discussions with the owners of the old Zancudo mine. Phil adds, “It is not currently part of our Titiribi property package; however, at the right price it would make sense to consolidate more of the area. Things in Colombia have gone nuts of late and the issue I believe will be what the right price is.”
Tell me about it. Right now, Adrian Hobkirk’s Caerus Resources (TSX: V.CA, Stock Forum) looks so cheap, it might be scraping rock like a caveman’s knuckles in Bucaramanga. So does CMJ, even with its massive appreciation of late. On the private front, 32-year-old Rahim Jivraj in Vancouver is putting together what he hopes is a MercerGold package of (for now privately held) properties that lead-pony the Antioquia/Caldas parade with Guayabales, whose gold-dusted wonder and active cooperative I have seen, courtesy of Keith Laskowski and the Carringtons at CMJ. This one is without a doubt in my mind the best Marmato area play in Caldas and Antioquia departments.
Once the folks at Medoro – among them NYU-trained Venezuelan ex-pat Vicente Mendoza – take their Marmato efforts to Wall Street and your street – and possibly purchase the Frontino Mine at Segovia, the value of privately-held Guayabales and Mercer vehicle likely will quintuple overnight. Ditto for CMJ.
“In essence, Medoro bought one side of the Marmato mountain (via Colombia Gold Fields) for $90 million and Mercer bought the other side,” Rahim in Vancouver tells me today, “for just $4 million.” (That would be Guayabales -- $4 million over four years, I believe and 100 to 200 meters from the Northwest corner of Medoro’s Marmato underground complex, when Medoro, that is, consummates purchase of the lower half of Marmato).
Oh yeah, and that historic Titiribi (gorgeous little town) thing 90 minutes outside the city of Medellin that I hope to visit later this month or early next? Says Phil O’Neill, “We have some very good news. We just secured La Muriel Mining from the Juilland brothers while in Asia with Michel Juilland. This is the company that is the underlying owner of the Murindo copper/gold prospect in Colombia. It is part of a JV with Rio Tinto. It is certainly one of the world's best un-drilled copper prospects and the gem of Colombia.”
Enough. I will be taking part of next week off. Once again, if I confused one part with another, my apologies in advance. Before all of this is over, we will have prospered.
Questions about our 12 Planetary Prospects? Feel free to call or slog me: thom.calandra at stockhouse.com. I have great interest right now in exploring Ghana, Mexico, Peru and Africa. 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 home from Peru and Colombia this week after having toured Focus Ventures’ (TSX: V.FCV, Stock Forum) Nueva California (see Peru photo above) and Fortuna Silver’s (TSX: V.FVI, Stock Forum) Caylloma Project at 5,500 meters.
(All photos by Thom Calandra. Thom owns shares of 11 of the 12 Planetary Prospects and will be seeking to purchase CMJ soon. He does not own Pediment nor does he have an interest in Paramount or any of the private companies in this edition.)
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