Urgent Colombia -- AUGUSTO LOPEZ, MEDORO AND CMJ

Energy + gold + copper = Colombia

• Augusto Lopez – Medoro (MRS) mover
• CMJ: Wottup For Colombia Mines

MEDELLIN, Colombia – I met someone today whose biz savvy during a 40-plus-year career put him, and still puts him, at the peak of this nation’s money and talent pyramid.

Augusto Lopez is the civil engineer whose steady hand guided dozens of beverage, energy and mining efforts in Colombia. Dr. Lopez used to run Grupo E. Bavaria., essentially Colombia’s beer monopoly. As a director, he helped Pacific Rubiales (TSX: T.PRE, Stock Forum) become a market-cap miracle in oil discovery and production.

In the Pacific Rubiales process, Dr. Lopez, and several well-connected whirlwinds, including Iacono Serafino in Bogota and a cadre of Vancouver merchant bankers (EDV), delivered to many people in government and private industry a pipeline of money and actual barrels of oil. Quickly.

“Capital in oil happens rapidly,” Augusto Lopez tells me just hours ago. We are taking a break from touring several properties in and around Llanogrande outside Medellin, where I am searching for a home base. Mr. Lopez and I hopscotch in my spirited Spanish and his earnest English.

Augusto Lopez’s home here includes a package of residential land that is for sale to prospective home developers. His Pradera, the name of his estate, is a scant kilometer or two from the finca of President Uribe, just across from the Llanogrande Police Station.

With us is his son-in-law, a successful acciones trade in the commodities futures market. Mr. Edgar Coulson operates out of Medellin, and father-in-law Augusto spends weekdays in Bogota and weekends here just outside the gold booming city of Medellin.

Edgar Coulson also is a successful trader of ETFs. He and I discuss FAZ, the short-sell ETF on banks. One cannot believe that this security is selling for $17, down from the stratosphere as banks regain their capital foothold. Guess which way Senor Coulson is situated on this trade. (The bank stocks are going bajo-bajo. Entonces, FAZ is going alta, alta.)

Senor Coulson also sees natural gas (UNG) rising another 5 percent or so in price in coming weeks.

Speaking of lower and upper, Dr. Lopez is the newest director of Medoro Resources (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum), which I own personally and have since April or May 2008 via sputtering Colombia Gold Fields.

Augusto Lopez is a business colleague of Medoro’s VP of Exploration, Vicente Mendoza. (Please see previous Ticker Trax reports.) He is also a colleague of Serafino Iacono in Bogota. Mr. Iacono was instrumental in the success of Pacific Rubiales’s oilfields and market-cap stratosphere-shoot, as he will be – I believe anyway – with Medoro. (This is not a recommendation to purchase Medoro as it is very expensive in terms of market cap. Still, Medoro one day shall own two or three gold districts in their entirety – including Segovia, the upper and lower havles of Marmato, Guayabales, Echandia and maybe most importantly, if my geology is empanada-proof, some or all of the assets of Colombian Mines (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum), a Planetary Prospect of this Ticker Trax service.)

Listening to Augusto Lopez on this January summer day, I can tell you this:

• Medoro almost certainly will purchase the troubled (bankrupt pension fund) Frontino Mine in the historic mining town of Segovia. The cost might seem prohibitive, Augusto Lopez says. (Some put the price tag to clean up the pension shortfall and purchase the many veins and mines of Frontino, perhaps the most productive Colombia gold mine ever, at $150 million or more.) “But believe me, there is much more gold there than anyone can imagine.” (This is, by the way, the opinion of one director and not a corporate edict. Still, in my meetings with Vicente Mendoza and other Medoro executives this past month, we stand at our Frontino front.)
• Medoro also will consummate its efforts to bind the lower and upper halves of Marmato, the amazing gold disaster in Antioquia. To do this will require more capital, Dr. Lopez says. As much as $30 million that shall be paid in the coming four to six weeks to Mineros Nacionales, which owns the lower half of gold-dusted Marmato. Marmato, as I have reported since May 2007, will become a textbook lesson in how to excel at community relations (MOVING THE TOWN), environmental contributions (FIXING THE LANDSLIDES, CLEANING UP THE TOXIC SPILLS AND IMPROVING THE FILTHY RIUVER CALCA) and capital efficiencies (RAISING MONEY VIA ENDEAVOUR FINANCIAL AND-OR OTHER CANADA ENTITIES).
• Finally, Augusto Lopez sits on the board of a Pacific Rubiales offshoot, Petroamerica Oil Corp. (TSX: V.PTA, Stock Forum). See Stockhouse details on this small and emerging energy company. Enough said.

More to come from this neck of the woods in coming days, maybe even hours,

This is what I know today as I wrap my fourth examination of this nation’s gold, copper and (one) energy projects.

1. Colombian Mines Corp. (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum) almost surely will reveal potent copper and gold assays from its El Dovio prospect.
2. Antioquia Gold (TSX: V.AGD, Stock Forum) will … as VP of Exploration Brad Van Den Bussche tells me, show that its CISNEROS PROJECT IS A mesothermal lode gold deposit. “The host rock is a granodiorite of the Antioquia Batholith (but the actual composition varies somewhat), not a metamorphic assemblage. The main higher grade gold mineralization appears to be strongly controlled by shear zones in multiple directions, which do contain quartz and pyrite rich veins within them. There are also significant zones of alteration identified in and adjacent to the structures that are very important and need further interpretation,” Brad tells me.

From Monday:

At Colombia Mines (CMJ), President Bob Carrington, in my estimation, is about to blow the cover off rock-chip and other copper-zinc-gold samples from his El Dovio project in northern Colombia. In addition, Robert Carrington and CEO Nate Tewalt have identified four prime holes on La Escuela portion of Yuramalito in Antioquia. I am seeking to purchase shares at the current price, which is now 20 cents or more above the price stated when we named CMJ our 12th Planetary Prospect.

Bob is pragmatic. “Some may say we are doing too little drilling to test the Yuramalito target. Nate and I want to do success-oriented drilling at La Escuela. Four holes over 1,200 meters. If we see good results on those, we continue drilling. If not, we re-evaluate.”

As for about 3,000 hectares at Rio Negro just north of Bucaramanga, the concession is “on trend with the California district and we expect sampling results in the near future. (Rock chips from outcrop.)” Bob says.
On EL Dovio: “El Dovio has had a geologic team on-site taking surface channel samples … and as soon as we can plot map points we shall have a press release,” he says.

For those who know, as I acknowledge, that I am no geologist nor am I a metallurgist, I quote my friend Rodrigo, who has joined me today in a hunt for commercial and residential real estate in a suburb of Medellin not from the president’s finca. The quote: “I do not know how to make empanadas, but I know where to find them.”

El Dovio in the Department of Valle del Cauca presents the possibility of of a besshi class of deposit that can be potentially intensely high gold. Samples are due as we write and speak from an SGS lab in Lima.

Says Carrington, a geologist who has been in Colombia since 1993 or so, “The rocks at El Dovio look the same as Windy Craggy in British Columbia.”

CMJ holds a 100% ownership interest in mineral exploration contracts covering 5,000 hectares situated along the border of the Department of El Valle and EL Choco in the Western Cordillera of Colombia and centered on the El Dovio VMS deposit.

I have a metric ton of material to relay on this one. Along with me was Robert Carrington, showing me how the empanadas are formed. “It is an enviable land package Georges has,” Robert Carrington says. “Georges Juilland, in keeping with a work ethic he has always had, cannot be ignored.” (Photo of Georges, forefront, and Carrington, middle, above – at Titiribi.)

I shall have more for Ticker Trax subscribers in due course. (CMJ is a Planetary Prospect of our subscriber service. AGD is not.)

Planetary Prospects: Here are the 12 of them. (Looming candidates include Pediment Gold (TSX: T.PEZ, Stock Forum), Medoro Resources (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum), Antioquia Gold (TSX: V.AGD, Stock Forum) and Focus Ventures. (TSX: V.FCV, Stock Forum). The named price will allow you to calculate gains at present 2010 prices. All were named in late 2008 or sometime in 2009.

• Our first: Central Fund of Canada (TSX: CEF.A, Stock Forum) – You own silver and gold via a Canadian repository (Spicer family in Ottawa). One day the premium on this open-end fund will rise to 30 percent and more from its current 12 percent or so. Named at $10.70 U.S.
• BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: BCRX, Stock Forum) –This drug discovery company’s compounds for leukemia, gout, psoriasis, influenza (peramivir) and perhaps cardiac arrest are worth every penny of this now-$6.80 security (down from $13 two months ago). A Japan approval of peramivir is likely. Named at $1.70 U.S.
  
• Endeavour Silver (AMEX: EXK, Stock Forum) and (TSX: T.EDR, Stock Forum)– This one has tripled since being named a PP of Ticker Trax some 10 months ago. Silver in Mexico. Named at $1.30 to $1.40 U.S.
  
• X-tra Gold Resources (OTO: XTGR, Stock Forum)– Canada listing might be in works for Ghana prospector. I love West Africa, and will be returning to the continent in late January to see Great Basin Gold (TSX: T.GBG, Stock Forum)’s Burnstone Mine in South Africa. I also will see Wits Gold (OTO: WIWTY, Stock Forum) and its DeBron property, among others. I will be available for meetings in Cape Town Jan. 30 to Feb 1. Named at 70 cents U.S.
• Endeavour Financial (TSX: T.EDV, Stock Forum) – Gordon Keep and Neil Woodyer’s Vancouver merchant bank owns stakes in some of the most promising natural resource companies around. EDV also is the bank that more or less propelled Pacific Rubiales (TSX: T.PRE, Stock Forum), the Colombian energy company, into the Milky Way of stardom market capitalizations this past 18 months. Endeavour Financial is backing Medoro Resources in Colombia. Named at $1.70 Canadian a share.
  
• Great Basin Gold (TSX: T.GBG, Stock Forum): This is Ferdi Dippenaar’sSouth Africa and Nevada company. GBG shares were one of two Planetary Prospect laggards in 2009 but are starting to reach two-thirds of peer-value based on net asset value for expected gold output in the year 2010 (400,000 ounces?) I will see the company’s Burnstone Mine in late January, as mentioned above. Named at $1.30 U.S.
• Candente Copper (TSX: T.DNT, Stock Forum) – Joanne Freeze’s Candente has entirely cleared the $10 million mark on its raise for Candente Gold – the Mexico and Peruvian gold spinoff. Frank Holmes of U.S. Global in San Antonio, Texas, took the lead on this one. El Oro in Mexico holds the promise of a generation or two of Mexico miners seeking their gold desserts. The new company’s El Oro prospect has the backing of a skeptical independent geologist. That is a plus. Finally, I met with one of the top Peru-based Candente geologists … and yes, I am certain copper mining is still a worthy pursuit. Own the shares now – although the Candente Gold spinoff had a record date of Dec. 31, 2009. Named at 42 cents Canadian.
• Inter-Citic Minerals (TSX: T.ICI, Stock Forum) – I will see ICI’s Dachang Gold Project in China by April 2010. As he promised, CEO James Moore got the stock up to $1 from 75 cents. Spot results on drilling are trickling out. The company almost surely will wind up as part of a China portfolio for a China gold miner. Named at $70 cent Canadian.
• Great Panther Silver (TSX: T.GPR, Stock Forum) – A name change for this company, which is outperforming on this first trading day of 2010. Bob Archer’s small Mexico mining company just published extremely high-grade numbers from drilling at its Topia property in Durango state. Both GPR and Endeavour Silver operate silver mines in Guanajuato, Mexico’s most beautiful hill town. Bob Archer tells me today (Monday) the shares are moving because of a newsletter mention. A service, Lebed Biz, reiterated GPR as its top mining security of 2010. If I might clip some of the material: “GPR recently reported a 34% increase in Q3 silver production to 597,057 silver equivalent ounces and a 104% increase in Q3 revenues to $8.9 million. GPR's cash operating costs were down 62% to $5.48 per ounce and they reported a record $5 million in quarterly earnings from mining operations. GPR has a three-year strategy to accelerate annual production to 3.8 million silver equivalent ounces and increase NI 43-101 compliant resources to 40 million silver equivalent ounces.” Named at 45 cents Canadian.
• Premium Exploration (TSX: V.PEM, Stock Forum) – Del Steiner and geologist/CEO Wilf Struck have an Idaho gold sprawl with dynamic drill results of late. A respected writer with whom I have traveled sent his report on Premium to high net-worth investors last week. Named at 22 cents Canadian.
  
• Avanti Mining (TSX: V.AVT, Stock Forum) – Cheap molybdenum mine at Kitsault. Compelling to the max. I believe I own more than a million shares now. I have seen the B.C. property. CEO Craig Nelsen and CFO AJ Ali have my allegiance on this one, complicated as the share “structure’’ is. This thing will be producing moly of good to excellent grades within 18 months. Plus, moly futures start trading in London in February. Named at 12 cents Canadian.
• Colombian Mines Corp. (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum) – Says it all above. More on this one coming until the shares reach fair value of $45 million or so market capitalization, or a bit more than double their current. Nate Teal – the CEO -- and the Carringtons have their heads together on --assembling a swelling portfolio of gold and copper properties across the gnarly and gorgeous landscape of Colombia gold/copper/coal prospects. Named at 60 cents Canadian. I am purchasing shares this week for the first time. At 90 cents!

Questions about our 12 Planetary Prospects? Feel free to call or slog me: thom.calandra at stockhouse.com. (Photo above of Thom Calandra and Georges Juilland at Titiribi on Saturday Jan. 2, 2010.) I apologize for any and all errors and will correct any and all mistakes, even spelling.

(All photos by Thom Calandra. Thom owns shares of each of the 12 Planetary. He does not own Pediment Gold. He does not own Focus Ventures, Fortuna Silver or Antioquia Gold. He does own Medoro Resources.)

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