jack,
A few stocks in this article mentioned here on the thread.
Sabina Silver (TSX.V: SBB)
Sabina Silver just recently changed its name and announced a renewed focus on silver. This company has the potential to make some waves the silver sector. Sabina has several properties in its portfolio throughout Canada, including gold properties JV-ed with Wolfden Resources and Placer Dome and 100 ounce silver values at the Del Norte option in the Eskay Creek area. Sabina owns 4 million shares of Wolfden Resources which gives the company additional exposure to gold. As of this writing Sabina's 6.5% stake in Wolfden is worth about C$15 MM.
The Hacket-River project was originally acquired from Teck Cominco by spending CA$ 7 million on the property for 100% ownership. The terms of the deal signed in February, 2004 provided for 4 year period but Sabina completed it in 10 months. As part of the deal Teck Cominco owns 300,000 shares of SBB. Sabina spent an additional C$5 million at Hackett River in 2005 forcing Teck's second and final earn-back decision. Teck Cominco has passed up on that option and is now limited to a 2% NSR in the project.
Drilling to date on the company's flagship Hacket-River Property outlined 154 million ounces of silver in measured & indicated category and 50+ million ounces in inferred and that's just the beginning. It also contains over 1.8 million tons of zinc with some lead, copper and gold which at today's metal prices could give the project a significant boost. A recently completed 32,000 ft drill program allowed Sabina to upgrade quality of its resources and raise the potentially mineable cut-off grade to 15 oz/ton silver equivalent. That is a significant boost to the economics of this project. Current work is focused on the metallurgy and is aimed to upgrade recovery grades from a previous study by completed by Cominco in 1981. Pending its results a scoping study is earmarked for the fall of 2006.
With C$8.5 MM in the bank Sabina Silver is well financed and looking for acquisitions with special emphasis on projects that are close to or already producing silver. The company is yet to register on the radar of your average silver bug, let alone mainstream investors. That may change in the coming months as Sabina steps up its marketing efforts and continues to advance its projects towards production.
Apogee Minerals (TSX.V: APE)
Apogee Minerals is a junior silver exploration company focused on Bolivia. Historically, Bolivia was a prominent silver country (Potosi). Today Pan American, Apex and Coeur have producing or development stage properties in Bolivia. While thoroughly outsized by the seniors, Apogee has the ambition to grow into an 800-pound gorilla and is in position to do so. Here's why:
APE is the symbol for the company's stock on TSX Venture Exchange, not the chief reason by far, but we thought we'd mention it
Apogee is focused on production, has no debt and offers attractive capital structure
Local expertise of operating in Bolivia; Two of the top managers live in the country
Large scale projects with past/present production, including the Pulacayo mine which in Bolivian history is only second to the world-famous Potosi Silver District
Joint-Venture with Apex Silver; Apex itself is in the business of developing elephant projects
Strong support from both the local mining cooperatives and state-owned mining company COMIBOL.
In less than a year Apogee has assembled a portfolio of properties each of which meets these criteria:
Past/present production or near term production potential
Economic deposit at current metal prices
Large size ore-body
Great blue-sky potential
All properties offer significant exposure to silver with some mix of zinc, lead and gold. Apogee has no shortage of high quality projects; in fact each one of its properties could easily justify the company's present market valuation and then some. This is a results oriented company that means business. Six weeks ago we visited the properties of Apogee Minerals and prepared a full report about the company available from Silver-Investor.com.
Impact Silver (TSX.V: IPT)
Impact Silver has recently closed the deal that had an immediate and dramatic impact on its share price. The company purchased a silver district called the Royal Mines of Zacualpan. In fact it did one better - Impact acquired the private Mexican holding company that owns this 125 sq. km property with all corresponding licenses, permits and rights. That is an important distinction because:
a) The property has 3-4 producing mines (the 4th has been on and off line) and Impact can pretty much take over the operations (scheduled for January 16, 2006) without having to jump through extra bureaucratic hoops in Mexico. TSX has approved the deal.
b) The mine is profitable now but was losing money for several years through 2003 (tax credits).
c) Existing contracts with local businesses and service providers will remain in tact.
The location of the property speaks for itself and tells volumes to anyone remotely interested in the silver sector. All in all Impact paid US$1.7 + 300,000 shares of common stock.
The storyline is painfully similar to other high profile deals in the area. - There is an old mine / property / camp / district with a history of production and existing infrastructure, etc, etc. The universal quality of such projects is UNDERINVESTMENT. Primarily private Mexican owners uniformly refused or were unable to invest in their mines during the years when metal prices hit the dust and slowly run them into the ground (how's that for a play on words?). When selling, they usually prefer cash and sniff at shares of potential buyers. Whatever shares they get as part of the sale, they usually unload as soon as possible in favor of greenbacks.
A long term lease on a 500 tonne per day (tpd) mill was included in the transaction. The mill is owned by a major Mexican mining company. We believe Impact chose to avoid additional share dilution to raise funds in order to buy this mill at then prevalent stock price of C$0.40. The stock since has run up to about C$1.00 and most likely the company will do another financing in the near future.
Now that the property is secured, Impact can go to work and unlock its potential value by applying modern exploration and mining technology. It may take a few months to sort things out and a few more months and millions on equipment, infrastructure, exploration and so on. These are all guesstimates on our part but some time in the spring we would expect the company to have a detailed plan for the future of this project. If things go well, that 500 tpd mill could be running at full capacity in 2007. We'll have to wait and see if these projections are anywhere in the ball park of what will actually take place. So far so good, the market seems to like the story, so do we.>>>>>>
321gold.com |
