This looks like the first Calandra on IVAN, he states he does not own shares. Interestingly someone from Ivanhoe Mines (CA:IE), stopped by his office to talk to him about the Ivanhoe Energy. What is the Ivanhoe challange and who "challenged" him.
cbs.marketwatch.com see page 3
New Watch List entry: In addition to Matrix Services, I'm adding shares of Ivanhoe Energy (IVAN), the natural gas company whose big shareholder is natural resources billionaire Robert Friedland, to the Watch List effective immediately. Investors were keeping their fingers crossed on Ivanhoe Energy's negotiations to develop one of the world's largest natural gas fields, in Qatar. That blew up about a week ago, leading longtime oil veterans David Martin and Leon Daniel to concede Ivanhoe Energy's Qatar plans were kaput. The stock (it also trades in Canada under the symbol IE) lost 25 percent faster than you could say holy-Emir. After chatting with Friedland (before the Qatar news hit the fan) and several shareholders and one of the company's board members (after the blow-up), I'm ready to make this natural-gas-to-liquids company the most speculative of anything on the Watch List. At 46 cents (the Nasdaq price for IVAN), investors are attaching little or no value to something (can you say event driven?) that will provide a kick in the pants to the company's shares: a potential spinoff of the company's China operations. Sunwing Energy. a subsidiary of Ivanhoe, has rights to negotiate petroleum contracts in the Sichuan Basin, China's largest gas-producing region. The areas cover more than 2.2 million acres. Sunwing could trade in Hong Kong if a spinoff occurs. R. Edward Flood, a geologist and executive deputy chairman of another Robert Friedland company, Mongolia copper and gold developer Ivanhoe Mines (CA:IE), stopped into my office to tell me investors were focusing too much on the Qatar negotiations, which could have brought tiny Ivanhoe Energy a billion-dollar-plus windfall in its natural-gas-to-liquid plans for the Middle East. Flood, who sits on Ivanhoe Energy's board of directors, says China's efforts to formulate clean-air policies could make Sunwing Energy a big winner for fund managers looking for exposure to China's natural gas fields, which some say rival those of Canada in size. Ivanhoe Energy also has monthly cash flow, as much as $1.5 million, from a California gas field. It is active in deep drilling in California's central valley. And the company is pursuing gas-to-liquid negotiations in several countries, including Egypt. Call me crazy, but at 46 cents, I'll take the Ivanhoe Energy challenge.
Thom Calandra owns shares of miners Almaden Minerals, Bitterroot Resources, Candente Resources, Radius Explorations and Western Silver Corp. Thom is also a large owner of shares of MarketWatch.com, the publisher of this newsletter. He owns smallcap stock Intraware, an electronic software manager; and On2 Technologies, a video-compression company. He also owns the Australian dollar. He is considering the purchase of Ivanhoe Energy shares.
The Calandra Report. June 3, 2003 |
