₪ David Pescod's Late Edition July 11, 2007
SERENGETI RESOURCES (V-SIR) $2.70 +0.01
GOLDCREST RESOURCES (V-GCL) $1.05 +0.03
ANDINA MINERALS (V-ADM) $3.02 +0.01
We mentioned yesterday about the sad drilling results
out of Serengeti Resources which were much less than expected
and it definitely spooked the junior exploration
market as many juniors with big exploration projects on
their hands, all took a shellacking.
Today one of the three of what we think are the most
watched plays—Goldcrest Resources comes out with results
on their Gaoua copper/gold project in southern Burkina
Faso which they are working on with Phelps-Dodge. To
our eyes, the results weren’t that bad and included 131
metres of 0.38% copper and 0.80 g/t gold. These are admittedly
lower grades than some people are used to seeing,
but, with their current operator, if someone else is
paying the bills for developing the project, these numbers
aren’t so bad at all, but Serengeti’s news yesterday,
probably shook the market.
Meanwhile, with thousands of explorers out there,
there’s been another company reporting results too and
we have to admit that it is one of our favorite plays out
there—Andina Minerals.
Yesterday they announced results from both their Ojo
de Agua and Dorado areas of their Volcan project in Chile.
Some of these numbers definitely attract attention. Drilling
from the three holes targeting the western margins of
the Dorado West zone returned 558 metres (yes folks,
that’s 558 metres) of 0.60 g/t gold. The Chileans are becoming
experts as low costs operators at higher elevations
and these exploration projects being worked on in
Chile, are way, way up there, so you either have the expertise
and the projects go forward...or they don’t.
Andina Minerals is a favorite pick of Andrew Kaip the
Haywood Mining analyst and also a top pick of Canaccord’s
Steven Butler, who covers Andina Minerals and
gives it a $7.00 target with a speculative buy. Seven dollars
would give some pretty lofty returns.
If you want to a background check on Andina Minerals,
just e-mail Jennifer at Jennifer_
lagdamen@canaccord.com for a full background report
plus information on the latest results.
FALCON OIL & GAS (V-FO) $1.09 -0.15
CRYSTALLEX INTL. (T-KRY) $4.39 +0.04
THE SHORT SIDE:
The markets have a tendency to go up and down,
as do individual stocks and so yes, we do look for
shorting opportunities. We recently covered our
short on Falcon Oil & Gas, a company with 1/2 billion
shares outstanding, not much to show for itself and
being based in Europe where natural gas prices are
much, much weaker than here in North America.
News on Bloomberg, out of Venezuela had us
looking once again at our other short, which is Crystallex
Intl. Angel Rodriguez, President of the Energy
and Mines Committee in the Venezuela legislature
said in an interview, “By the end of the year we will be
consolidating the full sovereignty of the petroleum
industry.” He is referring to the natural gas reserves
which they look to nationalize by the end of the year,
continuing an effort that has already reached oil companies,
utilities and telephones, a lawmaker has said.
We’ve noticed in the last while that not only oil
companies have been taken out recently, but they’ve
also bought out AES Corp. of Arlington, Virginia, and
New-York based Verizon Communications, taking
control of power and phone companies in Venezuela
and at prices people probably weren’t happy to receive
(although I’m sure they were glad to receive
something).
Meanwhile, Venezuela is rich in mining opportunities
and lots of people in the gold industry seem to be
totally ignoring what’s going on in oil, gas, power and
everything else. This is not a knock against management
of Crystallex and it’s certainly not a knock
against Crystallex’s massive Las Cristinas in Venezuela,
it’s simply that whether they get a permit to
build a mine, or whether they raise lots more cash to
further advance the project, when they finally get to
production, how much of it is going to be left to
shareholders and how much will Chavez and his cronies
receive of the project.
We are short!
The Venezuelan market had been a good place
to be the last year, and then the nationalization
started...it has not been nearly as much fun lately. |
