₪ David Pescod's Late Edition October 24, 2007
RIDER RESOURCES (T-RRZ) $5.19 +$0.33
Apparently, we are amongst the few in Alberta that remember the National Energy Program and how it devastated Alberta. Now we face National Energy Program #2 potentially in this Royalty Review and it’s amazing the number of Albertans that can’t figure out what it is that is the basis for the boom in this Province and what could happen over the next few weeks.
Stock market punters all should know by now that it doesn’t matter whether you are in a big Income Trust or a little junior, if you are in a natural gas-based company, you are down somewhere between 50% and 90%. You can imagine what happens if they do go ahead with the Royalty Review and stiffen things even more so.
Costs are high and the Canadian dollar has gone through the roof (forget the $89 for oil that you see in the press—with the Canadian dollar up 30%, it’s more like $67 and once again at a time of high costs).
The other day, Peter Linder was on BNN and is hoping that common sense prevails as far as what changes come in the Royalty Review and he notes that many of the big oil and gas companies operate around the world and can simply move their exploration to places where it makes more sense to explore. But the hundreds of junior companies he suggests, don’t have that option and he figures up to a half of the gassy ones could simply disappear.
One of the companies that he uses as an example is Rider Resources that’s involved in the drilling for deep gas and he quite simply says that if the Royalty Review goes through in its current state, Rider Resources would simply disappear.
Mind you, he’s suggests that if the royalty review is changed and gas does come back, he expects Rider to fair much better and he suggests it would be an obvious takeover candidate.
Scary, but folks, this is reality and yet most Albertans still seem to think the big, bad oil and gas companies are somehow getting a free ride. We would once again learn how dependent Alberta’s economy is on oil and gas, should these recommendations go through in current form.
Meanwhile, also having trouble these days is Peter Linder as his faith in natural gas had his Delta Fund just zooming the fist two years of its existence, but the last two years has been not so good and the last year has been an almost unmitigated disaster.
His Delta Fund in the last three months is down 45%, the last six months is down 55% and in the last year, down 72%. We know ... the hard way as in 2006 we were having such a good year, why not get some of Mr. Linder’s flow through fund. The Fairway 2006. For those who picked it up at $25.00 at that time can vouch for us that it’s currently yours for less than $10.00 a unit. Ouch! (Peter Linder has not managed this fund for the last six months.) The old saying goes, sometimes it’s just better to pay your income tax than try and avoid it and fair even worse.
ANDINA MINERALS (V-ADM) $4.37 -$0.01
We’ve been trying to find Carl Hansen, the President and leader of Andina Resources for the last two or three days, so far with no luck, but we assume he’s somewhere in Chile.
Meanwhile the company has announced something every company hopes to do on a regular basis…they’ve increased their resources on their Volcan Gold Project in Chile.
This is a project that is mainly low grade gold and at quite a high elevation that other companies such as Meridian are making tons of money mining, not too far away.
Anyway, the news is that Andina in a 43-101 compliant resource estimate, now suggests they have a measured and indicated resource that have been increased 48% to 2.93 million contained ounces of gold, while the inferred resource increased 188% to 4.2 million ounces of gold at a 0.5 grams per ton gold cutoff.
This is a rather significant increase and of course it’s getting very close to the magical number of five million ounces of gold, a number that everyone has to take very serious.
Meanwhile, Steven Butler, the mining analyst at Canaccord has decided to up his target to $7.50.
We own a bunch, but if you don’t and are looking for interesting gold plays, email Jenn at Jennifer_Lagdamen@Canaccord.com to take a look/see at this story.
NAPLES CAPITAL CORP. (V-NAP) $0.28 -$0.02
This past weekend, we were in Toronto at Joe Martin’s Cambridge House mining conference and it was busy. Two hundred and fifty companies and over 4700 people registered, it was rather busy on Sunday.
One of the highlights of the show for us though is on Sunday night in what they call the “Speakers Supper” where some of the high profile speakers get together to compare notes, gossip and whatever you have. It was an interesting gathering hosted by Glenn Mullan and then of course it got even more interesting when the girls you see to the right decided to “crash” the party! A very interesting group of women, don’t you think? They are all part of a company called Naples Capital Corp.
The picture shows you a tall, dark and handsome (yes, that’s me in the back and one out of three isn’t bad), but these good looking women also have some talents to offer.
For instance their backgrounds are:
Pamela Strand: President, CEO and Director of Shear Minerals since 1997. Judy Baker: VP, Business Development and Investor Relations for Nevsun Resources. Jennifer Boyle: President and CEO of Cap Ex Management Ltd. Marni Wieshofer: Executive VP, Corporate Development of Lions Gate Entertainment. Carrie Howes: Investor Relations Director of Proactive Investors. Sandra Theaker: President of a private company, providing corporate consulting services to the mining industry. Dr. Jobin-Bevans: Managing Director of Caracle Creek Intl. Consulting, a private company providing geological consulting for the mining industry.
The company is shortly changing its name from Naples Capital to Takara Resources Inc. in November. The name is the Japanese word for “treasure”.
They are going to be concentrating on uranium, probably in Arizona, but I suspect they are not going to be turning down any possibilities that come across their desk.
As far as ways to get investor relations out for this group ... well, we would suggest a calendar! Don’t you think that would be a great idea? I know whoever “Miss July” is, it might attract attention.
But seriously folks, look at their resumes and you know that this is a talented bunch of women and after the success of Catherine McLeod Seltzer (of Arequipa fame) women are starting to play a much bigger role in what was previously an all-male, physically demanding business.
If you would like to receive the Late Edition, email Debbie at debbie_lewis@canaccord.com
if you want to see the Naples Capital Crowd, email debbie for a copy of the 10/24 Late Edition. |
