₪ David Pescod's Late Edition November 29, 2006
STRATECO RESOURCES (V-RSC) $2.36 +0.13 HATHOR EXPLORATION (V-HAT) $1.32 -0.03 GLOBESTAR MINING (V-GMI) $1.25 +0.14 As we’ve pointed out from time to time, David and Eric Coffin are the brothers that put out the Hard Rock Analyst, a newsletter that we figure is mandatory reading for anyone who follows geology, rocks and mineral exploration anywhere in the world.
They make the ideal team. Eric, based in Vancouver and the family guy, who has to cover all the rumors, gossip, book work and the like, while single-guy Dave is off chipping rocks or visiting sites at any given time, anywhere in the world.
Interestingly, today David Coffin is in Ecuador. He’s down there looking to get caught up on the Coastport Capital (CPP) and Aurelian Resources (ARU) stories, but also seeing if he can’t check into one of those “Quick, Learn How to Speak Spanish” schools, and I suspect, ask more than a few people their thoughts on what the election results in Ecuador might mean for everyone.
We quiz Eric today because of the last stock he picked and suggested a couple of times, Strateco Resources, the uranium play that has had quite a run along with many of the other uranium stories of late. “It has traded 90 million shares over the last month and a half” Eric suggests, and “a lot of that is because of institutional interest, particularly from the big cities south of the border”. He wonders as well when a person should be taking some of the money off the table and he does admit that valuations on many of the uranium stocks are getting crazier and crazier. He points out that many people are convinced that uranium is going through $100 a pound and many of the utilities are simply going to need uranium, no matter what the price.
As far as Strateco, he points out that company President, Guy Hebert, is an experienced mining man who has taken other mines into production in the past.
After the big move on Strateco over the last while, we ask, “what next?” If he could only pick one today, he suggests that Hathor Exploration is another uranium play that maybe deserves more interest.
He figures the stock is probably being hurt by recent 40 cent placements that might be overhanging the story, but with drills starting to turn in about a month, he figures it’s going to attract attention and probably a higher price.
As far as a second pick, he points to today’s drilling results out of Globestar Mining, the nickel explorer in the Dominican Republic and is intrigued by the numbers on this laterite project. He suggests more extensive drilling down the road is going to have to be watched.
As far as the results in Ecuador and what to worry about there next, he suggests that Correa’s acceptance speech the other day was fairly conciliatory, and he wonders if some of the corrections in stocks such as Corriente, Aurelian and the like, may have been overdone.
On the other hand, he suggests he is a bit of an unknown quantity and the last thing you need, is some huge mistake to be made six or 12 months down the road that makes one worry that maybe this is another Hugo Chavez.
Here at Canaccord, the concern continues for what next in the political future in Ecuador, a typical Latin American country in that there’s widespread poverty, but also lots of mineral and oil wealth. Analyst Wendell Zerb has written up Corriente, whose Mirador project is currently being developed and Zerb has a $9.00 for Corriente.
Graeme Currie has followed Aurelian since way back at under $3.00 a share and he continues to suggest that this could be the “mining success story of the year, decade and possibly the generation”, but then there’s the concern about politics raising its ugly head.
In the meantime, if you’d like to see the reports on Corriente and/or Aurelian, just e-mail Sandra at Sandra_ wicks@canaccord.com.
DELTA PETROLEUM (US:DPTR) $30.04 +0.98 I guess we shouldn’t dwell on this stock this much, but then again, why not? When you have someone like Eric Sprott suggesting that if he could only buy one stock, this would probably be it. The chart over the last three months tells you that this thing has gone almost straight up and of course the key is speculation.
Delta Petroleum is involved in three high risk/high reward areas in the United States, but one of them stands out above them all and that’s the Columbia River Basin in Washington State. Incredibly, a well drilled that has taken almost two years to drill is now being tested, and results are expected by Christmas.
In the meantime, if this Washington-area play is found to be gas-charged in the numbers that some people seem to be tossing around so easily, this could well develop to be one of the plays of the year and Eric Sprott’s faith in this stock could be well rewarded.
Once again, some of the target numbers that are being bounced around these days are becoming astronomical and you can tell by the volume of stock trading that people are definitely paying attention.
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