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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold and Silver Juniors, Mid-tiers and Producers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E. Charters who wrote (68194)	11/27/2009 6:10:52 PM
From: Rocket Red	Respond to of 78426

VENTANA GOLD (T-VEN) $9.76 -1.47 GOLD $1175.50 -13.10 Analyst Nicholas Campbell has been one of the hottest of the gold analysts out there, picking some of the best stories in the sector such as Colossus Minerals, Keegan Resources and Ventana Gold, but today Ventana has a bit of an owie. Today Campbell suspends coverage on the stock and his price expectations because the original vendors of the property apparently want to get it back...or get a better deal. Campbell writes, “This is a Thanksgiving turkey no one was hoping for.” All payments have been made by Ventana, but you know how greed can get into this and the vendors suggests, “The agreement doesn’t comply with Colombian law.” It is pointed out in an announcement that an arbitration panel might take a year to come up with some sort of resolution...ugly! That would be a long time to wait and things can go wrong, so we take some profits on what had been one of the best gold stories of the day, until this hiccup hit us all. But I must point out that I see an interesting dust-up here because when you look at Ventana and who two of their big shareholders are—first of all, there is Brazilian Mining and Energy billionaire Eike Batista, who owns about 16% of Ventana and Ross Beaty, the Vancouver mining magnate who owns over 10%. Will this squabble slow things down dramatically and how long could it take for an agreement? Or what else could go wrong! Or could it all be resolved quickly? Meanwhile, the first small financial crisis since the big one of a year ago and something like $59 to $80 billion of loans out of Dubai are in trouble and the world markets are in a bit of a tizzy...but what happens? The American dollar goes up and gold goes down! Was that supposed to happen? We will reiterate one of our big points on the gold sector... the brokers have now issued so many shares of so many gold companies, it’s like a flood of share certificated being issued out there. It means that many of the gold companies simply don’t have any leverage to the price of gold. How about a Barrick Gold with 1 billion shares outstanding or Kinross with...well, you get the drift. Your first question before who is management, what is the project, where is it, how much money in the bank or how soon to production, should be how many shares outstanding

To: E. Charters who wrote (68194)	12/1/2009 9:19:04 PM
From: Earlie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78426

Hi EC: Good comments and delighted to see that you are digging into the situation. I look forward to reading anything you uncover about this developing "gold camp". You have expertise that few have and your comments on this situation are most valuable to me. I have to say that some of your points are hard for me to accept. Ventanna as close to production as Greystar? - Ventanna has not yet produced/provided a 43-101 "estimate", hence it is difficult to know with any conviction what the company actually has as far as an ore body is concerned. - A careful examination and mapping of the drill results to this point in time suggest that the ore body is deep, relatively high grade and (so far) not very large. Yes it might eventually "flesh out" but the fact that the company has been very "tentative" in its step-out drilling (especially with "up to ten rigs on site") and has instead done a fair amount of "in-fill drilling", suggests to many that the current goal is to provide more "good drill holes" rather than to outline a solid deposit. - So far, Ventanna has provided only a single, fairly sketchy metallurgy report and it was not encouraging (copper involvement). GSL's pre-feasibility report has long since been published and the main feasibility report is well progressed. Ventanna does not yet have even the basic facts in hand from which to start a feasibility report. Hard to move to production without a feasibility study in hand. - So far, Ventanna has produced drill results.... some good holes, but all reported as "down hole" and even the analysts who like the company warn that the results should be cut back rather dramatically. - As far as I can tell, Ventanna does not control (never mind own) nearby property on which it could build out the required mine facilities An examination and mapping of VEN's drill results do not suggest a "near surface" underground mine to me, but I am no expert on this topic. Certainly the good drill hole results are located at considerable depth and at significant underground distance from the valley. And there remains the water and indigenous miner problems to be dealt with. - Note that the company is drilling well up slope (in very difficult terrain, which has caused the company to abandon close to 10 percent of its drill holes). A close examination of the local area suggests that much of the more reasonable terrain is already occupied. Personally, I can't see how Ventanna can mine in this area without major difficulties, but of course, lots of dough can "move mountains" if sufficiently motivated. (g) I also disagree with the idea that GSL might have difficulty raising the dough required to get to production. GSL has the World Bank" as both an investor and a future lender (about $150.0 million has been pledged already). It is sitting on $100.0 million in cash and is starting to garner serious institutional and bank interest. I also think large players are starting to "kick the tires" of most of the companies in the area. GSL looks like the logical main building block if "consolidation" is being considered by outside parties. As noted above, I am delighted you are digging into this situation. I sure can benefit from the views of guys with better mining/geology/metallurgy background than my less-than-modest skills in this arena. Keep them coming. Best, Earlie