|
|
|||||||
| | | | | | | |
|
|
CANADIAN STOCK EXCHANGES - FEBRUARY - 2007 E. A. Schiller MARKET UNCERTAINTIES PREVAIL Become informed by attending the mining and exploration conferences schedule in the coming weeks The market continued to challenge us and how to read where it was going became more difficult. Precious metals maintained their up- beat levels on an irregular basis with expectations for firming of prices in the coming weeks and months. We won't talk about oil and gas, as that is another uncertainty to tough to handle. At the pumps in Calgary gasoline was 74.9 cents a liter and elsewhere lower prices were evident (in Kelowna, B.C. where I live it was 93 cents a liter and just because they grow the stuff in Alberta why do we have to pay such a premium in a neighboring province). The guys who produce it and those who are looking for it are suffering with $50 - ish a barrel oil. Copper stocks felt a lot of pain with the price at $2.55 a pound down from $4.16 a pound last May. At that former high-level one US penny was worth 4 seconds of the average American worker's time assuming a 40-hour week. There was talk about re-evaluating the penny to equal a nickel, and then a nickel would become a pickle, creating a whole new coin system. Zinc hung in there at $1.70 a pound. And how about nickel, and that sinking ship, the MSC Napoli off the coast of England with 1,000 tonnes of nickel metal on board and shortly to be maybe abandoned. 1000 tonnes represents 20% of stored nickel in London warehouses. Nickel jumped to $17.65 a pound on the news. The only real joy was with uranium at $75 a pound and from all indications bound for higher numbers. Almost every uranium stock was reaching for highs and those worthy of special mention are the following: (1) Cameco Corp. (CCO-TSX) Even with its water problems and delay in production of their Cigar Lake mine, the stock maintained solid levels around $45.00 - 46.00. With a deposit worth $16.7 billion you can be sure they will make every effort to bail out the water. (2) UEX Corp. (UEX-TSX-V) traded upwards to $6 but settled in around $4.75-5.00. They have three drill programs in place - West Bear, Raven- Horseshoe and Shea Creek and a fourth Mirror River to be started shortly. All Athabasca Basin projects are very prospective. (3) JNR Resources Inc (JNN-TSX-V) ran up to over $3.00 then settled in around $2.95. Drilling at Way Lake is underway and a 10,000-meter drill program on Moore Lake with Denison Mines Corp (DML-TSX) will commence shortly. These high priority Athabasca Basin projects plus several other prospective projects place several arrows in their bow. (4) Pitchstone Resources (PXP-TSX-V) galloped up to $3.70. With SXR Uranium One Inc (SXR-TSX) Pitchstone as operator will drill 13,000 meters on five Athabasca Basin projects including the highly prospective Darby-Candle property. Pitchstone has a JV on several prospects with Triex Minerals Corp (TXM-TSX-V) in the Hornby Basin in Nunavut. In Gabon, Pitchstone has a JV with Cameco Corp and Motapa Diamonds Inc (MTP-TSX-V). In Namibia, Pitchstone has optioned three uranium properties from Manico Minerals Ltd. that total 500,000 hectares in size. (5) SXR Uranium One Inc. (SXR-TSX & SXR-JSE) traded in large volumes in the $15.50 range and seemed to want to go higher every day. The company is one of the most diversified on the board with exploration and development properties for uranium and gold in South Africa, Australia and Canada (see above with Pitchstone) and is actively pursuing uranium growth opportunities in the western US. Production at Dominion in South Africa is scheduled to commence in the first quarter of 2007 and next year at Honeymoon in Australia. If one wanted a stock with uranium production in the coming months and years, SXR is a candidate. (6) Forum Resources Ltd. (FDC-TSX-V) nicely snuck up over cents then back off slightly to 65-69 cents. The company has prospective projects in the Athabasca Basin and Thelon Basin in Nunavut. In the Athabasca Basin with partner Global Uranium Corp (GU-TSX-V), Forum is drilling their Orchid Lake property. With partner Hathor Exploration Ltd. (HAT-TSX-V) significant EM conductors were identified from airborne surveys on their Haulton River project. On the Key Lake Road property anomalous U308 drill hole intersections were cut in a 2006 program. DIAMONDS SHOW SOME SPARKLE Some pretty good results were released by diamond explorers especially Shore Gold Inc (SGF-TSX). The latest batch from the Star Pipe yielded four big stones - 16.59, 8.64, and 7.86 and 5.94 carats that aroused investors and pushed the stock to over $7.50, then settled back to $7.60, up almost one dollar from year end. Shear Minerals (SWR-TSX-V) and Stornaway (SWY-TSX-V) reported some encouraging diamond counts from their Nunavut holdings. 250 macrodiamonds and 3,477 microdiamonds were recovered from surface pits of kimberlite outcrops. A 19.5 tonne mini-bulk kimberlite of the four dykes are currently being processed, results of which should be out shortly. Shear traded around $1.25 and Stornoway was in the $1.20 range. All up nicely from previous lower levels earlier in the year. BECOME INFORMED - ATTEND EXPLORATION AND MINING CONFERENCES The BC Round Up convenes on February 29 in Vancouver and the attendance is 5600 delegates. I will be there and report on the event in my next column. The Cambridge show in Vancouver was another rousing success and attendance was excellent. All participating companies reported very good response from the investing public. What does all this mean? Resource companies are spreading the gospel and these venues are where you preach the message to investors. The big show comes in early March in Toronto at Prospectors and Developers and if you are a serious investor you must attend this event. This is the grand daddy of all mining and exploration expositions. You want to become informed - you better come to Toronto. If you do not have a hotel reservation - you are in big trouble. All the hotels/motels close to the conference are full, full. GOLD In early February gold showed its nose and pointed above $650.00 and chasers of the golden metal all had smiling faces at the two Vancouver shows. One stock that caught my attention was Alto Ventures Ltd (ATV-TSX-V) was three excellent gold properties in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. The Despinassy project in Quebec had some previous drilling by Cameco Gold and more recently by Alto. Some very interesting drill hole intersections have been reporting like 178.5 g/t Au over 1.09 m and 14.6 g/t Au over 3.7 m in a multi vein deposit with considerable potential. Drill programs are planned for this year on the Shebandowan/Beardmore, and Coldstream Ontario properties. The stock at 16-17 cents seems undervalued with this portfolio of high priority gold projects. | |||
|
Home
-- About Us --
Products & Services --
Classifieds --
Professional Directory -- Advertise with Us
|
