December 2009

Canadian Financing Alerts: Who’s Got the Money?

The following companies have filed press releases pertaining to a financing on the TSX and Venture exchanges for mining and exploration activities.

Brokers, analysts and investors can use this information to help evaluate whether a company has the funds to continue the business of making mines to feed the mills that create the metals for myriad uses in today’s growing world. Whether it is a flow through, private placement, debenture, equity or any other form of public offering, you’ll find it here.

NEW: RITV and shareKNOW.net calculate the value of these projects based on the latest metals prices. The tonnages, grades and recovery rates used are all 43-101 compliant unless otherwise stated, however the values stated are gross values and do not include cost data, which is often available at www.shareKNOW.net using the OPERATING CALCULATOR. Go to www.shareknow.net now to begin evaluating prospective investments!

To see the Canadian Financing Archives click HERE.

Date	Company Name (Click to open profile)	Symbol	How Much?	Status
December 30, 2009	Arctic Star Diamond Corp	ADD	$375,000.	Closed
December 30, 2009	Great Bear Uranium Corp	GBR	$1,200,000.	Closed
December 30, 2009	Claude Resources Inc	CRJ	$13,800,000.	Closed
December 30, 2009	Adventure Gold Inc	AGE	$102,780.	Closed
December 30, 2009	Slam Exploration Ltd	SXL	$300,000.	Closed
December 30, 2009	Cantex Mine Development Corp	CD	$1,022,842.	Closed
December 30, 2009	Lounor Exploration Inc	LO	$250,000.	Closed
December 30, 2009	Mahdia Gold Corp	MGD	$400,000.	Proposed

The “Decade of Gold” in Numbers

London Gold Market Report

from Adrian Ash

BullionVault

07:30 EST, Thurs 31 Dec.

The “Decade of Gold” in Numbers Read more

Zinc and copper producer Kagara buys metals deposit

ZINC and copper producer Kagara has bought a metals deposit from Liontown Resources for $4.5 million.

Kagara has agreed to buy the Liontown deposit, which is thought to have a resource of 1.85 million tonnes at 7.5 per cent zinc, 2.4 per cent lead, 0.6 per cent copper, 28 grams per tonne of silver and 0.55 grams per tonne of gold. Read more

Medoro to acquire Colombia Gold

Medoro Resources Ltd. (MRS-X 0.50 0.02 4.17%) will acquire Colombia Gold PLC in a stock deal that will help consolidate most of the mining rights in the Marmato region of Colombia.

Under a friendly deal, Medoro will exchange about 33 million common shares, currently worth about $16.7-million and representing about 14 per cent of Medoro’s currently outstanding stock, for Colombia Gold. Read more

Indonesia expects big rise in mining investment in 2010

JAKARTA (Reuters) -

Indonesian mining investment is expected to hit $2.5 billion next year, up from $1.81 billion in 2009, supported by greater certainty after the introduction of new mining regulations, a senior government mining official said on Thursday. Read more

South African Credit Demand Contracts as Unemployment Rises

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) — South African credit contracted in November for the second time in 43 years as an increase in unemployment reduced consumer spending and banks curtailed lending.

Borrowing by households and businesses dropped an annual 1.59 percent after declining 0.4 percent in October, the Pretoria-based Reserve Bank said on its Internet site today. Read more

Gold slips as US dollar gains

GOLD and most of the other precious metals finished lower in light holiday trading in New York today, pressured by a slightly stronger US dollar and book squaring by traders exiting positions in which they previously bought metals. Read more

Kazakhstan outpaces Canada for uranium output

Kazakhstan became the world’s biggest uranium producer in 2009, overtaking Canada, after it boosted output 63%, according to the Central Asian nation’s state-run mining company.

Kazakhstan mined 13,500 metric tons of uranium as of Dec. 21 and will mine at least another 400 tons before the end of the year, Almaty-based, Kazatomprom said in a statement e-mailed on Dec. 30. Read more

2009 biggest year yet for Canadian wind power

Mackenzie pipeline gets a boost

Energy producer set for increased capacities

Exall Energy Corporation has just completed pipeline and battery facilities at its Marten Mountain property, which includes 11.5 km of 152 mm pipeline, an oil and gas battery facility and tie-in to the Enerchem, Slave Lake fractionation plant, and access construction to the next proposed winter drilling pad at the site. Read more

Cuban nickel output seen lowest in a decade

HAVANA – Cuba’s unrefined nickel plus cobalt production appears to have been between 60 000 t and 65 000 t this year, the lowest in a decade, according to scattered radio reports this week.

Cuba produced 70 400 t of unrefined nickel and cobalt in 2008, after averaging between 74 000 t and 75 000 t during much of the decade. Read more

The Decade of the Commodity – Part 1

Welcome to the Decade of the Commodity. As the vast populations of China and to a lesser extent India and the other BRIC countries awaken to the possibilities of wealth, the world’s reserves of commodities — and minerals in particular — have begun to show signs of strain. And it’s not just oil either. Gold, copper, iron, molybdenum, uranium and many other commodities are no longer plentiful and cheap as they once were. In some cases this is due to dwindling resources, and such is the case with gold, but in other cases the dearth of resources is simply due to skyrocketing demand, inflation or currency valuations.

What investors must ask themselves is this: What do you get when you add global population growth, international currency debasement, peak resources, and multiple rapidly emerging economies? If you answered “bubbles”, you may not be far off. But the latest “bubbles”, if that’s what they are,  are a temporary consequence of a long term trend toward systemic resource shortages. What some people call bubbles are more accurately speculative adjustment to massive shifts in demand. We see with them short term price increases, but some deflation within a bull trend. With rapid demand increases in everything from oil to olive oil the world struggles to find the resource to match demand with supply. This is driving up prices on the secular or long-term level, which explains some of the “super cycle” trend of the past decade.

Now look at the charts for some common resources over the past 5 to 15 years:

The long term trend is clearly bullish. By and large, that’s the way markets go. That also explains why in the majority of years over the past century markets have ended the year better than they started. It has nothing to do with the January, as the old adage would have you believe. (“As January goes so goes the year.”)

But within that secular cycle we are seeing shorter term price increases that are certainly more akin to “bubbles”. Note the spikes that occur in most of the charts above. Nouriel Roubini believes that the price of gold

Speculation in favor of imbalances in fundamentals artificially pumps up demand and leads to short term increases in prices.

Presently gold appears to many to have “bubble” status. As CPM Group founder Jeff Christian has repeated pointed out to RITV and other pundits, gold’s price, is largely driven by investment demand, and today that demand has been inflated by concerns over and flight from the US dollar, for one, and other currencies as well. The global financial crisis of 2007/2008 called into question the long-term stability of paper currencies in general. This is not new. Gold bugs, for instance, have long argued that fiat paper currencies are essentially worthless. Some, such as Gata.com authors, argue that “Central banks run the world’s biggest Ponzi scheme, issuing bits of paper that people will accept in return for real goods and services.”

The run up in investment demand has led to a secular bull run; but the bubble-like spikes we’ve seen are the result of speculation. None can say where gold’s ascent will halt.

It’s clear that the China situation is beginning to heat up in earnest. On both the demand and supply side of the fundamentals equation we’re seeing shots fired across the bow and early warning signs that will only intensify in the coming Decade of the Commodity.

In most respects the west has been slow to respond to China’s necessary expansion into Africa, Australia, Europe and even North America. Each year the so-called Middle Kingdom acquires new monster projects on foreign soil. Why? China’s indefatigable appetite for resources. The most populous country in the world doesn’t have enough iron, oil, copper, molybdenum, etc. to build the infrastructure required to sustain its 9+ per cent annual growth.

Although the much ballyhooed acquisition of one of the world’s largest copper deposits, located in Afghanistan, is not really “new” news, it recently captured the world’s attention. The New York Times reported, “While the United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda here, China is securing raw material for its voracious economy. The world’s superpower is focused on security. Its fastest rising competitor concentrates on commerce.”

Certainly this is true, but the irony of China’s accomplishment is thick. Two years ago, the China Metallurgical Group Corporation, a Chinese state-owned conglomerate, bid $3.4 billion — $1 billion more than any of its competitors from Canada, Europe, Russia, the United States and Kazakhstan — for the rights to mine deposits near the village of Aynak. And who first discovered the deposits? Communist Russia did, during its short lived attempt to rule Afghanistan. After Russia gave up the lost cause that is Afghanistan, the Taliban took over the mining camp, not for copper, but to train terrorists.

Now that the US has ousted the Taliban foreign interests can once again put dibs on the mineral wealth in Afghanistan. So, over the next 25 years, China plans to extract about 11 million tons of copper, which is approximately one-third of China’s existing copper reserves. That’s just what comes of trying to be the good guy in a global marketplace.

Incidentally, the same is true of Iraq! I always argued that the Iraq war had more to do with misplaced Christian morality than it had to do with oil. It turns out that China is investing more in extracting Iraqi oil than American companies are!

According to the same New York Times article, China “has reached long-term arrangements to buy gas from Iran, even as the government there comes under the threat of Western sanctions for its nuclear program.” China has also become a dominant investor in Pakistan and volatile parts of Africa as well.

All this brings to mind a line from Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism: “For fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. Except here China is not the fool for rushing in; it is the US that is the fool for not rushing in, not seizing the opportunities it has created, even if the opportunities were so often created in error.

China has little moral impetus to keep it from doing business with the scum of the earth. It invests heavily in the Sudanese government, genocide notwithstanding. It’s not that China supports genocide; it simply sees genocide as none of its business. Perhaps in that regard a communist government is like a corporation–analogies to psychopaths have oft been made. In any case, they’re both pretty unfeeling, except when the cameras are on.

The Decade of the Commodity is at hand, and come 2020, astute investors will have reaped the greatest rewards.

China’s wealth — and its lack of debt — and its ability to corral monetary resources to make acquisitions has grown dramatically, while that of the US has dwindled. As such, China stands to profit most, so long as its Yuan remains low enough to provide the rest of the world — and itself — with the cheapest and most plentiful goods and commodities in the world.

In the meantime however, American fears of a world where the US is not the single dominant superpower will cause setbacks to the march globalization. The US sees China’s ascent and particularly the conceit of that ascent: Having the power to do what it pleases while the West does what it can, while restraining itself morally for the electorate it must pander to for reelection.

There are few tools available to the US to rectify its weakening position in the global economy. One is to screw around with free trade. To wit: On December 29th 2009, the US Department of Commerce announced its preliminary determination in the antidumping duty investigation on imports of certain steel grating from the People’s Republic of China. The decision: Commerce determined that Chinese producers/exporters have sold steel products in the United States at 14.36% to 145.18% less than normal value.

While there are still further deliberations, it looks like the US will be slapping some serious duties on some steel products which between 2006 and 2008 were valued at about $90 billion. At just 14% that’s well over $4 billion per year in duties. Yikes, the US may have found a new way to pay down it’s mounting debt!

I’ll post some interesting mining projects that may benefit from this tomorrow. This move could have far reaching consequences for a number of companies. I’d imagine that the steel industry is holding its breath for a final decision in its favor.

Canadian Financing Alerts: Who’s Got the Money?

The following companies have filed press releases pertaining to a financing on the TSX and Venture exchanges for mining and exploration activities.

Brokers, analysts and investors can use this information to help evaluate whether a company has the funds to continue the business of making mines to feed the mills that create the metals for myriad uses in today’s growing world. Whether it is a flow through, private placement, debenture, equity or any other form of public offering, you’ll find it here.

NEW: RITV and shareKNOW.net calculate the value of these projects based on the latest metals prices. The tonnages, grades and recovery rates used are all 43-101 compliant unless otherwise stated, however the values stated are gross values and do not include cost data, which is often available at www.shareKNOW.net using the OPERATING CALCULATOR. Go to www.shareknow.net now to begin evaluating prospective investments!

To see the Canadian Financing Archives click HERE.

Date	Company Name (Click to open profile)	Symbol	How Much?	Status
December 29, 2009	Uranium One Inc	UUU	$269,100,000.	Amendment
December 29, 2009	Kingsman Resources Inc	KSM	$280,000.	Closed
December 29, 2009	Darnley Bay Resources Ltd	DBL	$5,000,000.	Closed
December 29, 2009	Skyharbour Resources Ltd	SYH	$115,500.	Closed
December 29, 2009	Zinccorp Resources Inc	ZN	$1,959,000.	Amendment
December 29, 2009	Abacus Mining and Exploration Corp	AME	$7,025,400.	Closed
December 29, 2009	Sirios Resources Inc	SOI	$999,999.	Closed
December 29, 2009	Tamerlane Ventures Inc	TAM	$499,999.	Proposed
December 29, 2009	Nebu Resources Inc	NBU	$649,999.	Proposed
December 29, 2009	Skyline Gold Corp	SK	$250,000.	Closed
December 29, 2009	Weststar Resources Corp	WER	$63,138.	Closed
December 29, 2009	Skyline Gold Corp	SK	$120,000.	Closed
December 29, 2009	Ely Gold & Minerals Inc	ELY	$300,000.	Proposed
December 29, 2009	Tri Origin Exploration Ltd	TOE	$499,999.	Closed
December 29, 2009	Eastmain Resources Inc	ER	$415,835.	Closed

To see the Canadian Financing Archives click HERE.

US DOC slaps 14 to 145pct AD duty on Chinese steel gratings

On December 29th 2009, US Department of Commerce announced its preliminary determination in the antidumping duty investigation on imports of certain steel grating from the People’s Republic of China. Read more

Gold Cuts 2009 Gains to 30% as Eurozone Hits Deflation, “Gold Rush” Hits China

London Gold Market Report

from Adrian Ash

BullionVault

05:25 EST, Weds 30 Dec.

Gold Cuts 2009 Gains to 30% as Eurozone Hits Deflation, “Gold Rush” Hits China Read more

Peru okays Antamina mine expansion

PERU’S prime minister has endorsed an agreement between the regional government of Ancash and joint venture miner Antamina, allowing the company to use profits from mining operations for a planned expansion project.

The agreement is expected to speed shareholder approval for Antamina’s proposed mine expansion project in the Ancash region. Read more

Westside buys Anglo American’s stake in Dawson Seamgas

SMALL coal seam gas explorer Westside said today that it has agreed to buy acreage near Moura in Queensland for up to $80 million.

Westside said it has entered a conditional agreement to acquire Anglo American’s stake in the Dawson Seamgas coal seam gas assets and may also buy Mitsui & Co’s (MITSY) stake in the assets subject to the consideration of pre-emptive rights. Read more

Gold edges lower as dollar firms

Goldcorp matches Penmont in Mexican gold-silver project bid battle

TORONTO (Reuters) -

Canadian gold producer Goldcorp Inc (G.TO: Quote) raised its bid for junior miner Canplats Resources Corp (CPQ.V: Quote) for the second time in a week on Tuesday, matching an increased offer from Minera Penmont and winning support from its takeover target. Read more

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