In Colombia, Juan Manuel
Santos seems bound to lose the presidential run-off election this
coming Sunday. We only can pray this is so.
The run-off comes one day after
Colombia faces Greece in World Cup soccer, Group C, in Brazil.
When Óscar Iván Zuluaga sweeps
into office. Mr. Zuluaga will proceed to WIPE the rebels OFF the face of
Colombia’s picture-perfect hills, dales, valleys and mountains. Just as
importantly for most Colombians, the new president then will imprison or
otherwise penalize and punish whoever is left standing – absurd FARC negotiations
notwithstanding.
Following which, Mr. Zuluaga will
turn to the mining, energy and agricultural segments of his
country’s economy, which is expanding at a 4 percent clip yet should be doing
twice that pace. He will clear up the morass of bureaucracy and failed computer
systems that stall and kill worthy gold, copper, coal, gypsum and oil-gas
projects across his resource-rich land.
The new president, one expects,
will work with subsistence miners — otherwise known as
illegals or the ridiculously undeserved term artisans — so
that the heathens no longer use explosives, black markets, mercury, extortion,
murder and child labor to reap their daily grams of mineral. Maybe even, Mr. Z.
publicly will shine his light on truly great GOLD AND SILVER mining projects —
such as Continental Gold at Buritica. See:Continental
Gold (T.CNL) marks 97 grams per ton of gold @ Buritica.
In so doing, the new president
will be inviting the country’s inflow of foreign direct investment to regain
the thrust it had under heroic former president and newly elected SENATOR Alvaro
Uribe.
In CNL Continental, Mr. Z.,
President Zuluaga, has one of the best run, pleasing to the eye and
highest-grade vein deposits of underground gold and silver not just in
Antioquia and not just in Colombia, but in all of the central and south
Americas. That is at Buritica, close by the city of 5 million, Medellin. If CNL
shares in Canada trading go any lower, as in below $3, I am a buyer for the
first time.
I’ve been to CNL’s Buritica twice
officially and one more time nearby. Beautiful country, a ‘titanically’
profitable mine in the making (it already produces a token amount each month)
… and yet surrounded by a most evil and destructive stream of illegal miners
who also deserve a new president’s attention.
Mr. Z. shall do all this so that
the landscape-loving people of Colombia — all 51 million of them (don’t
believe the official count) — can get beyond the flash-trash
headlines of their tabloids and instead learn that good
miners, like good coffee growers, are as important to his gorgeous nation and
its economic and social wellbeing as good football teams are.
Of course, the odds of that
happening in his first year of office are probably as far-fetched as Tonalist was
at 10 to 1 before the big race. But not, one hopes, as long odds as Colombia at
45 to 1 is in FIFA WORLD CUP.
We’ll see. First, Mr. Z. must beat
his even-odds chance at winning the runoff Sunday. When that happens, I will be
pledging to visit the nation another 21 times over the span of six years,
renewing my equity affairs with (to date) Colombian Mines, out-performing Atico
Mining, struggling Solvista Gold, evaporating Waymar Resources and one or two
others.
That’s right, I still own all of
those, and a couple of others in what was 75 years ago South America’s largest
gold producing nation.
Until this Sunday, then, I’ll have
to settle for my other gold mining paradise: Cambodia.
NEW GOLD: ?
I know insiders (execs) and related parties who are purchasing shares
of New Gold (NGD). The miner’s all-in costs for producing an ounce
of gold (USA, Mexico and Australia jurisdictions) are below $875, supposedly. I
say supposedly only because — like box office for film — you never know what
is behind the numbers unless you are at the mine and at the mill and in the
front office. Still, NGD shares are rising on decent trade in a June-swoon
market. At $5.37 USD, the biggest risk is the shares return pronto to $5 a
share. Keep an eye on the stock, which I do not own and have no interest in
buying.?
Platinum equities?: They also suck these days, whichever way the wind is
blowing. I always have been a plat-fan and in possession of the
coins, and yes, the plat-prospector stocks. South Africa
labor troubles could send the price to $1,700-plus ounce soon, several
agencies are reporting. But when, pray parlay platinum?
A yearly deficit in terms of
supply looks the worst since 1975. Why are our platinum
prospectors and mine developers there doing so poorly? Our South Africa
long-time holdings here at home and in our The
Calandra Report research — Ivanhoe Mines and
Platinum Group Metals — are in the dumper. Actually, PTM (in
Canada) is hanging in there. Ivanhoe Mines (IVN in Canada) is in the
dumper of all rubbish heaps, having demolished many hundreds of millions of
dollars of equity value since going public on the main Toronto board 21 months
ago.
I have owned these two for so
long, they will need to quintuple from current levels to justify any kind of
decent multi-year return; in the case of IVN, the hold period is stretching to
11 years now (first as a private), so make that a sex-tuple (6X).
Always good to own some platinum
— in my case 2009 Canada Maple Leafs and commemorative Nelson
Mandela sets from several years ago. Looking for platinum mines outside of RSA
South Africa — sans the labor risk? Wellgreen Platinum‘s
ultramafic results from the far western end of its Yukon property are showing
the kinds of thicknesses, widths and strike lengths, as much as 2.5 km, that
will get the attention of New York and Boston hedge funds. (WG in Canada)
?Longshot: Bitterroot
Resources (TSXV: BTT)
in Michigan — we shall know more on its last-gasp attempt at platinum, nickel,
hey, whatever, we’ll take it, assays in the mining-friendly state come July or
so. I own BTT (in Canada) and I do NOT own WG (Wellgreen).
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