MEDELLIN – Canadian miners are powering a scrum for Colombia gold and copper prospects with reasonably priced minerals rights.
The search for fresh properties comes as at least six Toronto- and Vancouver-based entities wield cash pool corporations or other capital devices for their “paper.” Our Ticker Trax team is back in the country, long ago Latin America’s largest gold producer, for a fourth time since our 2008 tour of EL Marmato gold district.
Recent visits provided updates for our subscribers to help them determine which companies, whether privately held or publicly trading, possess concessions with the best geological characteristics for mines that actually will produce gold within three years or less.
Our search has landed us one Planetary Prospect with some 300,000 hectares of Colombia property rights, minerals rights, or options. That one is public in Canada and weeks away from fine-tuning drill and rock-sample data for prospects in the richly dusted Antioquia department and sites near Bucaramanga and elsewhere in this nation of rolling hills, Andean landscapes, and plentiful water.
Several others in the public markets are speculative choices after our initial on-site visits. These include one, Antioquia Gold (TSX: V.AGD, Stock Forum), whose tour Tuesday of its Cisneros prospect is drawing at least five mining writers as well as Ticker Trax (for a second time in two months).
On the private-and-about-to-go-public front, Canadian juniors raising money include Ari Sussman’s Continental Gold, which recently raised $28 million at $1.50 per unit. That is Burritica and the Bob Allen properties scattered around the nation (Stuart Moller is VP of exploration). “We should be trading by the end of March,” Mr. Sussman tells us from Toronto.
Angus Gold Corp. – whose principals I have met – is developing Quinchia not from the Anglogold Ashanti property that draws much of the headlines in the mining business here, La Colosa. Rafael Alfonso Roa, former exploration manager at the 13 million-ounce deposit La Colosa, is the lead exploration geologist for Angus, which has yet to list shares.
“We see the mid-Cauca Belt showing us pretty excellent gold-copper porphyrys with multiple breccias,” Senor Alfonso Roa told me.
In addition, among what look like the most promising are capital raises for Phil O’Neill’s and Georges Juilland’s MKM/Sunward (MKM), which controls prospects for gold at the historic Titiribi not 90 minutes from Medellin and prospects for copper at Murindo in a remote part of the country. I am subscribing to mining legend Mr. Juilland’s offering, which is attempting to raise $5 million in a financing just before a fresh listing under the ticker MKM in Toronto. (I have seen Titiribi/MKM and see it as one of two and perhaps three promising gold and copper prospects with a cheap valuation, much like how Sandspring Resources (TSX: V.SSP, Stock Forum) in British Guyana steered a cash pool corporation into a successful public listing late in 2009.
From here it gets crowded, and maybe loud.
Serafino Iacono, a longtime gold prospector and Bogota businessman, just purchased the old Zancudo Mine next to Titiribi. Mr. Iacono has had a recent run of success with his efforts to help develop Colombia oil producer Pacific Rubiales (TSX: T.PRE, Stock Forum) tells me the property has vast potential and will become part of several producing gold properties. The Zancudo purchase includes a 6 percent take from yearly production for the mine but not the tailings associated with many decades of mining in the area.
Medoro Resources (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum), of which Mr. Iacono played an important role in government negotiations regarding troubled but rich El Marmato in Caldas department, near the Antioquia border, is attempting to bundle several working mines as well. Medoro is in negotiations to buy the mines at the lower half of El Marmato. It also is proceeding with discussions to purchase the Frontino Mine at Segovia – the largest ever historic producer of gold in Colombia until pension woes for miners and widespread thievery rattled the area.
Such is the story of Colombia: mines that produced hundreds of thousands of ounces of gold per year for a pittance in terms of exploration and excavation success. That is, until violence, politics and greed entered the picture, starting in the early 1900s.
“There is so much here and we believe Colombia will once again become a premier provider of metals and energy wealth to the rest of the continent,” says Mr. Iacono. Colombia right now produces about 1.2 million ounces of gold at best, up slightly from a year ago but down by multiples from the late 1800s and early 1900s
I have owned shares of Medoro and its predecessor, Colombia Gold Fields, since my first visit to El Marmato in 2008. Thus far, the proposition has been a losing one. Medoro’s new managers, led by VP of Exploration Vicente Mendoza and CEO John Hick, are negotiating the $30 million plus purchase of the lower half of EL Marmato from a Colombian mining company. I see the shares as among the most expensive for Colombia juniors … but with potential to unleash output of several hundred thousand ounces of gold per year within 18 months, if negotiations for several properties and relocating the village of El Marmato are economic and swift.
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One longtime gold financier, Ian Park of Panama and Toronto, is said to be close to purchasing a property near but not linked with the Quinchia property that Angus is working. The purchasing entity is said to be Seafield Ventures (TSX: V.SFF, Stock Forum), which will, I am told but have not confirmed, pay about $5.5 million for the property and a certain number of shares over several years.
Mr. Park was a principal in the old Colombia Gold Fields, which tried and failed to mend the social, environmental and legal swirls that continue to whip El Marmato, a rich gold district in its own right.
I hope to see many of these individuals this week. Of interest to investors will be how Antioquia Gold links three or four of its main prospects at Cisneros and how writers review the tour.
I also will be reviewing Gomez de Plata near Medellin and a second fledgling project in Bolivar department – both managed by Patrick Abraham of Panama City’s Bellhaven Copper & Gold (TSX: V.BHC, Stock Forum)
I will have more on these and sevecmral others in coming days. Our Ticker Trax Planetary Prospect, Colombian Mines (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum), which is one of 12 companies we research for subscribers, is also hosting tours this week of Yarumalito near El Marmato and other properties.
There are others too numerous to mention, private and public. These include Guayabales, once controlled by Robert Carrington and Nate Tewalt’s Colombian Mines but released to a third party in Vancouver in recent months. One or two tiny companies are attempting comebacks among the junior prospectors in Colombia. At present, none are worth a speculative bid.
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HOLDINGS: Thom’s stock holdings are listed for all Stockhouse members on www.Stockhouse.com under the “portfolio setting” for user TCALANDRA. It is public and free to view. He also owns recently minted gold and silver coins and shares of two private companies, one of them a nickel and platinum prospector in South Africa & DRC (Congo) operated by Robert M. Friedland. Thom does not do private placements – with the one exception this yea, he hopes, of Titiribi-Sunward in Colombia … nor does Thom accept payment in return for coverage. Thom participates in select company-sponsored and company-paid tours of mining sites after examining the properties off-site for many months and in some cases, years.
(All photos by Thom Calandra. Thom owns shares of 12 of the 12 Planetary Prospects in Ticker. This would include Premium Exploration above.)
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THOM CALANDRA of Ticker Trax helps his audience find value in a quagmire of investment choices. Thom co-founded and was executive VP of news for CBS MarketWatch andMarketWatch.com. As the voice of Thom Calandra's StockWatch and The Calandra Report, Thom pegged $300-ounce gold as a long-term hold and dyed his hair blonde multiple times as gold surpassed $400, $500 and $600.
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