Sehr interessantes Interview mit Louie James (Casey Research) über die Wirkung und Funktion des Silber-ETFs. Positive und negative Aspekte (u.a. Nachfragesog des ETFs, Sicherheitsprobleme, Wirkungen auf den Dollar, u.a.) werden gut herausgestellt und wer Zeit hat 16 Minuten zu investieren, dem kann ich das Interview nur empfehlen.
Grüße
HOW APEX SILVER SWINDLED INVESTORS AND BOLIVIA THROUGH HEDGING.
Theorie von Jason Hommel:
About 6 months ago, Apex silver borrowed $225 million dollars, and did the minimum required hedging of silver, zinc, and lead, to secure the loan. In those 6 months, silver and zinc prices have about doubled, and the mark-to-market losses are, I estimate, over $715 million dollars!
weiter unter:
http://www.freemarketnews.com/…05-04.asp?nid=4767&wid=60
Grüße
Batavia Mining Limited has received a strong endorsement from their optionholders, as 93% of the 15 June 2006 options have been exercised early. This has raised $8.9 million, inclusive of Phoenix Gold Fund $1 million placement.
Batavia now has in excess of $10.9 million in cash reserves, which will be used by the company to complete the current drilling program and to fast track the Bankable Feasibility Study on the Deflector Gold-Copper Project at Gullewa.
The company has announced that it will make an application to ASX to quote both the shares and options for the acceptances and proceed to despatch holding statements tomorrow.
- 04 May 2006
Last Update: 8:58 AM ET May 3, 2006
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Uptake of Barclays' silver exchange traded fund is exceeding expectations and will likely reach and possibly exceed 100 million troy ounces within the first month, UBS said.
This is up from a previous UBS estimate of 60 million-100 million ounces of ETF uptake within one month.
"Our forecast will (likely) be met or exceeded within the first month of trading and our three-month forecast of $16/oz for silver may be reached within the same timeframe," UBS said in a report.
Barclays' ETF traded on the American Stock Exchange saw 21 million ounces of demand during the first trading day and has since increased to 32 million ounces.
Daily purchases would slow down but with "silver interest rates and spot silver increasing the success of the ETF appears to be a self-fulfilling prophecy," UBS said.
Spot silver last traded at $14.34/oz Wednesday, up $0.42 on the Tuesday fix.
The ETF was launched to reflect the price of the silver held by the trust, minus expenses and liabilities, according to the trust sponsor Barclays Global Investors, a unit of Barclays PLC (BCS).
The ETF shares are backed by silver stored on behalf of the trust.
Corrected may 3, 2006 12:07 ET (1607GMT)
Uptake of Barclays' silver exchange traded fund is exceeding expectations and will likely reach and possibly exceed 100 million troy ounces within the first month, UBS said.
This is up from a previous UBS estimate of 60 million-100 million ounces of ETF uptake within one month.
Das Rückgaberecht gilt übrigens auch für deutsche Privatanleger. Voraussetzung:
Zeichnung vor Prospektänderung + Zuteilung erhalten + Kursverlust.
Grüße
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Not unexpectedly, the Bolivian government has seized the production facilities of the various gas and oil producers within their borders. The companies have 180 days to accept new terms or be evicted from Bolivia. In a continued socializing of natural resources in South America, higher oil prices are causing governments across the world to eye profit rich oil companies with envy.
Let us make no mistake about this, if oil was still trading at $20 a barrel, this would not be happening. In a classic spider and fly routine, governments invite foreign energy companies in when oil is too cheap to make exploration a sure deal. They ensure these companies bear the cost of the billions involved in exploration and bringing resources into production.
The result for government is happy voters in energy employment and a stream of royalties for the treasury. But at the back of the mind of every government is the thought that they can seize the assets of these companies any time they want in the "national interest". If the companies don't like the new terms and conditions, they can leave (without their production facilities).
Should we sympathize with the foreign companies? Yes, in the sense that this is a classic "politics of envy" scenario and they were the ones who did the work setting things up. No, in the sense that they don't own the oil and gas under their rigs. It is no surprise that governments want a bigger slice of the pie for their vote winning agendas. It is no surprise that poorer Bolivians saw the burgeoning wealth of oil companies and decided to vote for a piece of the action.
So the time has arrived in South America for resource nationalization. Globally speaking, this is not important. Bolivia only produces a paltry 40,000 barrels per day of oil. It has much more natural gas (estimated reserves of 60Tcf) but again their market seems to be largely confined to their Latin American neighbors - especially Brazil who gets half of its gas from Bolivia and is none too happy about the situation.
However, in a world where natural resources will continue to climb in price, it is an increasing truism that he who has the energy makes the rules. If current global tightness in supplies is indeed the Herald of Peak Oil, then this form of energy nationalization will only continue and will spread into other resources such as metals as increasingly impoverished governments realize how valuable these underground assets are.
This is not altogether a win-win situation for Bolivia. Foreign capital is going to start draining from the country as nervous investors pull out. Moreover, like Aramco and Pemex, we are going to see the fat appear on the efficiency of these operations as bureaucracy increases and jobs for the sake of it begin to fill every corner of these facilities.
The royalties may increase but the cost of running the operation will increase as well. That won't matter to the government or its voters so long as they hold the reins of energy extraction. In all aspects of life, including energy, the symbolism of complete control is all too often the only dogma that matters.
But what about gold and silver in this context? I pulled up a list of gold and silver mining companies who have projects ongoing in Bolivia. As a sample I picked Apex Silver, General Minerals Corporation, Golden Eagle Corporation, Coeur D'Alene and Vista Gold. At the time of writing they were respectively -8.2%, 0.0%, -12.0%, -0.58% and +1.46% against an HUI uptick of +1.24%.
Of course, general market conditions have to be taken into account as well as how much of the company’s overall reserves are tied up in one country. But evidently the news of this resource grab in Bolivia has unnerved precious metals stock investors. The worst performer (MYNG.OB) not surprisingly has the most leverage to Bolivian metal resources. Apex Silver also has its flagship San Cristobal project in southwest Bolivia.
Is this just a passing blip offering a buying opportunity to precious metal investors or do they have to tread more carefully in future? What will governments do when they see gold go to $2000 or silver to $50? Does Peak Oil especially fuel resource nationalisation as the trend of the future or do we just simply avoid South American producers?
As it happens, Bolivia does not produce much in the way of gold and silver, in fact their gold production is in decline. Zinc is their main product but the warning signs are there and at least demand a renewed appraisal of the balance between bullion and stocks in an increasingly uncertain world.
Roland Watson writes the investment newsletter The New Era Investor.
@Edel & Tschonko
Ich denke ganauso wie ihr. Mit Humala als möglicher Präsident in Peru wird die Minenindustrie gehörig unter Druck kommen. Peru ist immerhin der zweitgrößte Silberproduzent in 2005 gewesen (102,7 Mio. Unzen).
Peru wird nur von Mexico übertrumpft, das 2005 auf 103,3 Mio. Unzen Silber kam. (Quelle: CPM Silver Yearbook 2006).
In Mexico wird übrigens auch bald gewählt: im Juli, einer der Favoriten ist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, der ehemalige Bürgermeister von Mexiko-Stadt (2000-2005) und nun Spitzenkandidat der Linken.
Tschonko hats ja bereits gesagt: "Also, alle Werte genau anschauen. "
Grüße
Batavia Mining Ltd has received significant initial results from the recently commenced in-fill and resource extensional drilling program at the Deflector Gold-Copper Project at Gullewa in Western Australia, including a best intersection of 5m at 43.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 2.1% copper.
The drilling program commenced in mid-March 2006 with two key objectives.
The first objective was in-fill drilling targeting the upper portion of the Deflector resource in the West Lode, which is aimed at increasing the level of confidence in this portion of the resource and upgrading it to the Indicated category.
The second objective was resource extensional drilling, which is being conducted both along strike and at depth focusing on targets beneath West Lode with the objective of increasing the Mineral Resource to a level of 1M oz gold equivalent.
Significant, high-grade results have so far been received from both components of the drilling program, which is currently 40% complete.
These included high-grade intercepts from the West Lode including 4.00m at 8.21g/t gold, 0.17m at 123.4g/t gold and 2.6% copper, 4.62m at 17.60g/t gold and 0.2% copper and 1.66m at 20.17 g/t gold and 0.6% copper, including 0.32m at 94.2g/t gold.
Batavia is aiming to complete this drilling program by the end of May 2006, to be followed by resource modelling.
- 03 May 2006
Echo Resources Ltd’s IPO has closed early due to strong demand. The company is expected to list on the Australian Stock Exchange on May 9, 2006, under the ASX code EAR.
The IPO was for 24,000,000 shares at 25c per share issued to institutional and public investors. The shares offered represent 55% of the issued capital of the company, valuing Echo at about $11 million. The offer was lead managed by Bell Potter Securities Ltd.
“The strong demand for Echo’s shares is an indication of the quality of the exploration portfolio that Echo has put together at a time of rising gold and copper prices”, Echo’s chairman, Peter Andrews, commented.
Echo’s key projects include advanced gold and copper plays in the Yandal Belt of Western Australia and in Central Queensland.
The company is led by geologist, Dr Ernst Kohler, who has worked on the large Jundee and Bronzewing Gold Mines and has published extensively on the economic geology of the Yandal Belt, one of Australia’s premier gold districts.
“Echo’s strategy is to acquire advanced exploration projects with potential to generate early cash flows”, Dr Kohler said.
Echo’s Yandal Project, located 750 km northeast of Perth and 450km north of the major gold mining centre at Kalgoorlie, covers highly prospective rocks and gold-bearing structures along strike from Jundee, and contains JORC compliant gold resources of about 100,000 ounces.
“The project area represents virtually untapped nickel ground since there has been no modern exploration for nickel since the 1970’s. Recent exploration in the Yandal Belt has focused on gold following the discovery of the major ore systems at Jundee, Bronzewing and Darlot,” Dr Kohler commented.
Echo’s Mount Chalmers Project, near Rockhampton in Queensland, will be a key focus as a near-term development opportunity. Echo has consolidated tenement ownership over the historic Mount Chalmers Copper-Gold Mine, which has not been systematically explored since its closure in 1982.
The mine has to-date produced ore containing 142,000 ounces of gold and 24,000 tonnes of copper, which at current metal prices, is equivalent to more than 350,000 ounces of gold.
- 03 May 2006
@Edel
Das ist gut zu wissen, daß du dabei bist. 
Eldo hat sie auch ins Depot genommen, wie ich eben im Kanada-Junior-Thread gesehen habe.
Werd Dich auf dem laufenden halten, falls Doug nochmal was zum Besten gibt.
Hab grad gesehen: Bin jetzt auch bei Petrobank dabei.
Grüße
Die Nachricht hat mich auch nachdenklich gestimmt. Da sind wir bestimmt nicht die einzigen. Ich werde meine Zeichnung nicht zurückziehen, aber mein Zeichnungsvolumen um 50% reduzieren. Die beste Möglichkeit ist nach wie vor die vorbörslichen Kurse unter http://www.schnigge.de/trading/price/preipo.html genau im Auge zu behalten. Im Moment ist die Spanne zwar ein wenig gesunken (19,50 - 20,40), aber es sieht immer noch nach guten Zeichnungsgewinnen aus.
Ich habe auch eben mit dem zustängigen Redakteur der WirtschaftWoche (Artikel zu Catoil in Ausgabe 17/06 erschienen, damalige Empfehlung: spekualtiv zeichnen) gesprochen und ihn gefragt, was er davon hält.
Er hat mir gesagt, daß die damalige Empfehlung darauf beruhte, daß der CEO von Catoil, Herr Kastner, im Interview zugesichert hatte, der Investor wolle nur nicht genannt werden, weil er, "bzw die Ehefrau des Investors" (Kastner) das "Licht der Öffentlichkeit" scheue. Das war, wie sich nun herausstellt, offenbar nicht die ganze Wahrheit.
Sein Empfehlung an mich entspricht meiner obigen.
Grüße
Gold explorer lists 30pc up
May 02 12:48
Shares in West Australian gold explorer International Goldfields (IGC) listed on the Australian Stock Exchange at a 30 per cent premium to their issue price.
IGC first traded at noon at 26¢, up 6¢ on the price at which shares were issued in the recent offer.
The explorer was created by the spin-off of the gold assets of Cape Lambert Iron Ore, which will now focus on its iron ore project in Western Australia's north-west.
IGC issued 25 million shares at 20¢ each to raise $5 million which it plans to spend on its gold projects located about 200 kilometres north-north-west of Kalgoorlie.
Work is already underway on a bankable feasibility study on the company's Mt Ida project where mine development could start as soon as the middle of this year.
Exploration drilling at Mt Ida has uncovered an estimated resource of 110,650 ounces at an average grade of 24 grams per tonne.
IGC has also entered into a joint venture agreement with Mines & Resources Australia to carry out further exploration work around the current mine project.
The company also has a near surface gold resource of 123,000 ounces at its Evanston project, where it says there is potential for more gold to be found.
Hallo Tschonko. Hab was neues für die Liste und zwar für die 4. Rubrik: Explorer, aus denen was werden könnte.
Hatte die Drake Resources (MK 4,64 Mio. AUD, aktueller Kurs 0,195 AUD + 18%) vor einiger Zeit im Uran-Thread erwähnt, die fokussieren sich jetzt aber auf ihre Silber-Properties.
Die Uranliegenschaften werden an die bald börsennotierte Aura Energy Limited verkauft. Der Verkauf muß allerdings noch durch die Drake-Aktionäre am 15.05.06 genehmigt werden, was aber eher Formsache sein sollte. Im Gegenzug bekommt Drake einen gehörigen Anteil an Aura Energy (insg. 3,5 Mio. Aktien + 100.000 AUD = 800.000 AUD bei einem Ipo-Preis von 0,20 AUD für Aura) und für die Drake-Aktionäre (Stichtag 1. Mai) wurden zusätzlich 5 Mio. Aura-Aktien zum Ipo-Preis von 0,20 AUD zur bevorzugten Zeichnung reserviert.
Laut aktueller ASX-Mitteilung vom 02.05.06 liegt der Wert ihrer im Boden liegenden Silbervorkommen bei über 75 Mio. AUD. Potential ist also vorhanden. Anbei ein Auszug der Mitteilung.
Die ganze Mitteilung gibts unter http://www.asx.com.au/asx/rese…ctivity=&industryGroup=NO zu lesen.
Grüße
ETFs find a silver lining
Grey metal is golden as long-awaited fund makes impressive debut
By John Spence, MarketWatch
Last Update: 5:02 PM ET Apr 28, 2006
BOSTON (MarketWatch) - Shares of a highly anticipated silver exchange-traded fund rose as much as 8% in their first day of trading Friday as investors embraced a new way to capitalize on increasing global demand for the grey metal.
The new ETF, dubbed iShares Silver Trust (SLV : ishares silver trust ishares SLV138.12, +9.12, +7.1%) , finished the session up $9.12, or 7.1%, to $138.12 in active trading on the American Stock Exchange of more than 2.3 million shares.
The Silver Trust, sponsored by ETF giant Barclays Global Investors, has been in the works for more than a year. The unit of British bank Barclays Plc launched the ETF after depositing 1.5 million ounces of silver in the trust, which charges investors a sponsor fee of 0.5% of assets.
weiter unter:
Hab von Canaccord ein aktuelles Interview (26.04.06) mit Wolfdens Präsident Ewan Downie zugesendet bekommen. Hier die interessantesten Auszüge:
zur geplanten Aufspaltung:
David: One knock against the company, so far, is that there are gold bugs that love the gold assets and there are base metals fans who love the assets in the Arctic, and with the break up of the company that’s something that could make both groups happy. Comment:
Ewan: That’s what we are hoping. We are in the process of doing a plan of arrangement to have our gold projects spun out of the company into a new vehicle and that could redefine our company as our new major shareholder Goldcorp purchased an approximate 10% interest in the company because of our Red Lake portfolio. Their main interest, I believe, is in what we do in Red Lake which is it now getting over shadowed by our base metal projects in Canada’s Arctic. We feel it is a way to unlock the value of our significant southern gold projects.
Gesamtressourcen aller Projekte:
So resource-wise, in total we have about 75 million ounces of silver, 1.8 million pounds of copper, 6.3 million pounds of zinc, and over a million ounces of gold.
Nunavut-Deposits:
However, our highest grade deposit up in the north now is the Izok project and Izok contains 16 ½ million tons of 2.2% copper, about 11 ½% zinc, 2 ounces per ton silver and over 1% lead and the deposit is open-pitable. So, arguably Izok is the highest grade undeveloped base metal deposit in the world and if it were in production today, it would be the highest grade open pit mine in the world.
The Hood deposit, which is one of our other deposits in Nunavut, is over 3 million tons of 2.6% copper, 3.6% zinc, our Gondor deposit is 7.6 million ton deposit of about 5% zinc with some copper, silver and lead and our Ulu project has 1.1-1.2 million tons of 11.35 grams gold and we announced this morning that we started an underground program at Ulu with the hope of having a successful test mining program this year and moving it into production early in 2007.
At Lupin we announced today that when they closed it that there was 800,000 tons of just over ¼ ounce gold.
Grüße
Nach meiner Meinung kann man zur Zeit sehr günstig in Gas investieren. Ich habe meine Position im ABN Mini Long (WKN ABN36D) weiter aufgestockt. Aber auf jeden Fall die Stopp Loss Marke von 5,13 $ im NYMEX Natural Gas Henry Hub beachten! Zur Zeit steht er bei 6,56 $.
Grüße
28.04.2006 - 22:04
Öl robust - Erdgas auf 1-Jahres-Tief
An der New York Mercantile Exchange drehten die Ölnotierungen heute nach der Schwächephase der letzten vier Tage wieder spürbar nach oben. Der Juni-Rohölfuture verbesserte sich um 91 Cents auf 71,88 Dollar pro Barrel. Im Monat April hat der Kontrakt damit einen Zuwachs von 5,8 Prozent erzielt. Unverbleites Benzin (Mai) legte um 2,02 Cents auf 2,0921 Doll pro Gallone zu. Der Juni-Erdgaskontrakt hingegen konnte an diesen Trend nicht anknüpfen, sondern rutschte um 25 Cents auf 6,555 Dollar ab, womit er den niedrigsten Schlussstand seit über einem Jahr erreichte.
Die Rohöl-Notierungen wurden insbesondere vom Atomkonflikt mit dem Iran stimuliert, der wieder verstärkt ins Blickfeld der Anleger rückte. Heute war das 30tätige Ultimatum des UN-Sicherheitsrats ausgelaufen, der gefordert hatte, dass der Iran sein Urananreicherungsprogramm umgehend einstelle (wir berichteten). Während die Internationale Atomenergiebehörde das fast völlige Fehlen einer kooperativen Haltung des Irans beklagte, zeigte sich das Land widerspenstiger denn je. Präsident Ahmadinedschad hatte heute klargestellt, dass sein Volk in Punkto Urananreicherung keinen Schritt zurückweichen werde.
Ganz anders sah die Situation beim Erdgas aus. Wie das US-Energieministerium gestern gemeldet hatte, waren die dortigen Lagerreserven in der vergangenen Woche um 2,26 Milliarden Kubikmeter angewachsen. Dieser Zuwachs lag größtenteils oberhalb der meisten Analysten-Erwartungen. Zwar hatten Experten in den vergangenen Wochen häufig erklärt, dass ein heißer Sommer und - im schlimmsten Fall - weitere Ausfälle durch Hurrikans die Bestände schnell wieder schrumpfen lassen könnten. Fürs erste sind die Marktteilnehmer aber offensichtlich der Meinung, dass die aktuell mehr als üppige Versorgungslage nicht länger ignoriert werden könne.
http://www.boerse-go.de/news/news.php?ida=435377&idc=2|3|4|5|6|9|10|11|12|13|14|19|216|217
@Edel
Ja bin noch voll investiert und sehe es auch als eher langfristige Investition. Doug ist immer noch absolut überzeugt. Hier seine letzte Aktualisierung 04/06 zu Canwest:
BUY— We recently had an informative sit-down with Chris Hopkins, president of Oilsands Quest, the private company of which CanWest owns 63%. Chris is directly responsible for the exploration of CanWest’s oil sands land. After spending additional time with him, we’re more convinced than ever that he’s the right person for the job.
For one, Chris considers his task to be much more than just finding oil. He’s taken the initiative to tackle both the environmental details of the Firebag East project as well as stakeholder relations. As evidence, Chris showed us a custom environmental mapping technique he’s come up with to identify and avoid sensitive plant and animal life while drilling, clearing roadways, etc. at Firebag. He also showed us articles from local newspapers reporting how pleased native groups in the area are with the level of consultation from Oilsands Quest. Neither of these are standard operating procedure for energy juniors… but both will go a long way toward making the work at Firebag run smoothly.
Of course, the Oilsands Quest team still spends much of its time on its primary business: finding oil. That task is also going well—19 of the first 24 drill holes at Firebag East have hit bitumen. We’re still waiting for information on grade, but if the majority of these drills come in as rich as the first few reported, the company could already be sitting on a significant resource.
We’re not the only ones who think so. Independent consultants recently deemed Firebag East a “discovered resource.” Basically, the evaluators are saying that, yes, oil sands are present in Saskatchewan (a proposition that up until now has been debated). This doesn’t, of course, put any numbers on how much oil is present — nor suggest that it can be produced economically — but it is the first step toward answering those questions.
Oilsands Quest will now digest the data from the first drilling at Firebag. We’ll see over the coming weeks whether the initial work is enough to prove a resource. If not, we expect more drilling here after break-up to help delineate things.
The next task will be to assess what other areas of the company’s leases might contain oil sands. We can’t emphasize enough how massive this land package is. After seeing it on a map, it’s clear that Oilsands Quest’s ground is roughly the size of the entire Alberta oil sands. In short, there’s still an enormous amount of room to grow.
The company plans to drill holes progressively further to the north and south of Firebag until they’ve perforated nearly the entire length of the property. There’s no reason to suspect that this won’t uncover a number of new oil sands deposits. If so, the potential of this project starts to look absolutely staggering.
Although we’re already near a double from our US$4.10 recommendation (in fact, the stock briefly went as high as $8.30), we’d hold onto this one. It’s still very early in the game, and we believe there is still much good news to come. If and when it does, the current share price could look extremely cheap.
Grüße
P.S.: Petrobank wird wohl ins Depot wandern.
Jason Hommel zu Adanac (AUA.V) und Idaho General Mines (IGMI.OB)
Friday, April 28, 2006
A mistake many investors make when using technical analysis is not to use monthly and weekly time frames on an instrument. More importantly, they don't have the right maps to correctly find, review and decide if a stock has the characteristics of a "Super Performance" stock. Lets take a look at how we identify good momentum stocks and use one of our top ideas in the energy arena, specifically the Oil Sands sector. Canwest Petroleum ($7.31)
Den Rest der Analyse gibts unter:
http://www.freemarketnews.com/…4-28.asp?wid=227&nid=4680
Grüße
