OT - Hungaroring - Hell yeah

Youtube - below

Brent Cook Interviewed by Daniella Cambone

Interview on Kitco

 On the junior side, he thinks that it is an interesting area to look at but at the same time it is getting ‘tough.’ “There are very few [junior] companies out there now with the technical competence and cash to really advance exploration plays.” However, Cook says well-standing junior companies are the place to be because over the next two years, the majors are going to have to buy something and this is where they will be looking

Productivity in Mining - Ernst & Young

Report from Ernst & Young putting the case for "broad transformation" by the miners to increase productivity.

Summary                         Full PDF

For example Australian Mining labour productivity trend

A long term re-focus is required

Eric Coffin & Rick Rule Discussion at Sprott Vancouver Resource Symposium

Discussions from Sprott Conference on Korelin.

Sprott Symposium - Includes list of Sponsor Companies
Reports on Symposium discussions

• Northern Miner (free subscriptions offer)
• Sprott 

Liam Halligan - UK Telegraph Questioning the Dollar

Goldbug narrative in the mainstream / establishment UK Telegraph newspaper questioning the Dollar's role as reserve currency, the rise of the Brics at purchasing power parity and non-dollar trade settlement.

Martin Armstrong also discusses the politicisation of the dollar in trade and reserves.

Silver Deposits in Mexico - Size & Grade

Comparative graphic from Plata Latina
Also Silver Institute - Global Silver Production for perspective
And Companies with Mining Projects in Mexico according to the Mexican Geological Service - large searchable database.
Production       Development        Exploration

Top 20 Silver Producing Countries in 2013 (millions of ounces)
1.	Mexico	169.7
2.	Peru	118.1
3.	China	118.0
4.	Australia	59.2
5.	Russia	45.4
6.	Bolivia	41.2
7.	Chile	39.2
8.	Poland	37.6
9.	United States	35.0
10.	Argentina	24.7
11.	Canada	20.8

OT - Anglesey & North Wales

Hot Sunny Days   -   Trearrdur Bay

New Sprott Gold Miners ETF

New Gold Miners ETF from Sprott - SGDM
Sprott discuss weighting for growth and balance sheet strength - HERE
Company components - at launch sees a very strong concentration in top 3 holdings. Franco Nevada, Randgold and Goldcorp.

Rising Rates Good for Gold - Myrmikan Capital - Daniel Oliver

Myrmikan Capital Research Report

If less printing and higher rates were bad for gold, as the bank analysts tell us, gold should have sold off vigorously. It surged instead.

Peter Brandt - Gold bias Long Term Bullish

Peter Brandt sees critical supports at $1277 and $1240

Marginal Oil Production Costs vs Rise of Alternatives

Ambrose Evans Pritchard reviews the marginal cost of oil production and the increasing competitiveness of alternatives, which may leave trillions of dollars of malinvestment - the "subprime danger of this cycle".

US Official Gold Reserves vs M3 Money Supply

An interesting chart from Jason Hamlin's speculations on the gold price

Canaccord Junior Mining - Joe Mazumder

Interview at CEO .ca

There are companies that provide leverage as an ‘out-of-the-money’ option on the gold price because they have the liquidity to deliver a high beta. Those without the liquidity do not offer the beta despite having projects with high gold leverage......The asymmetry is derived by selecting

Rick Rule - Do the Work - 3 investors with $3bn on the sidelines for juniors

Do Rule and the "bigmoney on the sidelines" get what they want?

"Market clearing prices like summer 2000"

Choose your strategy - "Do the work" or "Have a hunch, bet a bunch"

Also see more recent comments HERE

“I don’t know about the short term,” said Rick, “but ‘leveraged’ plays are looking pretty attractive to me because they are so hated.”

‘Leveraged’ plays on precious metals usually refer to mines or deposits that depend on higher metals prices in order to generate returns. Today, many investors prefer to focus on projects that may prove to be money-making at current metals prices. But Rick says the aversion to leverage makes these types of opportunities more attractive:

“In my view, precious resources and precious metals markets have an up-cycle that lasts around five years. To me this means we could see much higher metals prices within the next couple of years. Right now, nobody wants to own the leveraged juniors; everybody wants to own the smaller, high-grade deposits, which are less dependent on higher metals prices. What that means is that leveraged deposits are probably cheap. I’d warn that you may not get much pleasure from owning them in the next 12 months. In the 3 or 4-year timeframe though, you could be handsomely rewarded.

OT - Le Tour Yorkshire - Grand Départ 2014

Massive crowds for Tour de France Grand Depart in Yorkshire - England...pics

John Hathaway - Tocqueville Gold Investor Letter - 2014-Q2

Latest Letter

The precious metals complex, both mining shares and bullion, appears to be in the process of completing a major bottom extending back to mid-2013.

Haywood Securities - Weekly Dig - 2014

CEO. CA has links to Haywood's Weekly Dig, including their Junior X watchlist and numerous producer earnings estimates and reserve/resource valuations across Gold, Silver and many other miners.

• 6th Feb 2015      
• 16th Jan 2015       23rd Jan       30th Jan
• 7th Nov 2014        14th Nov       21st Nov           28th Nov    
• 3rd Oct 2014        10th Oct        17th Oct           24th Oct            31st Oct
• 5th Sept 2014       12th Sept       19th Sept         26th Sept
• 1st August 2014   8th August    15th August     22nd August     29 August
• 4th July 2014       11th July       18th July          25th July
• 27th June 2014

Brent Cook - Tips for Finding Juniors that can survive the dust bowl

Brent Cook Interview at The Gold Report

In H1/14, I went through more than 100 gold deposits with NI-43-101-compliant resources and found very few that I felt actually made good money. There are lots of resources being touted by too many companies, just not many that can make money, assuming the gold price and cost structure stays more or less where they are.

If we see a rapid rise in the gold price, maybe some of these assets will look more profitable. The last time the gold price rose, the majors dropped the grade they were mining, thereby lowering their per ton profitability. At the same time the input costs that go into mining—labor, materials, consumables—rose. We never saw the profit that was advertised and that we expected.

Unlike many interviewees, Cook actually owns some juniors.
Brent Cook: I own, or my family owns, shares of the following companies mentioned in this interview: 

• Pilot Gold Inc.
• Fission Uranium Corp. 
• Focus Ventures Ltd.
• Dalradian Resources Inc

In Gold We Trust - Stoeferle - Incrementum 2014

The eighth annual report from Ronald-Peter Stoeferle at Incrementum covering much gold "fundamentals" ground.

In the course of last year’s price collapse, a lot of technical damage was inflicted. The past months have seen a significant decline in speculative activity in the sector. The majority of bulls appear to have thrown in the towel. We like the fact that the consensus considers the gold bull market over. Gold is now a contrarian investment. 

The migration of gold demand from West to East is continuing. The growing importance of Asia's middle class for gold demand is widely underestimated. Assuming that incomes in China and India will continue to rise, gold will inevitably be one of the beneficiaries of this “love trade”.  

Gold stocks clearly exhibit a highly asymmetric risk-reward profile at present. In the wake of the correction, mining companies have reset their priorities - profitability, capital spending discipline and shareholder value have replaced the maximization of production. Moreover, there is no other sector that investors view with similarly pronounced scepticism. 

From a technical perspective, our assumption is that the gold price is near the end of its long consolidation period. The clearly positive CoT data and the recent revival of gold mining shares all suggest as much. We are therefore convinced that the technical picture has been repaired and that a stable bottom has formed. 

Of course correlation is not causation .... but some interesting charts below  - But Do Read the Full Report linked above.....

Brent Cook on the Upturn in Junior Stocks

Brent Cook in discussion on Korelin

Have Precious Metals begun a New Bull Market ? - Possible massive H&S bottom - Peter Brandt

Peter Brandt points to a possible massive head and shoulders bottom in gold, yet to be confirmed, with a break over $1400 targeting $2400.
Similarly Chris Kimble points to a possilbe H&S bottom in the Gold Miners.

Barron's Mid-year Roundtable - Fred Hickey on Gold as Interest Rates go negative

Mid-year Roundtable from Barron's

Fred Hickey -

The European Central bank just announced it will charge banks 0.1% for parking cash overnight. That gold and silver now yield more than cash could be a spectacularly bullish propellant for the metals. 

We should consider that negative over-night rates, as a tool to push banks to lend, may not prove effective if applied solely in one jurisdiction, the EU, whilst capital is mobile globally. The stronger £ GBP and US$ may be some sign of EU capital movement. If these economies do not want stronger currencies we may see more central banks also set negative rates, can this be a spur to increased lending and money velocity lacking in recent years? Gold should react to this.

Brent Cook - Insights into the Discovery Process

Discovery Process

A series of free articles

1)    The ability to conceptualize a legitimate target that offers the possibility of a meaningful economic deposit.

2)    Teamwork and open minds to revise and adjust the exploration target concept based on new data.

3)    Money, plus an investor base that is willing to let the exploration process play out.

4)    The ability to rapidly recognize and accept failure and walk away from a project that once held great potential.

Fed Prepares to Maintain Record Balance Sheet for Years

Bloomberg article

Meyer said the FOMC now doesn’t appear worried about having a big balance sheet, and many officials “prefer to operate at a higher level of reserves.”     “There is a preference emerging to say, ‘This works,’” Meyer said. “The question is, do they ever want to get back to normal?”

Junior Gold M&A - Pilot Gold to Acquire Cadillac Mining

Pilot, one of Mark O'Dea's companies, spun out of Fronteer Gold after acquisition by Newmont, announce the acquisition of tiny junior Cadillac focussed on a past producing Utah sediment hosted gold project.

Larry Edelson Increasingly Bullish on Precious Metals and Selected Miners ?

HERE

While gold, silver and mining shares may look weak on the surface, I have every reason to believe that this weakness is merely a disguise for the next big move,  which will be dramatically higher for both metals -

Junior Gold M&A - Mandalay to Acquire Elgin

Mandalay have seen steady stock appreciation during the mining bear market with a focus on production and near production assets and benefits from Antimony prices.(last year revenues were ~ 39:42:19 Gold:Silver:Antinmony) They recently purchased Silver Standard's Challocollo project (in Bolivia) and are now proposing the $70m acquisition of Elgin Mining who started out with a plan to rehabilitate the Lupin mine in Nunavut then acquired Gold Ore Resources for their producing Swedish Bjorkdal gold mine. Adding another 50k oz production could see Mandalay produce over 150k oz combined. Elgin's last presentaation indicated that $30-50m capex could move them to 70-78k oz pa. It will be interesting to see whether Elgin's Patrick Downey remains in the combined group.

Junior Gold M&A - B2 Gold to Acquire Papillon Resources $570m

So the rumour mill was right, Clive Johnson's B2 Gold are to acquire Papillon's high grade deposit in Mali which should add 300k low cost oz to production for near $300m additional build capex, near $900m in all. Together with the Volta acquisition in Burkina Faso this should make quite a centre in a relatively undeveloped and unexplored West African gold belt with political risk the key concern.

Rio Tinto Chartbook - May 2014

No precious metals at Rio Tinto but a wide ranging view of the materials and markets Rio operate in, especially Iron and Coal to China. Including Iron cost curves

Gold Miners' Value Destruction Cycle - Citibank - High Grading ?

Barron's report that Citibank's Global Goldbook warns against the gold miners, even at depressed levels, as they are destroying value through high-grading mines, also a contention of Brent Cook's, (although he sees it as longer term bullish for the juniors with quality deposits).
However as reported by PI Financial's Digging the Dirt there is analysis which shows production grades in line with reserve grades. It would be interesting to dig further.
Certainly a mine by mine analysis like PI's graphs is important. At a company level the average grade can be adjusted by scaling up and down individual mines' production with the most appropriate economics for the current gold price, while this questions the longer term furtures of the higher cost and lower grade mines it does not change each mine's economics.
PI note that Barrick and Newmont's production does indicate some high grading.
We should also consider that as gold prices fall and miners take write-downs and reduce reserves of their marginal mines the reserve grade will increase into line with production grade.

Improving Productivity in Mining

Whilst this is a promo article from a software company there are some interesting perspectives from Dundee Precious Metals and Anglogold on how far behind the curve the mining industry is against the lean manufacturing and process control improvements that manufacturers have followed for many years. Basic data capture, controls and visualisation are key. This attention to detail will improve unit costs in a sustainable way which contrasts with simply high-grading mines. For such an incredibly capital intensive industry the focus on operational excellence seems to have been lacking.

Hong Kong Precious Metals Summit

Hong Kong Show May 29th / 30th
Webcasts should follow
Precious metals summits tend to include smaller more speculative companies than the Denver group shows.
Companies - below

Junior Gold M&A - B2 Gold Linked to Papillon Bid ?

Aussie press suggest B2 Gold are a likely $600m bidder for Papillon Resource's high grade Mali project

Notes from European Gold Forum 2014 - Winter

Discussion HERE specifically relating to Teranga Gold but also some general views.
(Paid site discussing more companies' European Gold forum presentations HERE (early/mid May-14 articles)
Investors have become used to looking at outdated PEA / PFS studies with a view that gold prices have come down and development over-spends have proved costs have gone up.
This may be changing, though of course investors must always be wary of feasibility study, and especially PEA, assumptions.
The juniors which advanced most strongly in early 2014 and since pulled back are interesting to maintain on close watch for renewed strength. From Winter -

• Emerging producers with a bent for expansion have been severely marked down.
• the market is now pricing them as if the execution and cost overrun risk is extreme and the prospect for takeovers of these emerging deposits is nil
• There are some very, very compelling execution lift (de-risking) situations
• The gold optionality, or call premium, on these deposits is also virtually nil
• Time and time again during this forum, presenters state that the feasibility studies used were often done several years ago and that costs have since come down.
• Gold Standard Ventures, for example, indicated that drilling costs are down 50-60%
• Typically, mine plans for the companies on which I am focused have been tweaked to be more scalable starting with smaller capex and simpler designs so as to avoid the high profile development hazards
• The common quote is, “We have good flexibility,” and that it’s a “good time to build a scaleable mine” in terms of labor and material.

John Kaiser Presentations

Some recent presentations by John Kaiser, a range of items, including these, are free to read after a time.

• Strategies for a Selective Resource Sector Bull Market
• Workshop: Resource Junior Stories for 2014
• Survival Strategies for a Resource Sector Bear Market
• Bear Market Navigation with Silver Juniors
• Keynote: What will drive Bear Market Survivors?

Accounting in Mining

PWC 2012          PDF
PWC "Basics" 2010
KPMG 2012 Survey
CPA Canada
Ernst & Young 2013 "Good Mining"
Deloitte 2007 - Traps & Pitfalls
Deloitte 2003 - Financial Reporting in Global Mining - although out of date highlights some of the key conceptual issues

Although its mineral reserves are arguably the most 

valuable asset of a mining company, they do not appear 

as an asset on the balance sheet except to the extent 

they were purchased. Even then, the cost of mineral 

reserves is often not disclosed separately from other 

mining-related fixed assets.

Assets should not be carried on the balance sheet at an amount in excess of their recoverable amount. The measurement and recognition of asset impairment is an important issue in the mining industry

Producing Gold & Silver Mines - CruGroup

Lists of Mines by Country making up 75% of Global production included in Cru Group Cost Curve Analyses

Gold Aug-2013             Gold Ongoing
Silver 2013                   Silver Ongoing
Copper 2013
Uranium 2013
Others

Junior Gold Mining M&A - Rio Alto bids $300m for Sulliden in Peru

Rio Alto(RIO.TO) today proposed the acquisition of Sulliden (30 miles from Rio Alto's La Arena) for $300m to create a larger Peru based Gold miner developing Sulliden's Shahuindo Gold project (2.4m oz M&I, 1.6m Inferred).
Sulliden had a $24m investment from Agnico Eagle in April 2013 last year, amongst a series of Agnico junior investments, (see here ). Sulliden is one of Stan Bharti's Forbes & Manhatten companies.

Sulliden's 2012 Feasibility Study indicated a staged development with low initial capex around $130m
Raymond James on the 2012 Feasibility Study
Sulliden's PDAC presentation

The Mining Industry in British Columbia - PWC

Review of Mining in BC 2013    and Detail at PWC
From a series of PWC Mining Publications including

• Global Mining Trends 2013 - includes consolidated industry financials for 10 years
• Aussie Mine 2013
• Digging Deeper into All in Cost Disclosure
• Canadian Mine Taxation - Detailed comparisons of different Canadian States

Leading Economies at PP Parity

World Bank Assessment of the World's largest economies at Purchasing Power Parity released a couple of weeks ago.

The six largest middle income economies – China, India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico – account for 32.3 percent of world GDP, whereas the 6 largest high income economies – United States, Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, and Italy – account for 32.9 percent.