A World of Mining special – Part 2 of 2 Part 1: Chasing the carat: Canada’s Queen of Diamonds comes full-circle Stornoway Diamonds’ hostile takeover of Ashton Mining and Quebec’s Renard diamond project in January 2007 was followed by an exodus of Ashton executives and managers. Several departed for Peregrine Diamonds, which is advancing its flagship… Continue Reading

A World of Mining Special – Part 1 of 2 This is a story about Eira Thomas, dubbed the “Queen of Diamonds” for her role leading the geologists who discovered the kimberlite pipes that became the Diavik diamond mine. Diavik, Canada’s second diamond mine, produced 1.9 million carats of the sparkling stones in the fourth quarter… Continue Reading

Seven months after the B.C. Securities Commission slapped a cease-trade order on shares of Barkerville Gold Mines (BGM), the stock remains halted. The regulatory slapdown came after Barkerville, helmed by Frank Callaghan, proclaimed an NI 43-101 resource estimate of 10.6 million gold ounces, indicated, for its Cow Mountain project and the “geological potential” for 65 to 90… Continue Reading

Lumina Copper on Tuesday announced a preliminary economic assessment that gives the Taca Taca project in Salta, Argentina a net present value of $2.1 billion, assuming a discount rate of 8% and $2.75/lb copper, and after-tax internal rate of return of 17.2%. The assessment includes substantial gold and molybdenum at assumed prices of $1,200/oz Au… Continue Reading

Source: World of Mining The annual Vancouver Resource Investment Conference goes Sunday and Monday at Vancouver Convention Centre West. If you’re prospecting for investment ideas and kicking tires on potential stock picks, read the Vancouver Sun article I wrote about the Cambridge show a year ago. The piece is dated but not much has changed (except for a little tech… Continue Reading

To some, Vancouver is a collision of condo towers, a mecca for mining companies or a promoters’ paradise. It is all of these, of course, and much more. Last night I tweeted this photo of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland from space, courtesy of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield’s Twitter account (a must-follow). Hadfield has been tweeting unearthly photos and… Continue Reading

May the best of 2012 be the worst of 2013 2012 was both a challenging (to put it mildly) year for junior mining stocks and a great opportunity to pick up high-quality names at bargain prices. I hope you managed to take advantage of some of those sales. Sandstorm Gold, the first company that I… Continue Reading

by James Kwantes, World of Mining “Murray Pezim lives somewhere beyond Outrageous. To get there, drive to Crazed, keep going toward Bonkers via Berserk, then slow at Around the Bend and look for signs.” Sports Illustrated’s Douglas S. Looney “Pezim had taken them on a ride to nowhere, but what fun they had had.” The Vancouver Sun’s… Continue Reading

by James Kwantes That thud you heard yesterday was Lumina Copper stock dropping a further 8.5% onnews that its strategic review process has yet to land a buyer for the company’s Taca Taca copper-gold-molybdenum deposit in Argentina – not the easiest place to do business. It wasn’t the NR expected by takeover-hungry investors, who took the stock down hard.… Continue Reading

Torex Gold (TXG) put the Guerrero gold belt back on the map earlier this week with a monster $350-million bought deal financing underwritten by BMO Capital Markets and others. In a junior mining sector that has been on the ropes for much of the year, it’s an impressive cash pile. Torex’s Morelos deposit has 5.4 million ounces of… Continue Reading

By James Kwantes, World of Mining Second in a series (Read Part 1 here) “Opportunity can go by in a day.” Norman Bell Keevil, Sr. Norman Bell Keevil was born on a Saskatchewan farm in 1910. In his first life, Keevil was an academic, studying math, chemistry and geology at the University of Saskatchewan before getting… Continue Reading

Starting an investing blog covering the junior mining sector requires some preparation. So I trekked up Howe Street and east on West Georgia to the Vancouver public library, where I borrowed Fleecing the Lamb: The Inside Story of the Vancouver Stock Exchange, by David Cruise and Alison Griffiths. Published by Douglas & McIntyre in 1987, two… Continue Reading

Robert Friedland returned to the mining spotlight with a vengeance this week on news of IPO plans for Ivanplats, his private company with copper and zinc projects in the Congo and platinum and nickel projects in South Africa. Friedland showed his Midas touch with the discoveries of Voisey’s Bay nickel deposit in Canada, purchased by… Continue Reading

The Parti Quebecois’ narrow election victory yesterday gave the province’s long-suffering separatists something to cheer about – at least until deadly gunfire from a lunatic introduced tragedy as Pauline Marois celebrated her political party’s win. The election outcome, not to mention the gunfire, likely put a bit of a scare into people – especially outside… Continue Reading

by James Kwantes Lots of action this week for Sandstorm Gold (SSL), a gold streaming company I wrote about in my first blog post. On Monday, CEO Nolan Watson rang the opening bell as shares of Venture-listed Sandstorm opened on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SAND. Shares had closed at $9.73 the previous Friday in… Continue Reading