At the conclusion of my Skype interview with Brent Cook a couple of weeks ago, he told me to reach out to the folks at Focus Ventures to learn a bit more about what they are doing at their Bayovar 12 phosphate project in Northern Peru. I responded that I had heard quite a bit… Continue Reading

Undervalued Colombian oil play Petroamerica Oil Corp (TSXV:PTA) has grown its exploration portfolio this morning, just three weeks after taking out a smaller competitor, Suroco Energy, to grow and diversify its asset base. The company is acquiring a 50% interest in the Llanos-19 block from a division of Pacific Rubiales, Colombia’s largest non state owned… Continue Reading

“Europe is a landscape. East Asia is a seascape. Therein lies the crucial difference between the 20th and 21st century.”   History is replete with seemingly isolated incidents ballooning into something much larger. As a stark reminder, the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I is only a few months away. Back then,… Continue Reading

As stated in our article yesterday, Ivanhoe Mines is currently (emphasis on currently) under capitalized to move Kamoa and Kipushi forward with major developments until the company secures some sort of financing for them.  However, as we stated, these two projects are absolutely world-class and they are controlled by Robert Friedland which means they will be financed in one way or another soon (joint venture, spin-off, equity, strategic investor).… Continue Reading

Today, the world’s largest diversified miner, BHP Billiton, announced it is looking to divest all or part of its Western Australian Nickel West business which includes the Mt Keith, Cliffs and Leinster mines and associated concentrators, the Kalgoorlie smelter, Kambalda concentrator and the Kwinana refinery.  The announcement comes as nickel prices continue to soar (although have… Continue Reading

Petromanas Energy is drilling one of the most highly anticipated oil wells in the world today, the Molisht-1 well in Albania, which has the potential to transform the Calgary-based junior oil company, if good results hit the market in Q3 of 2014. Backed by noted resource financier and philanthropist, Frank Giustra, and partnered with energy… Continue Reading

Continental Gold’s Buriticá project is Colombia’s most valuable gold deposit currently advancing towards production. The company is aiming to have over 10 million ounces of gold by 2015 and be in production by 2017, according to their latest corporate presentation. The Buriticá project covers a large area home to many illegal small scale miners, four… Continue Reading

Mining mogul Ross Beaty has decided not to move forward with a $5 million exploration joint venture with Magellan Minerals and a private company to explore areas of Brazil’s Pocone gold belt. Tuesday evening Magellan announced that the March 3, 2014 agreement with Mr. Beaty, a successful and closely followed natural resource investor, had been terminated. Commenting… Continue Reading

By Frank Holmes CEO and Chief Investment Officer U.S. Global Investors Texas is oil country. The state I now call home leads the nation in oil production and would be one of the top oil-producing nations if it were its own country. But that doesn’t stop us from exploring other promising oil opportunities further afield.… Continue Reading

Colombian copper-gold explorer Cordoba Minerals was mentioned in PI Financial’s latest Digging Through The Dirt (DTD) newsletter, which is authored by Bill Whitehead, Senior Vice President & Senior Investment Advisor, Adam Simmons, Ph.D. Geology, Investment Advisor, and Justin Hayek, CIM, Investment Advisor. Cordoba Minerals – CDB-v You will recall that in previous issues of DTD we outlined a… Continue Reading

Luck has always played a role in the natural resource exploration business. Tiny companies toil away and turn over multiple projects in the hopes of finding something with real value. Sometimes non-core projects deliver pleasant surprises to investors in these high risk endeavours. Robert Friedland’s Diamond Fields International was looking for diamonds on the sea… Continue Reading

GRAND PRAIRIE, Alberta – Mike Weeks and Delayne Weeks of Canada had a dream five years ago: create a gold mine. Do it in a nation that has never produced gold commercially. Use the process to educate and enrich an impoverished population. The country is Cambodia. The mine is in northeast Cambodia, close to Vietnam. Phum Syarung,… Continue Reading

Founder and chairman of Continental Gold (CNL:TSX) Bob Allen will step back from the wheel of the company that he helped turned into Colombia’s most valuable junior gold developer, the company announced Monday. A pioneer in Colombian mining, Allen started Continental in 2007 as a privately held, Bermuda-based outfit, landing on the TSX in 2010… Continue Reading

The Euro Area continues to face challenging disinflationary headwinds which have vexed ECB policymakers for the past couple of years: Click to enlarge After this morning’s ECB statement and Mario Draghi press conference it is becoming increasingly likely that the ECB is on the cusp of launching some form of large scale asset purchase program… Continue Reading

This post originally appeared in South China Morning Post. Three years ago, Robert Friedland, executive chairman and founder of Ivanhoe Mines, told the Hong Kong Mines and Money conference: “Hong Kong will become the largest mining finance market in the world.” Four years on this clearly hasn’t happened, which has led some to wonder if it… Continue Reading