Good afternoon
German Industrial Production slightly better - but not convincing at all!
Central Banks around the world increasing their gold position + ETF-buying pave the way for more to come? It´s certainly pretty impressive, how every dip is being bought…gold recovering pretty well to above 1400 today, before seeing some profit taking, once the US opened.
Equities are still reeling a bit from the turnaround of bond prices late last week…metals looking ok today, with LME stocks in nickel falling to a new 6-year low. Some more talk around about shortages of nickel sulphate going forward, with may new EV-models coming to the market soon. But having said this - many of them still seem to have teethinproblems - not to talk about the slow roll-out of charging stations. All base metals are down so far this year, following some nice runs earlier on - nickel is strongly outperforming , up by about 15%.
Black Dragon Gold - this gold developer, backed by some smart money, is battling against the very negative perception of Spain in meatl markets. The market cap of Dragon at 9 mill A$ is a joke - 9,2 millt of ore at 4,6g gold/t for 1.2 mill oz in Measured & Indicated Resources would be a joke in most other countries. But the recent , major problems of Berkshire and Highfield have left a very bad taste in everybodies mouth, when it comes to Spain! - or even Europe generally! BDG have started the first steps of the Enviromental Impact Study….normally, it should take a year or so to get it - but Highfield I think have worked for 4 years, before finally receiving it. The deposit is too sexy to be completely ignored - so I am holding a small watching-position here. In a “normal” country, this resource should be worth 6-10x BDG´s market cap, given the excellent grade. Under he circumstances, the stock is probably valued correctly, unless the Spanish bureaucracy surprises us! Too small for most , anyway, and relatively thinly traded.
Breaker Resources - the stock has recently underperformed, not helped by the need to raise capital a month or so ago. The market is obviously resisting to give it another leg up before the new resource estimate will be out later this month. The pre-feasibility study is planned to be finished late this Quarter / early next Quarter as well - putting some numbers on the deposit for the first time. That should be exciting! I am sure, that a few of the larger names in Australian gold mining are watching carefully… once BRB can show enough indicated resources within an economic pitshell for say 7-8 years mine life at 150.000 oz, we should have a good chance here for a re-rating. Another important factor will be likely AISC - none of the larger companies will want to buy a high-cost producer, as nobody wants to be seen to leverage down in asset quality for the sake of growth. I think it should be worthwhile adding a few before the resource-update.
Lefroy - ye another round of drilling results from them, this tine on JV-ground with Goldfields. FI is running with the exploration, and have now drilled 600 air core holes for 33.mmm since January. Certainly what you call a systematic drilling program, which is ongoing. They have found several reasonable intersections , and have extended the strike length of anomalous mineralisation. The area is all under more or less think cover - hence all indicators of mienralisation should be viewed as exploration success. The current program is just seen as basic work, to define areas, which should see deeper drilling. The exploration program remnains promising - but it´s still very early days for any potential discovery., despite some nice indications!
have a nice evening
WS