South African Platinum Supply to Rise 5%

Boosted by stockpile sales - Johnson Matthey JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Supply of platinum from South Africa, the world's top source of the precious metal, will rise by 5 percent this year, with the sale of stocks countering lower output, a leading metal refiner said on Tuesday. The producer of four fifths of the world's platinum, will see supply rise by 210,000 ounces to 4.73 million ounces in 2009 mainly due to sales of the metal produced last year, but were unsold until this year, Johnson Matthey (JM) said in its Platinum 2009 Interim Review. Although three new mines have started up in South Africa, and a number of others have increased production, output of platinum concentrate will fall, but changes in refined stocks will ensure supplies will increase, JM said. (more...)

Junior Mining Stocks Ready to Breakout

Junior Miners Poised for Impressive Gains

Like all commentators, I am somewhat constrained in what I write about: it has to be a subject in which people have interest. Sure, I could write about Greek mythology or backpacking in Bolivia, but if no one reads it, it becomes a fruitless exercise – and raises that cliché question “if a tree falls in a forest...?” (more...)

Mines Management, Inc. Stock

MINES MANAGEMENT, INC. announced today that it has withdrawn its previously announced public offering of 6,000,000 shares of common stock. The terms presented by the underwriters did not meet the minimum expectation of net proceeds. The Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Glenn M. Dobbs, stated, “While we were gratified with the strong support for the offering, potential pricing would have required unacceptable levels of dilution to current stockholders. We are fortunate that our balance sheet remains strong as we work to advance the Montanore Silver-Copper Project, with approximately US$14 million in cash and cash equivalents, and no material debt. We will continue to focus our efforts on preparations for the underground drilling program and re-permitting efforts as we advance the Montanore toward development.” (more...)

Goldcorp to buy Canplats

Goldcorp to buy Canplats for C$238m TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's Goldcorp Inc (G.TO: Quote) said on Monday it has agreed to acquire junior gold miner Canplats Resources Corp (CPQ.V: Quote) for about C$238 million ($229 million) as it tries to establish a network of satellite mines around its Penasquito gold project in Mexico. (more...)

Newmont Peru Gold Mine

Newmont expects steady output from Peru gold mine LIMA (Reuters) - Newmont Mining Corp (NEM.N: Quote) said on Thursday it expects output at Yanacocha -- one of Latin America's largest gold mines -- to hold steady in the next few years, contradicting an earlier forecast made by its partner. Yanacocha, run jointly by U.S.-based Newmont and Peruvian precious metals miner Buenaventura (BUEv.LM: Quote) (BVN.N: Quote), reported sales of 1.8 million ounces of gold last year. "This year, we're going to have something similar to 2008 production ... and for the next few years, we're going to maintain levels of around 1.8, 1.9 million ounces," Carlos Santa Cruz, Newmont's vice president of South American operations, told reporters. (more...)

Top 100 Mining Stocks

Amid power buying, trends and patterns from the 100 most popular listed mining names. JOHANNESBURG - Stock markets are flying just about everywhere; the MSCI world equities USD index is trading at 12-month highs, along with the MSCI emerging markets USD, as are the Dow Jones Industrial, S+P 500, and DJ Stoxx 600; some markets are lagging a little, as seen in China's CSI 300, and given general buoyancy there has been some profit-taking as seen in Russia's Micex Russia and the India Nifty. Most equities subsectors are also doing very well; in general, buying has the air of indiscrimination about it, with value-seeking discernible at the margin. Any kind of positive sign or story, and chances are that a stock dressed in the fashions of the moment will fly. A year ago, of course, the world was cluttered to paralysis with almost universal predictions that the world would end under the weight of a Great Depression of fatal proportions. (more...)

Robex Resources Inc. on the Nampala

Robex Resources Inc. announce that it has completed the preparatory phase of the drilling campaign planned for the Nampala gold deposit located on the Mininko permit, in the Republic of Mali. Robex is now preparing to commence its drilling campaign with the intent of increasing the quality of the resources contained within a portion of the Nampala deposit.

Virginia Mines Inc.: Secures $2.4 M Private Placement

Virginia Mines Inc. announces that it has negotiated a private placement that consists of 279,124 flow-through common shares at a price of $8.67 per share, which represents 69% premium to the last 10 days volume weighted average price for gross proceeds of CA$2,420,000. Casimir Capital L.P. (”Casimir”) acts as the agent for the financing. At the closing, Virginia agrees to pay Casimir a finder’s fee equal to 6% of the gross proceeds of the financing and non-transferable broker warrants entitling Casimir to subscribe for such number of common shares of Virginia equal to 6% of the number of flow-through common share that will be issued. The warrants will be struck at $6.58 and will have a term of 24 months from closing. (more...)

Junior Gold Miners ETF

US asset manager, Van Eck, is launching that fund, it says will focus on small and mid-cap developers NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. asset manager Van Eck Global said on Wednesday it has launched a junior gold miners exchange-traded fund (ETF) on the New York Stock Exchange, focusing on small- and mid-cap gold deposit developers. The New York-based company said the Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF GDXJ has started trading under the ticker symbol GDXJ on Wednesday on the NYSE Arca platform, where many other ETFs are listed. (more...)

Randgold Resources: Fast Track Mali Project

Reports rising costs but a swing to profit in Q3 LONDON (Reuters) - Gold miner Randgold Resources (RRS.L) swung into a profit in the third quarter as higher gold sales outweighed rising costs. It also said on Tuesday it will fast-track its Gounkoto project in Mali and plans to complete a pre-feasibility study on the project, situated 25 kilometres south of the company's flagship Loulo complex, by the end of the first quarter of 2010. The only pure gold producer in the FTSE 100 index said it moved into a profit of $13.6 million from a loss of $684,000 a year ago. (more...)

Allana Resources: Strategic Investment with China Minerals United Management Ltd.

Allana Resources Inc. announce that the Company has completed its previously announced Strategic Investment with China Minerals United Management Ltd. (see News Release dated November 4, 2009) by way of private placement financing of Common Shares of the Corporation for gross proceeds of $2,000,000 million through the issuance of 8,000,000 Common Shares at a price of $0.25 per Common Share (the “Offering Price”). (more…)

Gold Bullion vs. Mining Stocks

Why Gold Bullion May Outperform Mining Stocks “Bullion is likely to begin outperforming its producers”, the mining stocks, John Roque, managing director at WJB Capital Group, told Bloomberg.  According to his technical analysis, “gold should do better than gold equities … it doesn’t mean the stocks won’t perform, but they will likely do less well relative to the metal.” It’s been 14 months since mining stocks were last as expensive as they are now relative to physical gold. So, mining stocks may turn the performance lead back over to the bullion price. For four sessions in a row gold futures have risen, which the article attributes to the widely held belief that the Fed is going to be slow to raise interest rates. The Fed’s continued inaction is weakening the dollar and that tends to drive the price of gold higher in dollar terms. (more...)