Panama’s Bellhaven bullish on Colombia

Greetings subscribers

Here’s a deal I believe will get interesting in the weeks to come: Bellhaven Copper & Gold Inc., trading as BHV on Canada’s TSX Venture Exchange.

Bellhaven shares have been creeping up nicely on decent volume of late, thanks no doubt to a recent non-brokered financing that put $1.3 million Cdn in the till. The stock was up again in early trading this week, touching $0.22 Cdn per share.

The company is aggressively seeking a flagship property with low-grade, bulk-mineable potential in neighbouring Colombia, where it already has operations at the underground Gomez Plata mine. Bellhaven wants to rationalize those and get back to the business of exploration and discovery, something it says it’s good at and wants to focus exclusively on.

The company still holds various exploration concessions in Panama which total 117,613 hectares, and include the Cerro Quema high sulfidation epithermal deposit on the Azuero Peninsula. Pershimco Resources (PRO:TSX-V) is developing that to earn a 75% interest, which leaves Bellhaven free to source and develop large potential projects elsewhere.

However, I suspect they already have something on the radar in Colombia. In my experience companies rarely take the trouble of announcing a sea change (i.e. shifting from ‘budding gold producer’ to ‘explorer’, or in Bellhaven’s case, shifting back) without having already made some pretty big strides along the path. Hence, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them announce a material change in the coming weeks.

I think the company is already drastically undervalued, with a $9 million Cdn market cap, a war chest, and (now) near-term source cash flow in the feasibility approved Cerro Quemada project. The return has been pegged at 55% on a 2,500 tpd operation with a CAPEX of US$12.5 million, and cash operating costs of $320/oz. gold based on production of 28,000 ozs per year. The Quema/Quemita orebody with 126,100 ozs of gold will add 4 years of production.

Cerro Quema has 10.5 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.10 gram per tonne and contains 372,500 proven and probable ounces of gold, plus approximately half a million more ounces in the measured and indicated categories.

Looking good.

KB