Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
Kootenay Silver Inc. (TSXV: KTN) JV partner Antofagasta approves 3,000m drilling budget for five targets on the Silver Fox property.
Last week index score: 69.20
This week: 67.02
The Oreninc Index fell in the week ending March 23, 2017 to 67.02 following the previous week’s 69.20 as gold continues to strengthen the US$1,200 per ounce level to close the week at US$1,242.
Whilst gold continued to slowly strengthen, copper came off 2.4% during the week to close at US$2.63 a pound, as supply concerns eased as production resumed at the Grasberg mine in Indonesia and the strike at the Escondida mine in Chile ended.
President Trump ran into a wall of opposition, including within the Republican party, regarding his attempt to repeal the Obamacare healthcare law, before finally abandoning the vote.
The number of financings increased to 32, a two-week high, although the total dollars fell to C$117.1m, a two-week low, whilst the average offer size fell to C$3.7m, also a two-week low. Of the 32 financings announced, there were five brokered financings for C$75.0m and no bought-deal financings. The week saw several sub C$1 million financings announced.
Although gold had another strong week, the industry’s leading benchmark index, the van Eck GDXJ fell slightly and is now up 14.74% so far in 2017, as did the inventory of the SPDR GLD ETF which fell to 832.6 tonnes this week. Whilst gold is rising it is not filtering through to lift other gold assets such as gold stocks of the ETFs.
WTI crude remains under US$50 and fell 2.35% to US$48 per barrel.
With a key Trump legislative initiative defeated the Dow Jones Industrial Average took a sharp fall downwards towards the end of the week to close at 20,596. In Canada, the S&P/TSX Composite Index also fell on the week to close at 15,442. In the junior space, the S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index fell to close the week at 803.60.
Financial news highlights
Coro Mining (TSX: COP) announced a non-brokered private placement financing of up to 107.7M shares @ C$0.15 to raise up to C$16.2M to fund the acquisition of Minera Rayrock and to continue to explore the Marimaca project. The Rayrock acquisition will provide Coro with the Ivan SX-EW plant located 18km from Marimaca that has capacity to produce 12,000 tpy of copper cathode. Coro announced a maiden mineral resource estimate in January of 145,500t of copper in the measured & indicated categories and 99,300t in the inferred category.
BonTerra Resources (TSX-V: BTR) announced that Kinross Gold (TSX: K) agreed to acquire 14.9M shares @ C$0.35 each for total gross proceeds of C$5.2M, amounting to 9.5% of BonTerra’s issued and outstanding common shares. BonTerra is exploring several projects including the Gladiator project in Abitibi district in Quebec that has an inferred resource of 905,000t @ 9.37 g/t Au and Larder Lake in Ontario that has an inferred resource of 5.1Mt @ 5.55 g/t Au.
