Investment Commentary — Best bets for 2002
The Northern Miner asked five market watchers of the junior mining and exploration sector for their top picks and opinions for the year ahead. This week we talked with John Kaiser, publisher of the Ka…
Platinum Group Metals Ltd
Ford takes writedown on PGM stockpile
Ford, the world’s second-largest automaker, has taken a US$1-billion writedown on its inventory of platinum group metals used in catalytic converters. The measure is part of an overall US$5.7-billion …
Partners trench East Bull Lake (January 21, 2002)
Trenching at the East Bull Lake gabbro-anorthosite intrusion near Sudbury, Ont., has turned up more platinum group metals for partners Mustang Minerals (YMU-V) and Falconbridge (FL-T).Falconbridge is …
Cdn. Royalties raises $800,000
Proceeds from an oversubscribed private placement of flow-through shares will enable Canadian Royalties (CZZ-V) to explore its 80%-optioned Expo-Ungava project and wholly owned Phoenix prospect in the…
Grassroots mineral exploration withered in past year
In 2001, metal prices fell to some of the worst levels ever, so junior explorers can be forgiven if virtually the only thing they developed in 2001 was the blues.New venture capital all but dried up, …
Exploration companies tightened belts in 2001
With prices for base and precious metals sagging, funding for exploration has become scarce, a fact borne out by Halifax-based Metals Economic Group’s latest study of exploration budgets for 679 compa…
Stillwater revises facility
Vancouver — Armed with a revised operating plan, North America’s largest producer of platinum and palladium has renegotiated its US$250-million credit facility.Stillwater Mining (SWC-N), which has al…
December a time for bargains: Boulder Investment
Year-end tax-loss selling may be less of an issue in 2001 than in previous years, but Boulder Investment Partners analyst Dorothy Atkinson still considers December a great month to buy shares in Canad…
Tax-loss selling hampers CDNX
Vancouver — Falling victim to tax-loss selling, Canada’s junior exchange lost ground on heavy volume. The S&P-CDNX composite index closed the week ended Dec. 18 down 21.8 points, or 2.2%, and closed …
Muskox to test new zones (December 24, 2001)
Muskox Minerals (MSK-V) has budgeted $6.5 million for a proposed exploration program for the Muskox platinum-palladium-copper-nickel project in Nunavut.The proposal recommends 8,500 metres of drilling…
Base metals tumble, gold stagnant
As expected, base metals fell sharply during the period Dec. 3-7. Moreover, after breaking through key technical levels and closing poorly at the end of the week, further declines look probable in the…
Canaccord revises PGM forecast downward
In a November research report, Canaccord’s London-based gold analyst, Roger Chaplin, lowers his price projections for platinum group metals (PGMs) and their producers.Building on PGM supply-and-demand…