Brazil's next President will be a woman

Which is good news as far as I'm concerned (and my call all year, even when she was supposedly lagging behind Serra). Al Jazz has got the extended story and analysis and it's well worth clicking through for more but here's the chart that AJ is running with its story, one of those pictures that paints a thousand words.

Go Dilma! Click here for the whole thing.

The IKN photo competition

During last week's roadtrip, your humble scribe saw and snapped this view.

(click to enlarge)

Everlasting fame and kudos awaits the first person who names the place in the shot. G'luck!

UPDATE: Reader 'ADB' wins that everlasting fame and kudos by correctly naming not only the mine but the hill stuck on the horizon, too: ADB writes:

Hi Otto,

The picture in your blog is of Cerro Chullpahuanca at Barrick Gold's Lagunas Norte mine.

cheers

Indeed it's true. Lagunas Norte, also known as 'Alto Chicama', is Barrick's (ABX) major gold operation in Peru and the country's second largest gold mine (behind Yanacocha). For those with their wonk on this afternoon, here are the monthly production figures for the mine:

If the average is around 2.5m grams of gold per month, that's about 80,000 ounces in old money and all at a normally very profitable cash cost, too. Not shabby.

A room with a view (part 19) summer vacs edition

Reader 'DT' came back from Turks and Caicos just a few days ago and sent in some great shots. Here's the bluewater-whitesand-bluesky image that made me go "i want" the most.

Got a shot of your year's spot? Send it in to otto.rock1 (AT) gmail.com.

The Friday OT: Sex Pistols; God Save The Queen

Thirty-three years after we were told there's no future.



Dedicated to GY.

A proven liar advises you on gold

photo by popular demand

Here's the proven liar.

Here's the advice.

And as both IKN's author and the featured interviewee at the above link both amply prove, you don't need to be smart to make money in the junior miner sector. All you need to do is say "buy FVI".

Enough With The BP Bullshit (A guest post by Alan von Altendorf)

So you think the BP (BP) Gulf of Mexico story is all done and dusted? Think again and read on as industry expert Alan von Altendorf guest-posts on IKN and talks about things that BP would rather you didn't hear. Enjoy.

guest post by Alan von Altendorf

ENOUGH WITH THE BP BULLSHIT

I have followed the Macondo intervention for more than four months. Immediately after the blowout on April 20, BP denied responsibility and blamed Transocean. BP denied there was any oil leaking, then admitted a paltry 1000 bpd, then well okay maybe 5000 bpd, tops.

None of this was true. The well was spewing 50,000 bpd and we watched BP attempt cofferdams, junk shots, top hats and a giant scissors that mangled the riser so badly that it had to be unbolted and removed. Best estimate of the leaked oil to date is 5 million barrels, of which less than 1 million barrels were captured by BP's various Rube Goldberg contraptions and flared into the atmosphere.

All of this may have been understandable and forgiveable. BP was completely unprepared to deal with a blowout in 5000 feet of water. They launched a fleet of Remotely Operated Vehicles from a crowded "city of ships" and started two relief wells under the supervision of famed wild well expert John Wright.

And then? - suddenly the relief wells were halted at few feet from their target. BP capped the well from above with a new 3-ram stack and decided to pump mud and cement down from the top.

That brings us to the situation at present. During the past six weeks, nothing has been advanced. BP claims that the reservoir is plugged with cement and the BOP was displaced to seawater.

Bullshit. They've been pumping mud, antifreeze, methanol, and some kind of purple Drano. The top stack was inoperable at normal pressure. There are three broken drill pipes jammed in the BOP, one of which is 3000 feet long. Zero progress has been made in "fishing" them out.

The seafloor is cracked and spewing take your pick -- a billion amphipod crustaceans that didn't exist last month, or whatever BP is pumping down the well daily -- brown mud, methylene blue leak discloser, green antifreeze, 100% straight white methanol -- or oil and gas.

If it weren't for a Congressional order, we wouldn't have any ROV video feeds at all. But that hasn't stopped BP from blacking out certain shots and swapping feeds to keep us in the dark. Here's a collection of stills that were grabbed during the past couple days. A downhole camera showed us oil and chunks of cement floating up. The surface of the sea has been turned green. There's a big plume of brown mud, like a mile wide liquid donut of dirty bathwater surrounding eerily deep blue Macondo well ops.

Just wait until they detach the BOP from the wellhead. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

v

So what did we predict for copper this week?

Otto has a good hair day

IKN68 broke with tradition last week and made a short-term call on copper. Here's what it said:

A call on copper for next week

Your author puts on his soothsayer’s hat, stares into the requisit crystal ball and predicts the following.

1) Early next week the market sinks on really bad housing sales numbers out of the USA (existing homes sales reported Tuesday, new home sales reported Wednesday). Copper feels the effects and drops some.

2) Copper rebounds later week as people begin to realize (because they just keep fogetting this one) that China is the important Cu driver these days, not the USA

3) Copper finishes unchanged on the week.

4) Lady Gaga gets engaged to that Beck guy, the one with the buzzcut on Fox who cries a lot.

Ok ok, I made that last one up. But as for the rest, what could possibly go wrong?

So how have we got on?

Call 4) hasn't worked out so far, either.

By the way, I apologize to those subscribers that have received a copy of IKN68 once a day all week. Being away roadtrippin' has made it tough to get to the root of the problem and I'm checking things out now. It seems that Google Mail has got itself into some sort of weird feedback loop and is auto-sending the darned thing every day. Trying my best to sort it out now, kind and patient subscribing people.

RayJames does silver TA

Like charts? Like silver? Like bullish calls on metals from Canadian brokerages? Well in that case you can download this PDF report dated August 26th and see what the charts magicians at Raymond James think about silver.

Me, I prefer a good novel. But that's just me. Enjoy.

Chart of the day is....

....gold, daily candles.

Gold has been good to us in August. Nice to be back at IKN head office.

Still on the road

Just a quick post from MiddleOfNowheresVille with a couple of things to note.

1) the copper prediction for the week as soothsayed in IKN68 is working out (bar the Lady Gaga portion, of course).

2) good to see FVI.to break out a bit.

3) i've received several mails from certain subscribers saying that theyve received repeat sendings of the Weekly. I'm sorry bout that folks, i don't know whats going on there and until im back at IKN nerve centre i won't be able to do anything. If the repeat turns up again tomorrow i apologize in advance (again) for the inconvenience.

4) Normal service resumes Friday. Until then, burn burn burn like a roman candle.

On The Road

Posting will be light for a couple of days. Your author has roads to travel.

"What's your road, man?--holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It's an anywhere road for anybody anyhow."

Trading Post (Fuddish edition)

Radius Gold (RDU.v) up 19.5% at $0.49 on strong volumes just a day after I said that the new company presentation looks good but I wasn't really interested in buying back into this stock right now. Today's NR surely helping things along, too. Just goes to show that WTFDIK is still in fashion round here.

Petaquilla (PTQ.to) down 6.1% at $0.46. The latest from the Molejon trainwreck is that the emergency tailings pond that should have been completed back in January and was supposed on be rushed to completion by yesterday will now be finished "this week". Meanwhile it's still lagging down with rain on site.

Antares Minerals (ANM.v) up 1.1% at $3.64 and trading on rails. Good volumes, too. We hear that the PEA gets published on SEDAR in the next two weeks, neatly inside the 45 day time limit.

Nadagold (NG) down 2.8% at U$6.60. This stock is living proof that New Yorkers know nothing about gold.

Jaguar Mining (JAG) down 2.8% at U$5.88. It was nice to see how insiders have been piling into this stock for the last two weeks or so, trying to prop up the price and instill confidence. It's been even nicer to see how they've had their asses grilled to perfection and served up to them on a silver platter since then. Fundies will out in the end and this company's performance just keeps on sucking.

Focus Ventures (FCV.v) up a penny at 40c on low volumes. Shhhhh....be vewwy vewwy qwiet.... am huntin' wabbit.

¡Viva Investment Grade!

offended by this photo? If so you are a world class dumbass

This report in Peru's daily 'Expreso' today (translated) reminded me of an incident this author had a few years ago.

The incessant advertising for enriched baby feed formulas are negatively influencing mothers in urban zones, who are mistakenly suspending maternal lactancy when the baby reaches two or three months when it is recommendable to breastfeed until the child is two years old. Peru's Ministry of Health (Minsa) warned that it was keeping constant watch (and its findings were) supported by a large increase in sales of the so-called enriched formaulas. Mother's milk is impossible to substitute because its qualities change over time to give the baby all the necessary nutrition according to age.

As for the personal anecdote, a few years ago I had a conversation with a gringa tourist who had been shocked SHOCKED I SAY by seeing a mother breastfeed her baby on public transport IN FULL VIEW OF THE MEN on the bus. When I asked her what was wrong with that, the quote came that has stuck in my mind ever since.

"Well, it's just not natural, is it?"

My stars, how I miss living in the developed North. Not.

UPDATE: Bizarrely good timing. Minutes ago Peru's Presidential office published this photo with the following caption (translated):

Directors of Nestlé applaud the solidity that Peru offers to foreign investors.

Oh the irony

Reader 'T' checked into IKN a few minutes ago and, on seeing the advert in the AdSense block at the top of the page, took a screenshot and sent it over.

Just to make sure you're in on the joke, Richard Fifer is head honcho of the Panama disaster known as Petaquilla (PTQ.to), currently spilling cyanide and killing fish (again) at its Molejon mine. The thought of earning his money from seeing people click on his advert for professional services at IKN is too delicious for words!

By the way, I don't get to choose the adverts those nice people at Google send over in their adsense blocks so it's nothing deliberate on the part of this humble scribe. It sure made me laugh, though.

Politics in Brazil isn't a joke anymore

Yesterday saw a march and protest along Rio's Copacabana beach. About 50 comedians, some of them famous in Brazil, wore specially made T-shirts and red noses to parade up and down Brazil's most famous beach and were joined by a big crowd of people that either agreed with them, or wanted a stroll, or were looking for an autograph. And the protest? It's against a recent ruling from the "Superior Electoral Tribunal" (the election judges) that prohibited radio, TV and internet programmes and shows from (and we quote) "using tricks, montages or audio or video effect that leave candidates parties or electoral alliances ridiculized". The court ruling also said that future production of such programs would be suspended.

After all, just the subject of Brazilian politics is set up for satire. The politicos there have long been the butt of jokes and quite right too as the vast majority need bringing down a peg or two hundred. But in its push to be seen as a serious country these days Brazil is achieving just the opposite; this kind of pettyfogging just makes the country look more stupid than before.

Chart of the day is...

...the IGBVL Peru stock exchange 'general' index, year to date.

Full of mining exposure and showing signs of topping out again.

A thing of great beauty

"We're fine in the refuge the 33"

The IKN Weekly, out now

IKN68 has just been sent to subscribers. In it there's an updated fundamentals report on Antares Minerals (ANM.v) and a headsup on a gold junior that we haven't covered before, too. And lots more, because there's always lots more.

The 33 trapped Chilean miners are alive

Oh yes! Great news for a Sunday! Here's a translation of this short report:

COPAIPO, Chile. The 33 Chilean miners trapped more than 700 metres underground under tonnes of rocks in the Atacama desert are alive, according to members of the rescue team. "In the last scan we made a paper came back with a message from them", expressed one of the rescuers and received by applause and tears from members of their families."

It never rains in Southern California....

......but it never freakin' stops in Panama. Check out this rainfall map of the Coclé area, send in by kind reader 'JG' and compiled from Panamanian govt data. You see where 'Coclecito' is? That's right next door to Petaquilla Minerals (PTQ.to) and its Molejón trainwreck of a mine currently seeing its cup overfloweth (a cup filled with cyanide) right now.

Click to enlarge (gets big and easy to read)

It's incredible to think that this company had no emergency run-off tailing pond ready when it rushed into production early this year, something clearly stipulated as obligatory in the Evironmental Impact Study report. Irresponsible, thy name is Fifer.

UPDATE: A good overview of the story so far from the evergreat Bananama Republic that ties a lot of the strings together.