Source: ETF Securities
Momentum Reports – Tetra Bio-Pharma CSE:TBP – April 2017
Momentum Reports – Tetra Bio-Pharma CSE:TBP – April 2017
- Published in Blog, Life Sciences, Medical Marijuana, News Home, Tetra Bio Pharma
Momentum Reports – TSXV:DSM – April 2017
Momentum Reports – TSXV:DSM – April 2017
- Published in Blog, Deep South Resources Inc., Mining, News Home
Biggest U.S. Companies Setting More Renewable-Energy Targets
Biggest U.S. Companies Setting More Renewable-Energy Targets
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Corporations bought 2.5 gigawatts of clean energy last year
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Fortune 500 companies saving $3.7 billion with clean power
Almost half of the biggest U.S. companies have established clean-energy targets for themselves, according to a report Tuesday from sustainable investors and environmental groups including the World Wildlife Fund.
It’s not just the biggest U.S. companies — 44 percent of the smallest 100 members of the Fortune 500 have also set goals, up from 25 percent in 2014, and 48 percent of the entire list.
Many are finding that renewable energy isn’t just cleaner, it’s also often cheaper. About 190 Fortune 500 companies collectively reported about $3.7 billion in annual savings, according to Power Forward 3.0, a report by WWF, Ceres, Calvert Research & Management and CDP.
“We’re not talking about anecdotal information anymore,” Marty Spitzer, a WWF senior director of climate and renewable energy in Washington, said in an interview. “We’re talking about large, large savings.”
Potential savings and sustainability goals prompted corporations to buy almost 3.7 gigawatts of power generated by clean-energy projects in 2015, and another 2.5 gigawatts last year, almost all from wind and solar, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
But it’s no longer just tech companies. About 63 percent of Fortune 100 companies have clean-energy targets, according to the report. Such targets include commitments to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and increase energy efficiency and renewable energy.
The 190 Fortune 500 companies reported emission reductions equivalent to mothballing 45 coal-fired power plants for a year, according to the report. It also found that 23 of Fortune 500 companies have 100 percent renewable-energy targets.
By Brian Eckhouse
- Published in Bio technology, Blog, Energy, Green Technology, International Wastewater Systems, News Home, Technology
Warren Buffett Hates Gold… But Here’s Five Reasons You Need To Own It
Warren Buffett Hates Gold… But Here’s Five Reasons You Need To Own It
In a 1998 speech at Harvard, legendary investor Warren Buffett shared his thoughts on gold:
“[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again, and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility.”
Buffett is correct—gold doesn’t produce earnings or pay dividends. There are, however, some good reasons gold should be an essential part of every investor’s portfolio.
#1: Real Interest Rates Are Still Negative
Even with the Fed raising nominal interest rates, real rates—that is, the nominal interest rate minus inflation—are still in negative territory. And real rates are what really matters to your portfolio.
In the first quarter of 2017, inflation averaged 2.57{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce}.
Today, a one-year bank CD pays about 1.4{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce}. Therefore, to keep all of your money in a bank account means to watch your purchasing power erode.
Of course, there are other options. You can put your money in U.S. Treasuries or dividend-paying stocks. However, with the 10-year Treasury yield hovering around 2.25{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} and the average dividend yield for a company on the S&P 500 at 2.33{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce}, you would still be in negative territory.
Gold is known as the yellow metal with no yield, but simple math tells us no yield is better than a negative one. In fact, real interest rates are a major determinate of which direction the price of gold moves in.
So, gold will protect your capital from the eroding forces of negative rates… and help it grow at the same time.
#2: The Dollar’s Value Has Collapsed
The U.S. dollar may be rising against other currencies like the euro and yen. Nonetheless, in the last 50 years, its purchasing power has fallen by 86{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce}.
As this chart shows, keeping your savings in cash is a poor wealth-building strategy. On the other hand, gold has more than kept up with inflation. Since 1972—the first year private ownership of gold became legal again—the price of gold has increased by 2,400{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce}.
#3: Gold Is Money
Why has gold retained its value while fiat currencies have fallen? It’s because gold is money.
2,000 years ago, Greek philosopher Aristotle theorized that any sound form of money must be: durable, portable, divisible, and have intrinsic value.
Gold has all these characteristics— that’s why it has proven to be a long-term store of value. Fiat currencies like the dollar cannot be considered money as they don’t have intrinsic value.
In other words, gold is payment in and of itself, but the dollar is only a promise to pay.
#4: Negative Correlation to Stocks and Bonds
The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, pointed out recently that in the last decade, the correlation between stocks and bonds has been at almost double its long-term average.
Therefore, a portfolio comprised of 60{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} stocks/40{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} bonds no longer offers investors adequate diversification. Sure, it’s great when markets are rising—but when the tide turns, that’s going to be a problem.
To keep all your eggs “out of one basket”—buy gold. Recently, the correlation between gold and the S&P 500 stood at its second-lowest level in over 30 years. That’s also the case with gold and bonds.
#5: No Counterparty Risk
Gold is one of the few assets that has no counterparty risk. What does that mean?
No counterparty risk means that once you have physical gold in your possession, you don’t depend on someone else to fulfill a contract or keep a promise for it to retain its value.
Stocks, bonds, ETFs—essentially all paper assets require another party to make good on their end of the deal. Physical gold’s value does not hinge on someone else’s obligation to pay.
Aside from being a long-term store of value and diversification tool, there’s another reason you should buy gold.
Bonus Round: A Profitable Portfolio
Since the beginning of 2017, gold is up over 10{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce}, making it one of the best-performing assets of the year. And this is no anomaly.
Since late 2015, gold has outperformed the S&P 500 by 30{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce}. In fact, gold has been the best-performing asset class since the turn of the millennium.
Not only will gold preserve your wealth and insulate your portfolio from market sell-offs, it can earn you a profit at the same time.
Given the negative real rates, a falling dollar, and heightened correlation between stock and bonds, gold should be an essential part of every investor’s portfolio today.
Get A Free Ebook On Precious Metals Investing
Before you buy physical gold, make sure to do your homework first. You’ll find everything you need to know in the definitive ebook, Investing in Precious Metals 101. Find out which type of gold to buy and which type to stay away from, how to spot scammers, where to securely store your gold, why pools aren’t safe places, and much more. Click here to get your free copy now.
By Stephen McBride
- Published in Blog, Canamex Resources Corp., Mining, News Home
Lithium supply to outweigh demand by 2018, cobalt to remain tight: CRU
Lithium supply to outweigh demand by 2018, cobalt to remain tight: CRU
Dublin (Platts)–26 Apr 2017 952 am EDT/1352 GMT
Lithium supply was expected to outweigh demand as early as next year, UK-based consultancy CRU’s Rebecca Gordon said Wednesday, while the cobalt market should remain tight well into the next decade on continued supply shortness.
While massive growth in battery demand was set to see consumption of both metals soar in coming years, new lithium supply was expected to match demand by 2018, reaching a peak of 25{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} of total supply by 2022, Gordon told a Minor Metals Trade Association meeting in Dublin.
“The 2016 lithium cost curve shows why prices had to rise so sharply,” Gordon said, referring to lithium carbonate and hydroxide spot prices of over $10,000/mt in 2017, having doubled in less than 12 months on rising expectations of a demand boom from battery metals and tightness in supply.
“By 2020, the picture has changed, with brine expansions and new hard rock production keep prices in check and $6,500-7,000 the new cost level.”
By that time, China’s brine resources in Tibet and Qinghai were expected to come online, reducing unit costs, while spodumene resources in Sichuan and lepidolite resources in Jianxi were “committed and probable”, Gordon said.
Even modest demand forecasts see annual lithium output growing to 500,000 mt by 2020 from around 200,000 mt currently.
BENCHMARK BATTERY PRODUCTION
According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence’s Andy Miller, also speaking in Dublin, lithium-ion batteries developed in “gigafactories” around the world, such as Tesla’s in the US, were expected to top 175 GWh by 2020, up from around 30 GWh now.
Tesla has recently said it will reach total production by 2018, in which time it will produce more lithium-ion batteries than were produced worldwide in 2013.
With electric vehicle production expected to be around 500,000 cars per year by the end of the decade, Tesla alone will require all of current lithium production.
But the story is bigger than Tesla. Over 60{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} of battery production in 2020 was expected in China, compared with around 20{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} in the US, Miller said.
“The lithium-ion industry is a China story,” Miller said, with Europe far behind.
Unlike CRU, Miller did not foresee supply outpacing demand in coming years and although he expected new spodumene supply to fill any deficit in the short term, prices should remain high on tightness.
The story for cobalt was similar, he said. Also a component in cathodes for lithium-ion batteries, prices have surged over 60{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} in the past 12 months on expectations of increased demand and supply tightness.
But whereas lithium supply has increased markedly in anticipation of greater demand, cobalt supply remained restricted.
Although traded on the London Metal Exchange, it is hard to access supply. Production is largely a byproduct of other metals such as nickel, so it is hard to get financing for projects based on cobalt prices, despite the recent spike.
The metal also comes nearly exclusively from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which brings with it significant supply risk, given issues around mining practice, including child labor.
CRU expected a deficit in both mined and refined cobalt supply this year and next and although stocks should be able to meet much of the increase in demand in the short term, new supply will be needed by 2020.
Artisanal supply was expected to play an important role, especially as a swing producer when supply is tight.
CRU has identified a number of processors located in the DRC around Kolowezi, Likasi and Lubumbashi, that sell concentrates believed to be derived from local small scale and artisanal operations, Gordon said.
Gordon estimated these produced around 10,500 mt of artisanal cobalt in 2015 and around 8,500 mt in 2016. She forecast around 10,000 mt this year.
At the same time, recycling remained a concern for both lithium and cobalt, accounting for a tiny proportion of refined supply currently.
With a 7-8 year life, electric vehicle battery recycling volumes should start to pick up after 2021 and producers such as Apple and Nissan have talked recently about the importance of battery recycling.
Both speakers agreed that more work was needed in terms of regulation or industry best practice in battery recycling to secure supply.
–George King Cassell, george.king.cassell@spglobal.com
–Edited by Dan Lalor, daniel.lalor@spglobal.com
- Published in Blog, King's Bay, Mining, News Home
Fake News And Hate Speech Erode Credibility & Confidence in Social Media Platforms Business Depends On
Fake News And Hate Speech Erode Credibility & Confidence in Social Media Platforms Business Depends On
Germany Takes Action
Unless the powers that be start acting the credibility of the internet will suffer to such an extent that businesses using social media for targeted branding, advertising and communications programs stand to see their plans slowly melt away as the platforms they use become increasingly tainted. Recently there have been some very good examples of what’s going wrong with the internet and digital communications. Among the symptoms are hate filled abusive trolling and fake news.
In late March major advertisers, companies like Verzion, Volkswagen, Johnson & Johnson and AT&T started pulling their ads from YouTube because they appeared alongside racist content. A week later Pepsico, Walmart and Starbucks joined the boycott parade. Google says that the problem is caused because the programs it uses to place ads with videos aren’t sophisticated enough to understand which content is too despicable to place ads next to but that it is working on the problem. The company has pledged to hire more people to develop programs to eliminate the problem.
In a statement Walmart said, “The content with which we are being associated is appalling and completely against our company values.”
When it come to Twitter, it almost seems as if you hear more about vicious hate campaigns, like the one launched against Ghostbusters’ actress Leslie Jones, than about the success of its attempts to lock out hate, abuse or racism from the once vaunted Twitterverse. Potholes and cracks are developing in the information highway that threaten to derail the commercial internet.
In a larger context the use of the internet to disseminate false news that has the potential to destabilize the west is more to be feared than any commercial loss. European countries with elections this year have almost all warned their publics about the danger of fake news and they have all pointed their fingers at Russia. On March 23, 2017 the Latvian foreign minister, Edgars Rinkevics warned the Canadian government that when Canadian troops deployed to Latvia the country should be prepared for a flood of Russian propaganda in the form of fake news stories on the internet designed to create friction between Canadians and the Latvian population. Shortly after they arrived in Lithuania, 400 German soldiers faced a slew of sexual misconduct stories launched over the internet in an attempt to swing Lithuania over to Russia’s side of the fence. NATO is stationing troops in all the Baltic States in response to Russia’s annexation of the Crimea and its continued meddling in Ukraine.
Closer to home, on New Year’s Eve, Breitbart News, ran a story with the headline “Revealed: 1,000-man mob attack police, set Germany’s oldest church alight on New Year’s Eve”. Breitbart’s objective in faking the story can only have been to help destablilize Germany by creating fear. Perversely enough, Breitbart probably thinks this will help stoke the fires of anti-immigrant fear in the United States. A destabilized west also helps Russia expand its influence. The story claimed that thousands of Arab immigrants launched fireworks at police, chanted God is Great and waved jihadist flags. The problem is that nothing remotely like what Breitbart described took place and just as the Swedes were recently surprised to find out they had been the victims of a terrorist attack that never took place, so were the Germans.
Just as many believe that Trump was elected on a web of fake news stories, ones like Pizzagate, where Hilary Clinton was linked to a child sex ring operating out of tunnels under a Washington area pizza restaurant, so many believe that the Brexit vote in Britain was built on the back of decades of tabloid press stories looking for a wild headline to sell stories.
In the United States a majority get their news from social media. Facebook is perhaps the largest online news source and yet it does very little to verify the accuracy of the stories that are promoted or read on it. Because they are seen as simple transmission pipelines social media companies have no legal responsibility for the content they carry.
Germany is about to change that and if it succeeds may very well bring credibility back to the online world. In mid-March the German government tabled a draft bill that would provide for fines as large as 50 million Euros for social media companies that fail to remove hate speech, fake news and other undesirable content within specified time limits.
Given the small amount of revenue that YouTube advertising generates for parent Google, the company is really suffering only from a public relations black eye. But in business, perception is everything. Social media companies claim that policing content is too expensive but with great profit come great social responsibility. The number of fake news stories appearing on Facebook spiked once its human editorial team was terminated and surveillance duties were given over to a computer program. Just as the prospect of hanging provides great concentration so does the prospect of large fines promote corporate change.
While the proposed German legislation may clean up the internet in Europe what affect it will have on North America is an open question. If we are very lucky, social media companies will realize that they have to act responsibly when it comes to fake news and hate and put in place here what they will shortly have to do if they wish to continue operating in Germany. If they do begin to act responsibly then credibility will be restored to the social media platforms that business has grown to depend on when it comes to getting their message to the right audience. If, on the other hand, the internet and social media platforms continue to become the hiding places of all we as a society despise then business will vote with its feet and find a new way to get their message across, perhaps through some form of closed network.
By Noel Meyer
- Published in Blog, News Home, Technology
Renewable Energy Defining Point Reached As Economies of Scale Kick In And Tesla’s Elon Musk Bets He Can Save South Australia from Power Shortages
Renewable Energy Defining Point Reached As Economies of Scale Kick In And Tesla’s Elon Musk Bets He Can Save South Australia from Power Shortages
Are Cobalt Shortages In The Future?
Image source: WIRED
Tesla billionaire Elon Musk says he can install battery farm within 100 days or it’s free.
There’s more than just a little irony in the air these days. Just as Donald Trump plans to reduce energy efficiency standards for cars in the United States, a defining point in the history of renewable energy has been made in the form of a bet between billionaire Elon Musk and the State of South Australia. It is the moment that economies of scale kick in driving down and making the cost of grid scale renewable energy rollout feasible.
An energy crisis has been brewing for some time in sunny South Australia leading to blackouts and price spikes. As the debate raged on about how to solve it Musk stepped in during early March and offered to solve the problem by installing 100-300 MW hours of renewable energy electric grid scale battery storage within 100 days of signing the contract.
When Mike Cannon-Brookes tweeted to ask if Musk was serious Musk replied that if he couldn’t do it within 100 days of signing the agreement it would be free of charge. Cannon-Brookes was interested because he is Australian. He is also the co-founder of Silicon Valley start-up Atlassian which builds software development tools. Being Australian, Cannon-Brookes asked Tesla for a “mates rate.” Although contract figures have not been released Cannon-Brookes told the Australian media that Musk offered to almost halve the cost of the project.
Tesla has just finished building a battery farm in southern California that can provide 80 MW Hours of storage at a cost of $100 million in 90 days. Musk is a high-tech visionary who has made his visions pay. In February 2017 his net worth was calculated at $13.9 billion. He co-founded PayPal, Tesla Motors, Solar City and founded SpaceX, the commercial space transportation business.
Long a renewable energy advocate Tesla has built a second business in residential, commercial and electric grid storage batteries under the Tesla Powerwall banner and SolarCity, which he cofounded with a cousin to provide residential battery storage solutions. Musk has frequently noted that he is in the process of changing Tesla from a car company into a clean energy company. Tesla has also recently launched a roofing product designed to take the ugly out of solar panels by producing solar panel roofing shingles that look like slate, in a variety of attractive colours.
Musk’s ability to fulfill his promise to South Australia lies in the fact that on January 17th, 2017 Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory, located near Reno, started production.
The Gigafactory has already supplied the batteries for a battery farm in southern California. Tesla has grid scale battery farm projects on the go in the UK, Connecticut, North Carolina, Hawaii and New Zealand. Only a third of the 4.9 million square foot Gigafactory which will cost $5 billion and is part of a partnership with Panasonic is up and running but by 2018 it will have doubled global lithium-ion battery production. Two of the most commonly used lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, including Tesla’s, use cobalt as part of the mix.
Large scale rollouts of solar, wind and water energy have been held back by the high cost of storing the electricity generated. Tesla’s Gigafactory and his consequent offer to South Australia are a game changer indicating that although battery storage costs have been falling for years, now they are about to tumble, thanks to economies of scale. It is estimated that Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries which also use nickel and cobalt are about a third less expensive than other batteries. This also means that the cost of electric vehicles and hybrids will begin to drop.
Last year IHS predicted the electric grid scale utility storage battery market to hit US$19 Billion during 2017. Taiyou Research predicts a US$ 30 Billion market in rechargeable Li-ion batteries by 2020.
If you don’t believe that clean energy will become a very viable industry in the near future you should bear in mind that if this year’s game changer is Tesla’s Gigafactory and the economies of scale that will play in strengthening the renewable energy rollout then last year’s may very well have taken place when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, Linkedin founder Reid Hoffman, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, HRH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Chairman of the Board of trustees, Alwaleweed Philanthropies, Saudi Arabia, among others announced the creation of a clean energy investment group, The Breakthrough Energy Coalition. The coalition is made up of 28 high net-worth entrepreneurs from ten different countries.
Entrepreneurs who have changed the fabric of modern life are already on board. Warren Buffet, through Berkshire Hathaway has invested US$1 Billion and Bill Gates is investing US$1 Billion of his personal money and US$2 Billion through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in renewable energy.
Battery and cobalt demand won’t just be driven by smartphones and Tesla. According to Rockstone Research the Germans are building a battery factory twice as large as Tesla’s, the Chinese are building four that are bigger than the Nevada Gigafactory, the Japanese are building two and the South Koreans are building one.
Savvy retail investors may be wondering how to take part in this emerging market and one perspective may be to look at it as a commodity market. Lithium stocks went through a gold rush period a few years ago propelled by the rechargeable battery market and now thanks to the amount of cobalt in a car battery and in laptops and smart phones it looks as if cobalt is set to takeoff. The battery pack for Tesla Model S, for instance, contains an estimated 22.5 Kg of cobalt.
Another factor that comes into play is secure supply and ethical sourcing. The refined product market is largely controlled by China, which has a history of trade embargoes and tariff walls when it comes to protecting resources and products for itself. The majority of raw cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo where much of the mining is done by child workers.
Nobody wants to drive a car or use a cell-phone powered by child labour and so the hunt is on for ethically sourced, securely supplied cobalt. Elon Musk has said that he is going to source the raw materials for his batteries from North America. At the moment there are no producing cobalt mines in North America. Exploration, however, is being fast tracked. Cruz Cobalt is one of the junior mining companies that may benefit. Commodity research house CRU has predicted cobalt demand to rise by 16{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} annually through 2022.
The LME has predicted that by 2020 the amount of cobalt used in rechargeable batteries could equal the total amount refined in 2015.
In a recent press release announcing the acquisition of the Chicken Hawk Cobalt Prospect in Montana, Cruz Cobalt, (CUZ—TSXV, BKTPF—OTCBB, A2AG5M–FSE), Cruz Cobalt President James Nelson stated:
“This new prospect now makes 9 cobalt prospects within North America that Cruz has secured. Cruz has also secured one of the largest land packages, consisting of 4 separate cobalt prospects, all located in the Cobalt/Silver district of Ontario surrounding the city of Cobalt. Cobalt prices continue to trade to new 5 year highs and have been on a significant uptrend over the past 12 months. Cruz is fully funded to commence operations on all of its 9 cobalt prospects and management expects to be on the ground very shortly.” If Cruz is successful then early investors will benefit accordingly. As of March 17, CUZ traded at $0.205 and has a total of 55,065,386 shares and a market cap of $11,288,404.
Another promising Canadian company exploring for cobalt is Kings Bay, (TSXV: KBG) which over the last year has acquired five prospective cobalt properties, two in Newfoundland Labrador and three in Northern Quebec. Kings Bay was recently reported on in the Financial Post where CEO Kevin Bottomley stated that the company’s Lynx Lake project near Happy Valley Goose Bay had shown initial results with very high cobalt numbers. The company has recently acquired a highly prospective cobalt property on Trump Island in NL. Their three properties in Quebec were worked on by Falconbridge around 2000 and Bottomley describes them as having initial positive results. Bottomley was previously associated with mining incubator Zimtu Resources and as a result has access to a network of European investors eager to invest in Canadian resource projects. Kings Bay traded at $0.18 on March 17, 2017 and has 41 million shares and a market cap of $7 million.
By Noel Meyer
- Published in Blog, Cruz Cobalt, Energy, Green Technology, King's Bay, Mining, Technology
Sage Gold set on consolidation
Sage Gold set on consolidation
– Momentum Public Relations –
Press Release: March 17, 2017
The aggregation of Kirkland Lake Gold (CN:KL) into a far larger beast over the past two years has left the historic Timmins gold camp, Ontario, without a natural consolidator for its multiple small-deposit companies, but it’s a mantle near-production junior Sage Gold (CN:SGX) is happy to assume in the absence of others.
Sage chief executive Nigel Lees told an investor lunch in London this week he did not expect the market to take much notice of the company in its current state, but it would not be in its current state for too much longer.
The first part of the junior’s transformation will be to bring its modest Clavos brownfields, underground project into production.
Clavos has a 316,000 ounce indicated and inferred resource that it plans to mine at a rate of 25,000oz per annum and truck down the road to a mill owned by precious metals producer, Primero Mining (CN:P), which is running severely below capacity.
The life-of-mine arrangement with Primero underpins an initial capital expenditure of just C$8 million for the Clavos start-up, according to a 2013 preliminary economic assessment.
The mine permit was updated in record time – three weeks – which allowed Sage to secure the equity finance to start mining operations.
Much of that money will be spent on dewatering the previously established decline and updating the PEA to a prefeasibility study. Not that Lees considers a PFS necessary for a decision to mine – that has been made – but it provides greater market confidence.
So far, all work is on time and on budget and so Sage will be expecting to be mining by mid-year with the first ore delivered to the mill by end-September.
That will satisfy Lees’ need to see cash flowing from the business. It will also provide the market with confidence in management’s ability to execute on its plans and reassurance Sage is not a company that expects to be perpetually topped up through equity issues.
Though the commencement of mining operations is seen as the first key step in the company’s evolution, initial work has already started on the Clavos growth strategy.
Surface drilling began this quarter as Sage investigates the potential to grow the resource, which it and former owner Kinross Gold (CN:K) believe has every chance of swelling to 1 million ounces.
That is likely to come from three distinct opportunities.
First and most straight forward will be the inclusion of intercepts that meet the cut-off grade (2.75g/t Au) but fell outside a previous mine plan.
Second, and only slightly more complicated (it will require the drill rig), Sage is testing an untouched area between the Main mineralised zone and the established 960 zone.
And finally, requiring more effort still, will be the pursuit of ounces expected to be delineated at depth below the Main zone, where historic holes have returned exceptional hits such as 65.3g/t Au over 4m, including 374.1g/t Au over 0.7m.
But establishing a 1Moz resource is not going to put Sage on the map in a gold bull market, which is exactly what Lees believes we’re experiencing at the moment, albeit the early stages. He said an element of M&A is inevitable to build the “critical mass” needed to attract institutions.
“We’ll be looking to buy similar size projects to Clavos,” he told Mining Journal, adding there were “five or six” such projects in public and private vehicles in the immediate Timmins vicinity being evaluated.
Asked whether he expected stiff competition for these assets given his assessment of the market as one in a burgeoning bull run, Lees was relaxed. He said Sage was viewed as the district’s natural consolidator, having established itself with the locally “unique” standing as a fully-permitted, fully-financed company.
He said at one point Kirkland Lake may have bought these projects but with that miner having built itself into a position where it is a circa C$2 billion market capitalisation, international producer, few others are left with an appetite for district consolidation at this level.
Meanwhile, playing a supporting role in the Sage development story, is a polymetallic volcanogenic massive sulphide property, which is also in an established mineralised district in Ontario.
The Onaman property is being drilled in tandem with Clavos and is focused on the Lynx copper-gold deposit, though historic exploration results indicate an economic discovery could also include zinc, lead and silver, too. An inferred resource at Lynx was estimated at 1.94 million tonnes grading 1.44{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} Cu, 39.6g/t Ag and 0.58g/t Au.
However, unless Lynx turns out to be a gold-silver project with base metal credits, it is difficult to see it remaining part of the Sage stable. More likely, exploration success could provide Lees with an opportunity to sell the project into what appears to be a parallel, early-stage bull run in both the copper and zinc markets.
A sale at Lynx would then combine with cash flow from Clavos to build the arsenal for Sage’s consolidation bid in Timmins.
Making Canada’s capital a ‘smart city’
Making Canada’s capital a ‘smart city’
How can municipalities use the technology at residents’ fingertips to make life easier?
A number of civic, academic and business leaders will gather today to envision how Ottawa and Gatineau can become “smart cities” of the future.
Transit riders can already track when buses will arrive and drivers can add money to parking meters via their phones.
Driverless cars could be tested on the streets of Kanata this summer.
But things are moving quickly.
Data analytics, cybersecurity and the internet of things are transforming business, and cities are grappling with how to use those interconnections to help their residents, according to John Smit, acting director of economic development for the City of Ottawa.
Smit will be speaking at the conference put on by Library and Archives Canada and the University of Ottawa. The mayor of Gatineau and CEO of the National Capital Commission, as well as researchers and business executives, will all weigh in on what the future could look like.
“Ten years ago what you were able to do with your flip phone and what you’re able to do with your phone today are like night and day, and could you have predicted that 10 years ago?” Smit said.
Sensors and ‘smart’ devices
In the same way microwaves were a new convenience a generation ago, connected technologies should make life easier for people, said Campbell Patterson, a Kingston-based consultant who will also speak at Monday’s event.
Patterson sees a future where technology allows people to receive health care, education, and do work without leaving home, which will mean less wear and tear on roads and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
Smart technologies are already allowing cities to gather data to manage everything from garbage, to water, to traffic, and help them save money and time, he said.
For instance, in Barcelona, Spain, the municipality has sensors in garbage bins so that trucks only empty them when needed, he said.
“The prediction is there will be 50 billion sensors deployed [worldwide] by 2020,” said Patterson.
For instance, autonomous vehicles could lead cities to install sensors on roads, Smit suggested.
Broadband is this century’s railway: consultant
But in such an interconnected world, Patterson said a city that doesn’t invest in broadband service stands to leave its residents and businesses behind.
“A municipality needs to be thinking about equitable access to the internet, and broadband infrastructure to support that, in the same way they think about investments in roads, water and electricity systems, that these are fundamental to the well-being of the community,” he said.
And municipalities shouldn’t leave it up to private telecommunications companies to beef up networks when they see fit, Patterson said.
“As long as downtown Toronto has better connectivity than everyone else, then the people who live there have a competitive advantage over everyone else,” he said
At the City of Ottawa, Smit knows consistent broadband access for everyone is one piece of the puzzle.
Staff are figuring out where to focus the municipality’s efforts to make Ottawa a “smart city,” and how to tie that in with the steps being taken by Hydro Ottawa and the economic development agency Invest Ottawa.
That overarching strategy is expected to be presented to councillors this spring or summer, Smit said.
By Kate Porter, CBC News
- Published in Blog, Imex Systems, Mobile Technology, News Home, Technology