Trevali Mining's Recent Assessment for Halfmile and Stratmat Deposits

Trevali Mining (TSX:TV) started the week by releasing a preliminary economic assessment for its Halfmile and Stratmat zinc-lead–silver deposits in New Brunswick’s Bathurst Mining Camp.

The report was led by SRK Consulting and looks at two different scenarios, both of which indicate positive economics, the company said in a statement on November 6.

“This PEA study on Halfmile-Stratmat provides a strong, initial foundation for Trevali’s future plans in the Bathurst Mining Camp,” said Mark Cruise, Trevali’s president and CEO.

Trevali is already a top zinc producer.

The base case looks at a scenario in which material from Halfmile and Stratmat is fed into a new 3,000-ton-per-day concentrator plant located at the Stratmat site.

This study includes annual payable peak production of approximately 117 million pounds of zinc, 35 million pounds of lead, 2 million pounds of copper and 766,000 ounces of silver over a mine life of 13 years.

It also points to pre-production capital expenditures of C$231 million, a post-tax internal rate of return (IRR) of 19 percent and a post-tax net present value of C$99 million at a discount rate of 8 percent.

The other scenario looks at the feasibility of transporting pre-concentrated dense media feed to the concentrator plant at the company’s Caribou mine, also located in the Bathurst Mining Camp.

Under that plan, pre-production capital expenditures are estimated at C$156 million, with the post-tax IRR coming in at 25 percent and the post-tax NPV sitting at C$116 million at an 8 percent discount rate.

“The study contributes significantly to the Company’s continued interest in the region and … demonstrates the optionality for future planned production on either a stand-alone basis or by leveraging our current Caribou operational team and infrastructure,” Cruise added.

The Halfmile deposit includes four sulfide zones and consists of 73 claims covering an area of 1,104 hectares.

Stratmat is composed of 95 contiguous claims spread across an area of 1,827 hectares.

The mineral resource estimate for Halfmile was updated as part of the PEA.

Aside from the Halfmile and Stratmat deposits, Trevali owns two commercially producing operations.

Its zinc-lead-silver Santander mine in Peru produces 2,000 tons per day, while its zinc-lead-copper-gold Caribou mine in New Brunswick produces 3,000 tons per day.

Earlier this year, Trevali acquired a portfolio of zinc assets from Glencore (LSE:GLEN) and now also owns an 80-percent stake in the Namibia-based Rosh Pinah mine and a 90-percent interest in the Perkoa mine in Burkina Faso.

The company has moved up nicely since the beginning of 2017, jumping over 31 percent.

Gold and Silver Now Legal Tender in Arizona

Arizona state senators voted to allow gold and silver to be used as legal tender in the state.

Privately minted gold and silver will now be given the same authority and status as paper money in Arizona. That means the residents of Arizona will be able to pay their bills within the state boundaries using the two precious metals.

Along with Arizona, other states have already implemented or are looking into similar proposals. While the constitution doesn't allow states to create their own currencies, there is nothing to suggest a state can't allow coins minted by private companies to be used as legal tender.

There was some additional drama in the process of confirming the bill, which came of course from a Democrat, this one being someone named Sen. Steve Farley from Tucson,

I will hand him this, he got it right on when he attacked the approval of the proposal, seeing how it makes the failing U.S. dollar look. Farley said, "I believe the bill itself ridicules our financial system." Right you are Steve. It does all of that for sure.

What he's of course referring to is the implementation of an alternative underscores the disastrous and monstrous policies of the Federal Reserve and Ben Bernanke, where they work together to debase the currency in the name of saving the economy.

The inclusion of gold and silver as a currency, every day points to these failed policies and teaches those willing to listen that Keynesianism is dead, and printing or digitizing endless amounts of dollars to prop up an economic system that should be allowed to flush itself out so it can be really healed, is what people like this Farley oppose.

In order to work out the details of the initiative, the effective date to implement gold and silver as legal tender in Arizona was pushed out till after the 2014 legislative session.

Endeavour Silver (EXK) (SSRI) (HL) (CDE) Climb as Gold, Silver Surge

Gold and silver prices are rocking again after remaining level for some time on unjustified optimism which has resulted in silver miners such as
Endeavour Silver (AMEX:EXK), Silver Standard Resources (NASDAQ:SSRI),
Hecla Mining (NYSE:HL) and Coeur d'Alene Mines (NYSE:CDE) soaring with the precious metals.

On Friday Silver prices increased to a 31-year high, closing at 40.60 an ounce after reaching a high of $40.63 an ounce during the session. gold prices rose to another new record, rising to a high of $1,476 an ounce.

Most of this is based upon the collapsing U.S. dollar, pullback in China, sovereign debt crisis in Europe, unrest in the Middle East, worsening inflation and consequences of the Japanese earthquake are just some of the negative factors hitting the markets.

Strangely, many investors are acting as if these are some parenthetical events that have little bearing on the markets and commodity prices.

Coeur d'Alene Mines closed Friday at $36.69, gaining $0.63, or 1.75 percent. Hecla Mining closed at $9.76, rising $0.21, or 2.20 percent. Silver Standard Resources closed at $35.08, rising $0.79, or 2.30 percent. Endeavour Silver closed at $12.37, up $0.47, or 3.95 percent.

Ivanhoe (IVN) Says 'Hi Ho Silver' at Oyu Tolgoi

While most investors know about the copper and gold reserves at Ivanhoe Mines' (NYSE:IVN) Oyu Tolgoi project in Mongolia, it extent of the silver reserves at the mine haven't been talked about much, until now.

According to Ivanhoe Chief Executive Robert Friedland, the project should produce an average of 3 million ounces of silver a year at the mine.

Friedland said, "The buoyant global silver market has fueled the interests of investors and has prompted us to more widely circulate the projections for silver production.

"Oyu Tolgoi will rank as a very substantial silver producer when commercial production begins in 2013."

Over the 27-year life of the mine, the miner said Oyu Tolgoi should produce about 78 million ounces of silver.

The company has said in the past that annual production of copper willl come in at 1.2 billion pounds, and gold at 650,000 ounces. Also being mined will be molybdenum.

Ivanhoe owns a 66 percent stake in the project, while the Mongolian government owns the rest. Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) has a 48.4 percent stake in Ivanhoe.

Is Silver Rally Real of Just a Tease?

Silver seems to be exceptionally good at taking as few people along for the ride as it can. This can be frustrating for silver investors, but is great for the health of the long-term bull market in silver. The only way bull markets sustain themselves over the long term is to rebalance sentiment along the way, to prevent overwhelming bullishness from extinguishing the long-term rally.

Silver bucks investors off its bull run by trading in the following three ways: First, it has long and flat consolidations that shake off investor confidence and eventually cause them to bailout of their positions, often at the wrong time. Second, when it does rally, it does so in a non-stop runaway-train manner, right from the start to finish into a spike high. Third, once the spike high is over, silver immediately has a big correction, temporarily wiping out a big portion of the previous gains.

Although silver recently had a down month in January, it has recovered to a new high so far in February. This is a good sign that silver could be in rally mode still, and not ready for another long multi-month consolidation. Whatever the future holds for silver, it will do its best to take as few people with it as it can.

Rest of Story...

Freeport's (NYSE:FCX) Debt, Margins, and Earnings

Freeport-McMoRan has exploded in share price since it bottomed out at $16.80 a share on December 1, 2008, and it's worth looking briefly at their current situation as it relates to debt, margins and earnings, which may challenge the company going forward.

The one thing to keep in mind concerning Freeport and all companies with heavy exposure to the right commodities, is rising prices can forgive a lot of weaknesses, but weaknesses still affect the bottom line of a company, and performances can be better even in the best of times.

Higher commodity prices have been the norm recently, but macroeconomic circumstances are dividing up the sector some, with particular commodities sure to continue doing well, but others falling by the wayside or reaching top price levels.

As far as Freeport or any commodity company, one must continue to closely watch debt levels and their costs, operational costs, margins, and that ultimately all leads to earnings.

Over the last several years Freeport has taken on more debt even as their equity increased. The problem is the debt-to-equity ratio has also increased, which isn't a good thing for the company. That means even in a bull commodity market their debt is increasing at higher levels. This doesn't mean Freeport is in danger, but the trend isn't good. Their debt-to-equity is a little over 41 percent at this time.

This has resulted in the gross margins of Freeport being under pressure, which is something that needs to be closely watched over the next year.

Other situations to watch is the China story as it relates to commodities, as they're in the midst of battling an inflation challenge, and that will probably result in slower growth and lower imports. That could cause lower sales for companies like Freeport, although China will still grow strongly, but not at the rate they have in the recent past.

Freeport can't do anything about the macroeconomic situation, but the things they can control like debt and operational costs need to be watched closely, along with the price trends of specific commodities.

It seems the period where the majority of commodities could be counted on to rise on general demand are over, and specific commodities will have to be watched in order to determine whether or not commodity prices will overcome elements which could result in lower margins and earnings.

For Freeport, they primarily mine copper, gold, silver, molybdenum and cobalt. Of those, copper is probably the most important to watch, as gold and silver in the current economic environment could help them overcome higher debt and costs, as prices will continue rising for some time.

Copper isn't necessarily guaranteed that anymore because of the probably cutbacks in places like China, and the ongoing weakness in building of new homes in the West, including the United States.

Alexco Resource (AMEX:AXU) Doubles Over Last Year

Alexco Resource Corp. (AMEX:AXU) is worth taking a look at, as the mineral exploration and development company has doubled its share price over the last 12 months, and seems to have continual support under the current levels.

The company mines, for the most part, in the Yukon Territory of Canada, and its properties are thought to hold gold, silver, lead and zinc ores.

They also generate secondary revenue from project management services and consulting on environmental permitting.

Alexco was trading at $6.42, up by $0.11, or 1.74 percent. Trading volume is above its 3-month daily average.

iShares Silver Trust (NYSE:SLV) Adds 113 Metric Tons

iShares Silver Trust (NYSE:SLV) added 113 metric tons of silver to its holdings, bringing their total to 10,366.03 metric tons.

The price of silver and gold plunged Tuesday as the market took a breather and the U.S. dollar temporarily strengthened. Silver futures prices fell to $26.86 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange for December delivery.

iShares Silver Trust participated in that drop, closing at $26.18, losing $0.97, or 3.57 percent.

iShare is the largest exchange-traded fund backed by silver.

Yamana (NYSE:AUY) Still Struggles to Gain Respect, Traction

Although there have been a lot of positive comments and data presented on the future of Yamana Gold (NYSE:AUY), it continues to struggle to gain respect and traction in a gold investment climate that should result in a much better price movement for the gold miner.

Scotia interrupted the attempted party again, downgrading Yamana from "Sector Outperform" to "Sector Perform."

With analysts having eight "strong buy" ratings, six "buys," and four holds" on Yamana, we will probably see more downgrades for them in the near future.

Most people continue to hold out hope that Yamana will take off, and yet it continues to linger, even though it does seem to have a number of reasons to be a solid investment and outperformer.

Their extremely low production costs alone make it a desirable company, coming in at a little over $100 a gold-equivalent ounce.

That gives them a lot of flexibility and enables them to operate in weak and strong markets when competitors would flounder.

Yamana also has significant metal resources like zinc, copper, molybdenum and silver, all of which are positioned to move up nicely in price, especially copper and silver.

From last year at this same time, Yamana has generated a loss for its share price, closing Monday at $11.17, losing $0.10, or 0.89 percent.

Goldcorp (NYSE:GG) Announces Commercial Production Hit at Penasquito

Although the first lead and zinc concentrates were produced by Goldcorp (NYSE:GG) at their Penasquito project in Mexico in 2009, the company decided to wait until the second 50 000-t/d mill and flotation line was operational before making the declaration it had officially hit commercial production, which they now have done.

Goldcorp is on track to finish construction on high-pressure grinding roll circuit in October, which will produce 30,000 tons a day, which will reach as high as 130,000 tons a day in early part of 2011.

The company's estimate of 180,000 ounces of production from the project remains in place for 2010.

COO Steve Reid said, “Peñasquito has achieved every significant operational milestone on schedule, culminating in today’s declaration of commercial production.”

The Penasquito project, which is estimated to have a 23-year lifespan, should produce 500,000 ounces of gold, 28 million ounces of silver, 450 million pounds of zinc, and 200 million pounds of lead on an annual basis.

Allied Nevada's (NYSE:ANV) Hycroft Mine Production Profile Larger Than Thought

An updated scoping study of the Hycroft mine of Allied Nevada (NYSE:ANV) found it can support a much larger production facility than the original study indicated.

CEO Scott Caldwell said, "This mine is expected to support an operation with a much greater production profile than was originally presented in the April scoping study."

Allied said in August it had a measured and indicated resource of eight million ounces of gold and 259.2 million ounces of silver at Hycroft mine.

Annually the gold miner projects gold production of 610,000 ounces, and silver production of 27 million ounces.

The enlarged project will now cost Allied about $1.1 billion.

They should be able to generate $500 million of that on their own by 2015, with the remaining $600 million to be raised.

TD Newcrest Upgrades Goldcorp (TSE:G) to 'Action List Buy'

TD Newcrest analyst Greg Barns has upgraded Goldcorp (TSE:G) (NYSE:GG) to 'Action List Buy' this week, and increased the target price to $55 a a share from $50 a share.

Barnes said the reasoning behind the upgrade was this, "We believe Goldcorp has the best growth profile among its senior peers. We use higher multiples for Goldcorp than Barrick (TSE:ABX) (NYSE:ABX) or Kinross (TSE:K) (NYSE:KGC), given our view that it has a better growth outlook, lower costs and lower political risk."

The specifics of that are related to production at Peñasquito, which has a projected increase in production for all four metals there, including gold, lead, silver and zinc.

Annual payable production, according to TD Newcrest, for each metal is estimated at 470,000 ounces of gold, 28 million ounces of silver, 450 million pounds of zinc, and 200 million pounds of lead; all on an annual basis.

gold could go far beyond that, with it reaching 800,000 ounces of annual production from 2010 - 2015, based on increased quality of grades.

Jim Rogers: Don't Buy Gold

Jim Rogers who is a bull on commodities throughout the next decade or possibly more, has stated recently that he wouldn't acquire any more gold at this time, as the price has surged and could go sideways for awhile.

At the same time, Rogers said he won't be selling any of his gold for some time either.

Along with the high price, speculators have now entered the gold and oil markets, and they could drive prices up for no reason, and those investing in gold could take a hit as a result, as it may not be market forces but speculation moving the prices.

Rogers advises commodity investors to invest in commodities at lower price levels like natural gas and silver.

Silver Manipulated to Protect Dollar?

Silver Short Squeeze Could Be Imminent
PR Newswire

FORT LEE, N.J., April 3

FORT LEE, N.J., April 3 /PRNewswire/ — The National Inflation Association today issued a silver update to its http://inflation.us members:

On December 11th, 2009 NIA declared silver the best investment for the next decade. In our December 11th article, we said that it wasn't a coincidence that the very day Bear Stearns failed was the same day silver reached its multi-decade high of over $21 per ounce. We went on to say, "The reason why we believe the Federal Reserve was so eager to orchestrate a bailout of Bear Stearns, is because Bear Stearns was on the verge of being forced to cover their silver short position."

JP Morgan took over the concentrated short position in silver from Bear Stearns and gained complete control over the paper price of silver. Within weeks, JP Morgan was able to manipulate the price of silver down to below $9 per ounce. NIA believes they were able to drive the price of silver down through "naked short selling," selling paper silver that is unbacked by physical silver.

On February 5th, we witnessed another sharp decline in silver prices, which NIA described on February 7th as being "just a temporary wash out, before a huge surge in silver prices later in 2010." Since then, silver prices have rebounded by 18%. The temporary wash out that occurred on February 5th was predicted by independent metals trader Andrew Maguire, who came out this week exposing the fraud that is taking place in the paper silver market.

On February 3rd, Andrew Maguire wrote Eliud Ramirez, a senior investigator for the CFTC's Enforcement Division, giving him the "heads up" for a "manipulative event" signaled for February 5th. He warned the CFTC that JP Morgan was about to manipulate down the price of silver after the release of non-farm payroll data on February 5th. Andrew said that the takedown would happen regardless of if employment was better or worse than expected and the price of silver would be flushed to below $15 per ounce. During the next couple of days, silver was crushed from $16.17 per ounce down to a low of $14.62 per ounce.

Despite all of the evidence given by Andrew Maguire to the CFTC of gold and silver manipulation, Andrew wasn't allowed to speak at last week's CFTC hearing on limiting gold and silver positions held by banks like JP Morgan. Bill Murphy of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) was allowed to speak (within a five-minute time constraint) and present some of Andrew Maguire's evidence, but right when his presentation began there was a technical failure of the live television broadcast, which was mysteriously fixed as soon as he was done speaking. Bill Murphy was scheduled for several mainstream media television interviews after the CFTC hearings, but they were all abruptly cancelled at once.

A couple of days after the CFTC meeting, Andrew Maguire and his wife were involved in a bizarre hit-and-run car accident in London where a second car coming out of a side street struck their vehicle, which resulted in a police chase using helicopters and patrol cars before the suspect was nabbed. Andrew and his wife were released from the hospital with minor injuries. (NIA does not believe in conspiracy theories but when you consider that this is a potential multi-trillion dollar fraud that could bring down the world's financial system, it really makes you think.)

The silver market provides a window into what is happening in the gold market. Because the silver market is very small and its short position is so concentrated, its price is easier to manipulate than gold, but the same manipulation is taking place in gold on a much larger but less noticeable scale. In our opinion, the CFTC is under pressure not to do anything about the manipulation because the lower gold and silver prices are, the stronger the U.S. dollar appears to be. If we saw an explosion to the upside in gold and silver prices, it would result in a complete loss of confidence in the U.S. dollar.

NIA believes the precious metals markets are currently being artificially suppressed by paper gold and silver that doesn't physically exist. At last week's CFTC hearings, Jeffrey Christian of the CPM Group admitted that banks have leveraged their physical bullion by 100 to 1. This means for every 100 ounces of paper gold/silver that trade, there could be as little as 1 ounce of physical gold/silver in the vaults backing it. However, Mr. Christian sees no problem with this because he says "it has been persistently that way for decades" and there are "any number of mechanisms allowing for cash settlements."

What Mr. Christian fails to realize is, most investors around the world holding paper gold/silver believe they own physical gold/silver. There will come a time when these investors don't want cash settlements in U.S. dollars, but they will want the physical precious metals themselves. When investors around the globe eventually call for physical delivery of their precious metals, NIA believes it will result in the biggest short squeeze in the history of all commodities.

The physical silver market is now more tight than ever before. In the first quarter of 2010, the U.S. mint sold 9,023,500 American Silver Eagles, the most since the coin debuted in 1986 and up from 8,299,000 sold in the fourth quarter of 2009. All U.S. silver mines combined are currently producing only 40 million ounces of silver annually. This means the U.S. needs to use almost all of its silver production just to keep up with the demand for American Silver Eagle coins.

Silver closed this week at a 10-week high of $17.89 per ounce and a major short squeeze to the upside could be imminent. With the spotlight now on JP Morgan, NIA believes they will be less likely to naked short silver at these levels and manipulate the price down like in February. With the mainstream media blackout, it is important for NIA members to work harder than ever to spread the word and help expose what could be the largest fraud in the history of the world.

To receive NIA's latest updates about inflation and the economy, sign-up for the free NIA newsletter at: http://inflation.us

About us:

The National Inflation Association is an organization that is dedicated to preparing Americans for hyperinflation. The NIA offers free membership at http://www.inflation.us and provides its members with articles about the economy and inflation, news stories, important charts not shown by the mainstream media; YouTube videos featuring Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and others; and profiles of gold, silver, and agriculture companies that we believe could prosper in an inflationary environment.

Contact: Gerard Adams, 1-888-99-NIA US (1888-996-4287), editor@inflation.us

SOURCE National Inflation Association

Contact
Gerard Adams, +1-888-99-NIA US (+1-888-996-4287), editor@inflation.us

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) Upgrades Hecla Mining (NYSE:HL)

Bank of America Upgrades Hecla Mining

Hecla Mining (NYSE:HL) enjoyed an uptick today as Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) upgraded the mining company from Neutral from Underperform.

Hecla has actually had a good year as far as share price goes, starting off at $1.85 twelve months ago to $5.42 as of the last trade.

They've reached as high as $7.47 a share during that time.

Gold and Gold Mining Companies: Prices to Soar?

The term rally and bullish should continue for gold and gold futures over the next year or so, as it shouldn't have any problem breaking above the $900 an ounce barrier and soaring from there. Gold and silver mining producers or companies will also do great this year, not only from demand, but operations will cost much less as energy costs, which are a key cost for gold mining companies, will remain down this year, while gold prices continue to rise. That should produce a banner year for gold mining companies.

Much of what has held gold prices down during these tough economic times has been the forced liquidation and deleveraging major funds had to do in order to raise cash to cover their debt and expenses. That forced them to sell their positions in gold and other commodities in order to do that. That's the reason commodities struggled for some time, especially some of the precious metals. It's also the reason the US dollar was inflated far beyond its underlying fundamentals.

Now that it looks like gold is back as the haven of safety it always has been, we'll start to see it grow in a much larger way and respond as it should have been all along. The bulls are out of the pen and we'll see the yellow metal soar in 2009.

Many financial experts are turning into bulls now, as the reason they were so unsure is no one know how long big funds and investment firms would take to unwind their positions and be ready to go back to the commodity markets. It seems we have the answer now, and that answer is a bull market.

This of course means that quality gold companies will enjoy good times going forward, as they lead commodities and other precious metals forward. I don't think the grain markets will participate in the bull market, but most many metals will, including silver, which according to percentages could even outperform gold.

Another reason gold will do well for some time is the terrible ideas of the government to bailout every industry that runs their companies poorly. That will force them to keep printing money into oblivion, and that fiat money has a bad ring to it, as it'll definitely push inflation much higher because there's no one to buy U.S. debt to pay for these extraordinarly expensive initiatives.

That's good news for gold investors, as inflation will be another arrow in the quiver that will keep gold prices rising, and the gold rally extending.

Foreign governments will ease out of the untrustworthy U.S Treasury bonds, and so that will leave the U.S. and Federal Reserve with no option to keep the money printing presses humming, and they will.

That will also bring the value of the U.S. dollar down, and will make gold even more attractive.

Similar to the forced liquidation period of funds and investment firms, it'll be impossible to know how long the bull gold rally will last, but I think it'll be much longer than the forced liquidation period that helped the dollar remain strong, although the fundamentals were so off.

In this case, the trillions being promised and spent by the US government could keep gold as a solid investment for quite some time, as the U.S. dollar continues on its road to collapse.

As far as gold and silver mining companies, we'll see quite a number of them enjoy some of the best years they ever have, assuming they're already well run companies and positioned to take advantage of the haven of safety investors will be looking for in 2009.