Category: The Mining Biz

Impressions of PDAC, Part 2

The presence or absence of PDAC crowds is something of a bell-weather for the state of our industry. It correlates, in part, to how much money we’ve collectively raised in the last 12 months, and also how the coming year of global mineral exploration activity is going to look. Attendance matches the global exploration financing figures quite closely, albeit with about a one year lag. Which doesn’t bode well for the business of discovery in 2019. PDAC compile convention attendance figures on their website, which I’ve graphed below for 2010 to 2019, alongside the global exploration financing stats from 2011 to 2017.

PDAC attendees, 2009 to 2019. Mass delusion in action.
Source: PDAC website.

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Impressions of PDAC Part 1

The PDAC is over and I’m back home after the emotional trauma of Vancouver airport’s domestic terminal taxi line up. At 9.30pm last night, we passengers – we accursed passengers- were met by a 45 minute wait for a taxi. Whoever was handling the dispatch radio must’ve sent everyone home at 9pm for a nice bowl of hot soup. The Commissionaires, running around marshalling the traffic in front of the terminal, kept up a bravely-busy face with lots of whistling and shouting at cars, but studiously ignored us. Nobody did anything for the 200+ passengers standing morosely in line, staring blankly at an empty taxi stand, praying for a future that includes Uber.

If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.
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Mining Stock Picking Update

And they’re off. The end of the first month of the 2019 Black and Blue Hys and Lows Mining Stock Picking Challenge. Catchy name, eh? Happily, we’re already bucking the 2018 trend. So welcome to the Brave New World; an unfamiliar place where red has become green, and negative has suddenly become positive. It’s as if we’ve slipped through a tear in the fabric of space-time itself, and departed last year’s Shit-a-Verse aboard the Space Ship Uptick. Any time now we’ll land with a soft, pleasant plop into a parallel, sweet-marshmallow universe where stocks only go up, money is made, Toronto is warm at PDAC (nahh..) and everything’s fine with the industry. Quick, slap me. Wake me up, and pour me a big, hot mug of This Can’t Be Happening.

This makes it look like we know what we’re doing. Finally. For once.
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I Met A Drug Smuggler

Western Pakistan is a fascinating place. It’s remote, arid, tribal, and these days a Taliban stronghold; not the friendliest of spots for westerners planning on coming home still attached to their heads. It was slightly safer when I was there in 1997, although it still had its moments (see My Project Went Boom).

The Chagai Hills.  Not sure I’d call them hills if I got to name them.
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Stock Picking in a 2019 Stylee

I promised myself when I started urbancrows.com that it wouldn’t become a mining and exploration blog. I was determined to keep it broad-ranging, stuffed full of erudite and amusing articles covering everything from wildlife, classical music to ancient sex toys. It would be an intellectual bootcamp for me- and Lord knows, I’m mentally flabby –  where I could build a careful façade as a funny polymath. Yeah, not quite.

Thank you Lord. Sound advice.
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How To Pick A Mining Stock.

“A stock pick is when an analyst or investor uses a systematic form of analysis to conclude that a particular stock will make a good investment and, therefore, should be added to his or her portfolio”  Wikipedia.

It’s here. The night I’ve been waiting for all year. Our stock picking dinner is tonight and the tension is ramping up across the mining industry. Think of it as the Davos Summit of mining. Twenty five seasoned veterans drawn from every facet of the global mining and exploration business –representatives from banking, research, geology, mining, journalism plus a couple of our parole officers- come together in a darkened room to select 25 companies that will set the junior resource market on fire for 2019. Just like we did in 2018.

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The Results Are In.

Christmas is over. The New Year crept in through a hangover haze and the presents have been packed off to the Sally Ann. Here in Vancouver, that means it’s nearly time for the annual Hys and Lows stock picking results dinner, or what I like to call The Rites of Poverty and Delusion. The dinner has assumed a prominent place in the hearts and minds of the hallowed members of our little club. And with that in mind, I know that you are excited to see the 2018 results (if you can call them that) so without further ado, I’ll cut to the chase.

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My Stock Pick Has Tanked

Yes, yes… you all know what’s coming. After months of gloating and abuse chuckage, my pick in the 2018 mining stock pick challenge has tanked and I’ve been knocked off my lofty perch atop the table. Evrim -previously known as God’s Choice of Junior Explorers- is in the shit pile and down 80% on the day after releasing crap drill results. C’est la vie. My humble-pie eating note to our stock club is posted below.

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November Stock Picking Update

It’s time for the monthly mining stock picking up date. What follows is an edited version of my monthly note to our club in my capacity as Chairman.

The air in the Chairman’s Palace is currently rich with the heady scent of righteous excitement as we head into the final month of this year’s “Pick-A-Dog”competition. At least I think that’s what I can smell; my terrier’s been having digestive issues so I may have it wrong.

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Rocks Can Talk

Rock is remarkable stuff. It lets you know when it’s not happy, and like the best of us, it gets stressed from time to time. When it gets very wound up, it won’t shut up until something finally happens to calm it down, which is usually not a good thing for us humans. Ask San Francisco.

Piss off. I’m not happy.

I’m Stressed. Go Away.

The rock was yapping away to itself late last year in northwest England, at a fracking site near Blackpool. Cuadrilla, a hydrocarbon explorer, had just restarted its operations after being shut down for a while by the regulators because of an increase in seismicity near the drill site.

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