Hunt Oil in Peru: The latest news from today's meeting

This hot off the presses from A Person present at today's meeting between the representatives of Hunt Oil and the indigenous locals of the Madre De Dios region of southern Peru:

The meeting did take place in Salvación. No ministers nor other requested persons came, but the same negotiators as usual. About another hundred people, both natives and colonists, came too. The three foreigners present were identified and intimidated by the district's prosecutor and police officials who showed an aggressive attitude, besides being heavily armed as if they were ready for a second Bagua.

No agreement was signed and Hunt Oil announced that its work will continue. We also found out that

a) the seismic lines have already been finished almost entirely without the communities knowing about it.

b) there are 1100 workers inside the Reserve.

c) there is a report of footprints of uncontacted indgenous people by an Indigenous SAE worker from Shintuya.

After the meeting everybody opted for withdrawal from the place. The police followed us and settled down next to the "native camp", which made us flee to the Alto Madre de Dios riverbank in order to travel downriver to Puerto Maldonado the next day.

The conclusion of the leaders is that at this point all possible peaceful means to paralize the company`s activities and get the workers out of the Reserve have been truly exhausted. Now they are thinking of violent measures as the last resort. We are still looking for more press coverage.

Gold peaked in February 2009...

......for most of us.

Here's a little chart cooked up at the Infomine page (useful resource if you didn't know) that shows gold in US Dollars, Euros, Loonies and Brazilian Real (BRL). Clearly, gold peaked for most currencies (and therefore people around the globe) in February 2009 and has been a bad bet against their own currencies since then.

For example, somebody in Brazil would have done much better in buying a new car earlier this year than 20 ounces or so of gold that would have cost BRL48,000 in late Feb but just BRL36,000 today.

Just sayin'.

A quick word on Troy Resources (TRY.to) (TRY.ax)

I will definitely be taking up my end of the rights issue. I haven't read the full document yet, but if it's as straightforward as it seems to be it's just another case of 'That Nice Mr. Market Offers Me Free Money"....who am I to refuse?

DYODD. Now I really have gotta go....nice people giving me hard stares from a doorway with "get in the 4x4" written on their faces. Have a nice day.

Fortuna Silver (FVI.v): Holy moley....

......you could have got all the sub $1.50 you wanted on FVI Wednesday. One of those moments when the market sheep line up in front of you and offer to give you their money....and I wasn't around.

Tant pis. I hope some of you took advantage, anyway.

Chart of the day is.....

...gold December futures, daily candle (but with a scale change)

It's all perception, you know. Get whisked away by the daily cuts and thrusts and you see the new bull and the end-of-the-world in every twist and turn of the dollar, crude, gold, silver or what have you.

But change the scale on the chart to zero to 1100 and there's a different perspective. To cut a long story short, a few days on the road and away from the screen (last day today) have done me some good. Now off to stare at some rocks.

John Kaiser skewers the Casey BS show

Still on the road, but this one can be done quickly

I was sent this, written by John Kaiser of Kaiser's Bottom Fish, by A. Reader. Well worth consideration by anyone who reads mining newsletters

Missing the boat and even being dead wrong, however, has not stopped the Casey
gang from tooting its horn in self-congratulation, a having your cake and eating
it habit that Stockwatch's John Woods delights in documenting, much to the
displeasure of the Casey Research team. In a recent egregious example Louis
James of the Casey team reiterated his sell recommendation of Rare Element
Resources Ltd, which he had originally recommended at $1.20 on October 19, 2007.
After watching it sag below $0.50 during 2008 and then jump in late May 2009
after Jim Dines recommended the stock, the writer on June 1, 2009 recommended
"recovering your original investment" at $1.41 to his readers, which meant
effectively selling most of the Rare Element position bought at the original
$1.20 recommended price. After Rare Element shot over $4.50 Louis James
described his pick as being up 228.3% at $3.94 and urged any readers who have
not already done so to take profits. Chalk up another big score on behalf of the
Casey stock-picking team. But in an even more cynical practice widely used in
the group's energy report, the Casey team will write up some expensive oil
stock, recommend buying it with a "stink bid" as much as 50% below the market
price, which is in effect a short sale recommendation, and when the stock moves
higher instead, they "close the position" while listing the stink bid price as
the initial recommendation price. For example, in June the energy group
recommended that readers buy Linn Energy LLC at $13 even though it was trading
at $20, and when the stock instead moved to $24, they closed out the position in
October which in the report is listed as "initially recommended at $13 in June
2009". John Woods probably goes to bed every night praying, "please, please,
Casey Research, please sue me".

On the road

Posting will be light for the next couple of days. Your humble correspondent has been let out the house by la jefa and will be roaming round the region getting up to all sorts of mischief. Hopefully some posts will make it through, but full service won't return until Friday at the earliest. Con permiso........

Hunt Oil in the Peruvian Amazon: Reuters picks up the story

We've mentioned it on this humble corner of cyberspace several times in the last week, inlcluding this post to kick it all off and this post about eyewitness Sam Mitchell's unbeatable and detailed observations. Abiding has been on the case, too. Now the real newspeople are on the story and getting the word heard further and wider. Here's the start of the Reuters report on Hunt Oil and Repsol, click through for the rest:

LIMA, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Tribes in Peru say they want U.S. energy company Hunt Oil to abandon an exploration project in a virgin corner of the Amazon rainforest, and they have filed legal challenges against the government and the company to force it out.

Representatives of the tribes said on Tuesday they would sit down for talks with officials representing Hunt. Earlier this week, the tribes threatened to forcibly remove oil workers from a camp near the town of Salvacion in the Madre de Dios region of southern Peru.

"There is going to be a dialogue. We have to wait for the result of this meeting before we know about the removal," said Maria Gonzalez of the Fenamad indigenous rights group.

The tribes say a government concession to Hunt and Spain's Repsol (REP.MC) to look for oil in Block 76 is unlawful because it overlaps the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, protected ancestral lands that could hold billions of dollars of oil deposits.

As the complaints wind their through the courts, the government of President Alan Garcia contends that the tribes control only surface rights of the reserve, while the government can lease subsoil mineral rights to foreign companies.

Tribes, frustrated by the slow pace of court cases and the government's stance, say Peru's position ignores their rights to autonomy and self-determination under the U.N. charter on indigenous peoples.

Hunt Oil declined requests for an interview about CONTINUES HERE

Image taken from Doug Belanger's next Hawaiian vacation

From Bloomie:

“We had a permit and developed the property,” Doug Belanger, president of the Spokane, Washington-based company said today in a phone interview. “We had a permit to construct and they revoked it without a basis in law.” CONTINUES HERE

Meanwhile, if you're long KRY and feeling all shadenwhatnot...big mistake. Fung's funhouse is next.

Silver stocks rolling over?

Here's the 5 day chart, 15 min intervals, of a selection of small silvers:

You be the judge, but not even the most bullish news possible for FVI could stop its drop today.

Breaking: Gold Reserve (GRZ) and Crystallex (KRY) expropriated by Venezuelan government

The Correo de Caroní is today reporting that the Venezuelan government has taken over control of the Brisas (GRZ) and Las Cristinas (KRY) gold projects.

Here's the beginning of the text translated into English:

October 27: The camp of the multinational Canadian Gold Reserve, Brisas del Cuyuní, located in Las claritas, was taken over by functionaries of MIBAM and hand over to the state run Minerven who from now on will be in charge of the installations. Luis Herrera, president of Minerven, was present at the occupation at which the Correo del Caroní was exclusive media witness.

Here's how the original Spanish text begins:

El campamento de la trasnacional canadiense Gold Reserve, Brisas del Cuyuní, situado en Las Claritas, fue tomado por funcionarios del Ministerio del Poder Popular para las Industrias Básicas y Minería (Mibam) y entregado a la estatal Minerven que desde ahora se hará cargo de las instalaciones. Luis Herrera, presidente de Minerven, estuvo presente en la ocupación a la cual asistió en exclusiva Correo del Caroní.



For those who think it's a hoax, here's a scan of the relevant page of today's Correo Del Caroní.

UPDATE: 32 minutes after IKN reports it, GRZ admits it in this news release.

Bolivia: English media acting predicably again

In an amazing, stunning, incredible turn of events, the IMF praised Bolivia's economy to the rafters yesterday. Check out the dozens of Spanish language news stories available on the speech given by IMF bigwig Gilbert Terrier right here. As for content, here's a typical bit translated from the Reuters note.

Gilbert said that, inside a Latin America that has responded better to the (financial) crisis than the industrialized nations, Bolivia stands out with the highest projected growth rate for 2009 of 3.2%, in contrast to Mexico that is heading for a close of negative 7.5%.

"Bolivia has applied successful macroeconomic policies. Its savings and reserves now permit it to apply a countercyclical policy we we suggest it should continue to face any further extrernal economic shocks in the future", he said.

Amongst the successes of Bolivian policy, he highlighted the savings made in the bonanza times of high priced primary goods instead of having spent nearly all the income as other regional countries have done."

The brass-necked bullshittery of the IMF knows no bounds. Anyone with an inkling of economic nous about Bolivia knows that the country managed to increase its international currency reserves to its current all-time record of U$8.5Bn due to one simple policy change, namely the nationalization of the hydrocarbons (i.e. natgas) industry. Now do you remember back in 2005 and 2006 when the world and his wife was decrying this Evo-led policy move? How it would never work? The very same IMF neolib assholes saying it would all end in tears?

So here we are three years later, going through the worst financial crisis in modern times, and the policies of Evo Morales' government are getting praise from those who would have led the country down the path to total ruin. The IMF really deserves this week's coveted award for this one.

But finally, please note how many stories about the IMF's praise for Evo's Bolivia and its macro policy have been published by English language media: Zero. Amazingly..... stunningly... incredibly......

Happy Birthday, Miiiister Presideeeeeent....

In the Andean region there are a plenty of traditions to suffer through on your birthday. One is, when presented with your birthday cake, to take a big bite out of it. Then while you're taking your bite, some joker always sneaks up behind you and squishes your face into the cake, cream and all.

And thus President Evo Morales was caught by his people yesterday. He visited the altiplano town of Batallas and it didn't go un-noticed that his was his 50th birthday. Here's what happened:

A Troy Resources (TRY.to) BOHICA* moment coming your way

After yesterday's goodnews update on Troy Resources' (TRY.to) (TRY.ax) Australian trading, this one is the necessary counterbalance. TRY.ax got hammered last night in Oz, down 8.6% to A$2.55 on the soft gold performance.

Expect TRY.to under CAD$2.50 today. For the record, this long not worried.


*Bend Over Here It Comes Again

Charts of the day are....

...copper, daily price candle and the long term (5 yr) warehouse inventories.
No big big commentary on these today, you should know the score by now.

However, totally OT I'd like to share a report sent in by reader CB this morning. Entitled "HAIL, OTTO!" (starts well) it's about the world's oldest dog, Otto the dachschund-terrier cross now knocking on 21 years. But CB made a point of sending in the report because of what was said later (and we quote):

But what Otto lacks in physical ability, he still retains in spirit.

“He’s still playful,” she said. “He can still jump all over people when they come ‘round.”

Nuff said. Errrr...."Thank you", CB*


* :-)

Charting the US Dollar rally

Otto pretends to be interested in technical analysis due to a request from reader 'TB' who wants a thought or two about today's US dollar rally. This 30 minute candle of the December USD futures contract shows it nicely:

But by continuing my chartist pseudolurve, this daily candle says that what we have isn't a game-changer yet.

Personally, I'm more interested in the way miners reporting in Loonies or Pesos or whatevers will get a benefit from a strong dollar compared to their home currency. But hey...that kind of thinking is far too logical for this market.

Trading Post (down boy down edition)

Nadagold (NG) down 8.7% at U$4.54. C'mon, laugh along with me.

TheNewCrystallex (EC.v) down 5.7% at $0.50. That "end of August" permit a little late in arriving, no? Or maybe it's because the scamsters forgot to specify which August they were talking about.

New Dimension (NDR.v) down 19.4% at $0.145. The martiano landed, took all your money and flew off again.

Petaquilla Minerals (PTQ.to) down 26.7% at $0.22. Walnut Street, a classic example of a "what could possibly go wrong" fund run by Ivy League idiots who invest seven figure sums of your money without bothering to do a site visit. This stock is dead, which is good news for all the industry.

ECU Silver (ECU.to) down 6.9% at $0.68. It didn't work, did it Adrian?

Jason Hommel is a dangerous man

We know that Jason Hommel has...well...strident views on religion. We know that he sells silver at interestingly marked-up prices to his well trained band of sheep. We know that he has some sort of obsession with the birth certificate of President Obama. We know his predictions on the price of silver have been, are and will always be rather silly. Those that know their way round an Excel spreadsheet also know just how laughably bad his company analyses are, too.

But now we know that the guy is outright dangerous.

In an article that the nutbar published last week he included this pearl of whizzdumb:

"The only practical and relatively foolproof way to test for gold's purity is to cut into gold jewelry with a file, and test it with acid, because true gold will not corrode, or dissolve, with a certain strength of acid. The acids will bubble under the microscope if they encounter impurities such as copper in 22 karat gold. (Very strong acids, such as cyanide, will dissolve gold.)"

I don't know exactly how much you know about chemistry, kind and gentle reader, but if you took Hommel at his word, decided to do some playful stunts on a lump of gold with acid, then due to non-results decided to "beef the acid up a bit with some of that there cyanide", it would be the last thing you ever did (on this side of the Elysian Fields, anyhow). Or as one IKN reader who wrote in to Hommel pointed out to the dude:

…such as cyanide will dissolve gold”.

Wow… I’m absolutely speechless.

Jeez, dude you would be immediately dead if cyanide was put in an “acidic” environment, i.e., a ph <7.>

Gold only dissolves in one acid: Aqua regia, a mixture of concentrated nitric and hydrochloric acids.

I guarantee the author of that letter is somebody that really, but really knows what they're talking about, too. On the other hand, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Hommel has very little knowledge about his subject. He is a dangerous thing. DYODD.

Restoring faith in capitalism

Sometimes I get the weirdballs mailing me with their "you commie dumbass" lovespreading. This is fine, cos as long as they're taking it out on me they're not bugging somebody that might give a rat's ass about what they think. It's also plain wrong, cos even my lefty pals recognize they have a capitalist on their hands.

But not the kind of screw-you, hatred-filled capitalism now preached North of the Rio Grande. Why not compare the attitude towards the world shown by Citi or Goldman to the attitude of Mexican bank Compartamos (COMPART.mx). Here's an extract from today's post from the evergreat Mexfiles featuring this bank. Click through for the rest (you'll be glad you did).

Given that Compartamos works with the client to assure they are able to pay the loan, what started as a not-for-profit microlending service became a normal business in 2000 and the next year became the first microlender to issue debt in the capital markets. In 2006 it was transformed into a “normal” commercial bank… with one important difference. It’s not only considered one of the best employers in Mexico, it’s doing what banks aren’t supposed to do… turn a healthy profit in an economic slump

CONTINUES HERE

Venezuelan Mining Quiz of the Day, Gold Reserve (GRZ) edition

Question: How many times has Gold Reserve (GRZ) head honcho Doug Belanger visited Venezuela in the time shown on this chart (i.e. this decade)?

Answer: zero.

Does this have something to do with the total balls-up he's made of the project? YOU BE THE JUDGE!

Noise

Everybody's talking at me.
I don't hear a word they're saying,
Only the echoes of my mind.

(Harry Nilsson, Everybody's talking at me)

The noise from the pumpy BS companies and their promoters (full to the brim with shares and ready to sell them to saps) is getting louder. Over the weekend I've had headsup on a couple of stocks getting the full pump treatment from people that deserve jail more than the profits they'll reap from the market. We've already mentioned NDR.v last week. Another scumball doing da pump has chosen YEL.v (a total dog) as his vehicle. And we haven't even got round to EC.v (the new crystallex) yet....or the alluvial gold start-ups (CMIN.ob, Affinity, Minatura etc etc etc)....or KPS.v....or the dozens of Colombia area plays that have as much chance of becoming mines as Rush Limbaugh has of winning the Nobel Peace Prize. All scams bar none and the list goes on and on and on.

The solution? Block out the noise, do good DD and make sure your money is on stocks with serious people and good prospects. If you want to play double or nothing with your money, I suggest LasVegas as a better option. The house there still wins in the long run but it doesn't have half as much of an advantage as it does amongst the sharks of the TSX.

Do your own research. Do your own checking. Do your own DD. There are too many people out there ready to rip you off to trust anyone but yourself.

Chart of the day is....

....the ten day price chart for the Australian listing of Troy Resources (TRY.ax).

While this side of the planet slept, the bit with Australia on it saw TRY.ax climb to a new 52 week high. Once forex changes are taken into consideration the arbitrage puts Canada's listing for Troy (TRY.to) at CAD$2.72 today (ceteris paribus).

DYODD, dude.

The Goldberg Variation

Here's the latest from "Change only a dumbass can believe in".

Philip S. Goldberg, Nominee for Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State

Philip S. Goldberg, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, is the United States Coordinator for Implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolutions on North Korea. Mr. Goldberg has served as Ambassador to Bolivia; Chief of Mission in Kosovo and Charge d’affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission in Chile. He is currently coordinating implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, an assignment he will continue pending confirmation by the Senate when a successor will be designated. His earlier assignments include: acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs; Executive Assistant and Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State; Bosnia Desk Officer and member of US delegation at Dayton Peace Negotiations; Political-Economic Officer in South Africa, and Consular and Political officer in Colombia. Mr. Goldberg is a graduate of Boston University.

If you've never heard of this turd previously, check out previous posts on the guy and see what he tried to do to Bolivia. Apparently Billary is a big fan of his and upped him for the job. Figures.

José Mujica, possible first round winner in Uruguay

José Alberto Mujica Cordano is a dead cert for the new President of Uruguay. The only question left is whether he wins in the first round or the run-off, as right now the first exit polls from today's election have him right on the edge of a round one win with 50% of the vote.

Just goes to show that even a cop killer can get to the top these days. What? They didn't tell you that when he used to go under the pseudonym 'Emiliano' in his more militant days he shot dead a police officer by putting seven bullets in his back?

Strange how these things get forgotten, isn't it?

UPDATE: Tough to call accurately, but it looks most likely that there will be a 2nd round run off in November. Mujica is polling slightly under the 50% he needs to seal it at this stage. Rightwing Luis Lacalle will face off with him and is currently polling 305 or so.

The IKN Weekly, out now

IKN26 has just been sent to subscribers. Any delivery problems, just drop me a line and we'll sort them out (none for the last three weeks, which is good).

As for the question, "What's in the weekly this time, Otto?", the answer is, "11,917 words".