Amid the bustle of the 80th Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention in Toronto, The Gold Report sat down with PDAC President Scott Jobin-Bevans for his take on the challenges the mining industry faces. In this exclusive interview, he covers a wide range of topics, from skilled labor shortages to the trials of mining in remote northern Canada.

COMPANIES MENTIONED: AVALON RARE METALS INC. – MAGMA METALS LTD. – NORTH AMERICAN PALLADIUM LTD. – PROPHECY PLATINUM CORP. – TIEX INC.

The Gold Report: What are the key challenges the mining industry faces in 2012–2013? 

Scott Jobin-Bevans: PDAC, under the leadership of newly appointed Executive Director Ross Gallinger, will be conducting a strategic review involving the board of directors, staff and gathering membership input. There are a number of issues facing the association and the industry, and I am sure that human resources challenges will surface as a key issue. 

TGR: When you say human resources, what are you talking about specifically? 

SJ-B: It’s the skilled workforce: geologists, geophysicists, process engineers, mining engineers, miners and skilled labor. There’s a huge gap between the young people who are out there now and the older ones who know those skill sets from years ago. For instance, we’re nearly missing the 35-to-45 age bracket.

There is a tremendous opportunity for industry associations such as ours, the government, private sector and educators to work together. This is a hugely important sector that represents nearly 3.5% of our national GDP and pays billions of dollars in tax revenue and royalties to the various levels of government. 

It presents an opportunity to university students, but it also presents a challenge to the industry. The Mining Industry Training and Adjustment Council led an industry-sponsored study released in 2005 that found that the Canadian mining and mineral industry would need at least 80,000 people in the next 10 years just to replace current jobs. The industry has grown quite a bit since 2005. So, the estimates in Canada are now something like 100,000 jobs will need to be filled in the next 10 years. 

TGR: Where are those numbers coming from? 

SJ-B: You can find them on the Mining Industry Human Resources Council of Canada’s (MiHR’s)website. The PDAC supported a more recent sector study by MiHR, “Unearthing Possibilities,” which looks specifically at the exploration sector; it’s important to understand that mineral exploration is different than the mining sector. In this study, we were able to show how many women are in mineral exploration, how many people are employed overall and the demographics on the age distribution. 

You can see the late ’80s downturn in the 35-to-44 age group when the industry and the economy tanked. People left the industry and never came back. You can also see the effect of the Bre-X scandal and market decline in 1997, which saw the departure of record numbers of professionals from the industry. The report does show an increase in the 25-to-34 age group coming into the industry, which is really encouraging. 

The connection between human resources and supplying the metals of tomorrow is that we can still find the mines but we can’t put them in production because we simply don’t have the people. The only way we survive now is by poaching from other projects, so it’s not a healthy environment for industry success. 

PDAC has been making efforts in terms of our support for educating the work force of tomorrow. We have a strong program that we support through PDAC Mining Matters that has helped educate nearly 500,000 school-age children about the sector. We’ve got a number of university programs and scholarships but the industry needs to do more. 

TGR: What are some of the other challenges facing the industry? 

SJ-B: I’m not sure it’s a challenge so much as a new opportunity in Canada in terms of working with First Nations and aboriginal communities, which ties into land access. Canadians are leaders in developing strong dialogues with our aboriginal partners and PDAC is very committed to ensuring our members are equipped and prepared to have those conversations, whether in Canada or abroad. 

TGR: Is this a global issue? 

SJ-B: I think we need to understand this in a different context. This isn’t a problem as much as it is a reality that companies need to adjust to. The issue of aboriginal and indigenous people’s rights is extremely complex and extends into places like Chile, for example, which is not dealing with the issue to the same degree as Australia or Canada; but it recognizes that it must be dealt with soon. The major mining companies and Codelco, the state-owned enterprise in Chile, haven’t had to deal with it because most of their mines are in remote areas where there are very small villages; companies tend to be good corporate citizens by making donations and providing infrastructure and job training to the local villages. But, as the industry expands in Chile, I believe there will be more focused attention on indigenous peoples. 

Another issue is profit sharing and the desire for local communities to want a piece of the pie, a portion of the production royalty. We also see this happening in India, Peru and many other countries, as well as in Canada. India has proposed that iron ore and copper miners set aside 26% of the royalty they pay to states to share with locals affected by mining. The PDAC is in favor of resource revenue sharing as long as it is introduced in a fair and sustainable manner. 

TGR: On another subject, Canadian Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver spoke at PDAC. Do you think we’ll ever see a national securities regulator, like the SEC in the U.S.? 

SJ-B: PDAC supports having a single regulatory system administered by one regulator, applying one set of rules in a consistent manner across Canada. We would welcome a one-window central process. But it isn’t easy because each province has the right to control the regulatory process and collect fees in its own jurisdiction. This results in duplication and higher cost for financings and ongoing compliance. We need to have a system that allows all potential Canadian investors the equal opportunity to participate. 

TGR: What is another industry challenge? 

SJ-B: Mine permitting and the related regulatory process. This is a global issue. Governments often don’t have the capacity to administer their own acts and legislation. I believe we are going to see this capacity issue in Ontario with the current revision of its Mining Act. We see capacity issues in British Columbia and the Yukon Territory, largely brought on by increased industry activity and record mineral claim staking. We also see a lack of capacity within the provincial governments and within First Nation governments to deal with the required paperwork, which is becoming more and more onerous. Minister Oliver spoke at length about this at the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia Roundup in January and again at the PDAC Convention. He believes that regulation should be practical, useful and not overly bureaucratic, and I, for one, support that. 

Another example is Finland. Finland is a great jurisdiction for mining. It embraces and promotes it. The GTK or Geological Survey of Finland actively maps, explores and even drills holes to build up resources, which it then puts out to auction. It recently introduced a new mining act and at the same time made changes to staff size and location, which almost overnight resulted in license granting going from a 6–12 month window to a 3–5 year time frame to establish land tenure. This is very discouraging to mineral exploration companies thinking about investing exploration dollars in Finland. My recent discussions during the PDAC convention with the Federal government does suggest that they are committed to improving the system in the very near future.

TGR: I guess this makes Ontario and Nevada look better all the time. 

SJ-B: Finland still beat Ontario in the Fraser Institute’s annual survey of the best jurisdictions for mining in the world. We also saw New Brunswick being ranked as number one and for the first time ever we saw Ireland in the top 10 along with the Yukon Territory. 

The survey ranks jurisdictions on things like administration, corruption, environmental regulation, duplication, fair trade, transparency, taxation etc. The most recent survey came out in the last few weeks.

TGR: Northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire region includes chromite, base metals and gold deposits. There are billions of dollars of potential revenue there, but there is zero infrastructure. You have to have rail to get the minerals out of there. All these different deposits have been found and they have NI 43-101 resources on them, but they’re not going anywhere. 

SJ-B: I think we have to see the various levels of government as partners in the extraction of our mineral wealth and my view is that there really is an opportunity for the government to partner with industry and help build infrastructure in the north. There is a huge discovery that could be world-class size. The potential for northern development—for wealth generation in the province—is very real. I think both federal and provincial governments are still recovering from the financial crisis and at this point are not able to invest the dollars today for the long term in spite of the economic development opportunities that exist. Economic development is all based on favorable returns and future earnings through increased taxation and other revenue, and right now governments have a tremendous opportunity to show that measure of foresight for this industry. 

We think that we finally got the Feds to understand the importance of mining to this country. We have had Minister Oliver at the conference, a record number of members of Parliament, members of Provincial Parliaments, senators and we were really pleased to see Jean Charest, the Premier of Québec, join us at the conference. 

TGR: Most of the readers of The Gold Report are precious metals investors. Can we talk about your personal view as to what you see as opportunities for North American investors right now who like resource stocks? What are some of the commodities that you see really gaining traction in 2012? Do you see particular interest in micro caps, in the near-term producing stories? 

SJ-B: Certainly, I’m in agreement with gold and silver being the mainstay of the industry and, of course, copper. There’s a big push with anything having to do with country- or economy-building commodities, iron ore, for instance. Rare earth minerals are a complicated commodity, but I think a lot is going to happen in that space. 

For example, Germany canceled its nuclear power program and is now having to look for alternative green energy. It recently created an alliance for securing critical raw materials after it essentially closed down the mining and metals industry 20 years ago, thinking that mining was a sunset industry. 

TGR: Well, it’s pretty clear that Europe is waking up to the idea that these critical metals are very important for growing clean energy. 

SJ-B: For sure. Germany is a good case in point because the German market is really hunting for those metals, not only for internal consumption but also for building the technologies that it exports. To produce a windmill for instance, you need neodymium for the magnets and so a source for this rare metal needs to be secured to be a successful producer. The Germans asked Canada what we have. Well, the short answer is nothing because we basically shut down all of those operations years ago. To bring any production on-line in the near term is going to be very costly. 

Look at Thor Lake’s Avalon Rare Metals Inc. (AVL:TSX; AVL:NYSE; AVARF:OTCQX).

PDAC Director Don Bubar is heading up the company and PDAC Past President Bill Mercer is also involved. Avalon has a great story, a great deposit in Thor Lake. Infrastructure-wise it is fairly remote. In the global size of rare earth deposits, it’s small and has a very specialized suite of minerals that are desirable, but it will take very high production costs to extract and build a plant. Doing that in Canada is challenging. I don’t believe that there is enough critical mass in Canada to justify such a high capital expenditure. I am, of course, always hopeful that it will work, but it’s not like a copper or nickel discovery or a base-metal discovery where you have five or six deposits in one general area that you can then aggregate to feed a smelter or a processing facility. In the case of most rare earths in Canada you have a relatively small deposit with complex metallurgical challenges that would be feeding a $1 billion production facility. 

TGR: How do you feel about copper, silver and gold? 

SJ-B: Canada is a fantastic jurisdiction in which to explore and I think people are realizing that we still have the opportunity to make discoveries in commodities like copper. We’re seeing the copper porphyry business come back to British Columbia (B.C.) with interest from Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM:NYSE). We’ve also got interest in the region from Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX:NYSE) and even BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP:NYSE; BHPLF:OTCPK) is known to be watching the area. The majors are taking note of projects that until recently have been considered too small a target for copper-gold or copper-moly porphyries. I’m involved with junior explorer Tiex Inc. (TIX:TSX.V) working in B.C. in the Quesnel Trough.

We believe we are sitting on a brand new Cu-Au porphyry discovery that is off-trend from the traditional Quesnel Trough past producers. We have another project that is right next to Spanish Mountain Gold Ltd. (SPA:TSX.V), so there is great gold in sediment opportunities. 

Overall, I would say that we are seeing a resurgence in Canada. Most people I speak to are saying it’s a great opportunity for copper-gold in B.C. and gold in the Yukon, and strong interest continues in Quebec and Nunavut. I find B.C. is particularly interesting because it has a recent track record of actually permitting mines. With almost half of Canada’s proposed mining projects located in B.C., it has shown the industry that exploration and development projects can be moved into mine permitting–a step that many other jurisdictions in Canada are failing to make. Plus, in Canada you’ve got diamonds, and we are well positioned to become the third-largest diamond producer in the world. 

TGR: Do you mean the third-largest producer by value? 

SJ-B: Yes, we do produce some of the highest quality diamonds in the world, but we are also gaining on total production with additional projects turning into mines. In terms of gold, we still have the prolific Abitibi gold camps in Ontario and Quebec. I think around half of the Abitibi Greenstone Belt is covered by clays and impermeable surface material that you can’t see through with traditional exploration techniques such as geophysics and geochemistry. So you have to drill it. This is the world’s largest continuous greenstone belt with some 160 million ounces of production with about 50% of it covered. So the opportunities for gold and base metals in that region alone in Canada are huge. 

TGR: You are saying that investors looking for opportunities in the junior mining space have plenty of opportunities in their own backyard? 

SJ-B: Absolutely. Canada is politically stable, reasonably well regulated and has a fairly streamlined process to put the mines into production. Minister Oliver said he is committed to making the process even tighter. So, it will become a less-than-two-year process. 

Also on the list of metals to watch, I would add platinum group metals (PGM). 

TGR: In Canada or elsewhere?

SJ-B: In Canada. I think that although we have a high palladium-to-platinum ratio in our deposits, it’s usually 2:1 or 3:1. The sustained price in platinum, and now palladium, is great for the industry. 

TGR: What are the names in that space? 

SJ-B: There are Magma Metals Ltd. (MMW:TSX; MMW:ASX) 

and North American Palladium Ltd. (PDL:TSX; PAL:NYSE) near Thunder Bay. North American Palladium is our only producer.

Also there isProphecy Platinum Corp. (NKL:TSX.V; PNIKD:OTCPK; P94P:FSE), which is working on a project in the Yukon and on projects in northern Manitoba. 

TGR: There are definite supply and demand issues with PGM because of conflict in South Africa. 

SJ-B: South Africa controls 80% to 90% of the world’s platinum. And Russia still has a significant portion of the world’s palladium. But, my consulting group does not have clients in South Africa because there are issues in working in that jurisdiction that most junior exploration companies are not comfortable with. Most of our work in Africa is elsewhere such as Tanzania, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana and Mali. There has been a big rise in interest from Canadian companies in Western Africa. I also predict that we can see a significant increase in interest from Canadian explorers and investors in the Dominican Republic.

TGR: Well, that’s another whole topic. 

SJ-B: It is. For example, we are seeing Sierra Leone coming back on the map in a big way. 

TGR: I think that is a perfect ending to today’s conversation. Thank you so much, Scott. 

Scott Jobin-Bevans is the president and a director of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) and an exploration geologist with more than 20 years of mineral exploration industry experience. He is a director and founding partner of Caracle Creek International Consulting Inc. (CCIC) where from 2001–2008 he served as managing director. Since May 2011 he has been at Caracle Creek as a director and vice president of corporate development, Latin America. He is also a director of numerous companies including Maudore Minerals Ltd., Tiex Inc., Strike Minerals Inc., Jiminex Inc., Lakeside Minerals, Mukuba Resources Ltd., Ateba Resources Inc. and Northern Skye Resources Ltd. Jobin-Bevans has also served as president, CEO and a director of Treasury Metals Inc., vice president of exploration of Takara Resources Inc., a director of Absolut Resources Corp. and vice president of exploration of Pacific North West Capital Corp.

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DISCLOSURE: 
1) Sally Lowder and Brian Sylvester of The Gold Report conducted this interview. They personally and/or their families own shares of the following companies mentioned in this interview: None.
2) The following companies mentioned in the interview are sponsors of The Gold Report: Prophecy Platinum Corp. Streetwise Reports does not accept stock in exchange for services.
3) Scott Jobin-Bevans: I personally and/or my family own shares of the following companies mentioned in this interview: Lakeside Minerals, Tiex Inc., Ateba Resources, Mukuba Resources. I personally and/or my family am paid by the following companies mentioned in this interview: Caracle Creek International Consulting Inc.; Northern Skye Resources Inc. I was not paid by Streetwise Reports for participating in this story.

Get ready for a golden summer.
 
Precious metals have been selling off lately. Gold is down 10% from its peak last August, including a violent $100 drop last Tuesday. Silver is down almost 30% since its peak last April. It dropped 6% in just one day last week.

A Juxtaposition:

 

But that’s not why Michael Campbell of Money Talks wanted to talk to Bob. No, Mike wanted to talk to Bob because his entrepreneurial mindset and wisdom motivates a 100,000 people a day to visit his 321Gold.com. Why? Because Moriarty has simply made those daily visitors money. Bob was so convinced gold/silver were at a bottom in 2001, he started one of the first websites devoted to teaching readers what they need to know about investing in resource stocks, and what a success that has been.  

 

Ever looking for opportunity, Bob travels to dozens of mining projects a year and then writes about them. That’s why Michael thought there was no-one better to ask whether mid-tier and major Gold producing Gold companies are currently cheap and a bargain or in BIG trouble. Given Gold producer’s shares are trading at 2008 prices or lower despite Gold having exploded upwards close to 250% from its 2008 low to March 9th’s close of $1711!

 

 

When asked the whether the “Flash Crash” was important and whether Gold shares are a bargain here, Bob explained it like this: “If you were going to buy a new Cadillac, and the car was a $1000 cheaper than the price you thought you were going to have to pay, you’d think that was a good thing. But we have a whole group of Gold Bugs who when Gold gets cheaper to buy literally get into a panic, whereas I think it is an opportunity”. Well that’s pretty clear. By that measure Gold producer’s shares are remarkable opportunity here. 

 

As for the significance of the “Flash Crash”, Bob thinks that ultimately we will find out that rather than Central Bank manipulation “we will find out that somebody big had to meet a margin call, even then after the Flash Crash Gold immediately turned around and went higher and I think that is a good thing”. When asked why there appeared to be little concern about the prices the liquidator got on the day of the Flash Crash, Bob said “you’ve got to understand that the World’s Financial System is right on the lip of a major crash” that there will be things that are happening all the time, with time bombs going off everywhere, but its as simple as “if you like Gold at $1700. you have to love it at $1600″. 

How to make sense of Gold Producer’s shares trading at equal to or less than prices they were trading at in 2008 when Gold was in the $600’s.? “If you are going to make money in investing, what you always want to do is buy irrational behavior. If you see something deviate from the mean, you know that sooner or later it is going to regress to the mean. With $600 Gold in 2008, in relative terms Gold Shares are cheaper today at $1700 Gold than they were back then. Now rather than that be a cause for panic, its an opportunity because when something deviates from the mean its going to come back. So there is an incredible opportunity right now because anyone who is in production is going to be making money hand over fist. We have $33.Silver and that too is an incredible opportunity. So instead of whining, people should be getting there checkbooks out and saying I want to buy”.

 

One of the factors that is affecting Gold Share prices comes in the form of  Gold Bullion ETF’s, where people can invest giving them complete exposure to the price of Gold Bullion, but at the same time that diverts money away from Gold Shares. “Face it, people are goofy, they do irrational things all the time. So if you are going to make money you have to look at something that is irrational. Like the price of Kinross Gold, Botero or Agnico Eagle, say wait a minute, they are really good companies doing really good things, I want to invest because the price is cheap. What the average investor wants to do when you have $4 Silver they say Gawd, I don’t want to buy that, nobody wants it. But when you have Silver at $50 they say its gone up for 3 months in a row, I want to buy because its safe here!. What you have to do is break yourself from that habit. When you see Silver at $50 there are hundreds of guru’s saying buy, but why didn’t they say buy when Silver was $4″?

Its totally irrational, we have the lowest XAU over Gold Ratio we have ever had. Gold could go to $600 and the shares would still be cheap. As for the tension between Israel and Iran, Bob thinks we are literally talking about World War III. “Russia and China have literally said is that if there is an attack on Iran, they will defend Iran, and one of the alternatives is that they mean that. We probably have right now a 1000 valid reasons to own Gold and Silver. Its like driving home and finding your house on fire and someone drives up and says Hey, do you want to buy insurance on your home? Gold is an insurance policy, I own Gold that I have had for 10 or 12 years, I was a big buyer at $252, I don’t care what the price of Gold does, it doesn’t make any difference to me, but we’ve got Greece defaulting, you’ve got the credit default swaps, a credit event has been declared, the entire financial system in the World is about to explode, we have enormous tension in Syria and Iran that could literally go to World War III, there are all kinds of valid reasons to own Gold and Silver.”

You can visit Bob’s Resource investment sites at 321Gold.com and 321Energy.com

About Bob Moriarty:

Bob Moriarty was a Marine F-4B pilot at the age of twenty and a veteran of over 820 missions in Viet Nam. Becoming a Captain in the Marines at 22, he was one of the most highly decorated pilots in the war. He went on to ferry General Aviation aircraft all over the world for 15 years with over 240 over the water deliveries. He holds 14 International Aviation records including Lindbergh’s record for time between New York to Paris in two different categories. In 1996 he began an online computer business on the internet with his wife Barbara becoming one of the early adopters of the internet.  Bob and Barbara started one of the first websites devoted to teaching readers what they need to know about investing in resource stocks. Bob and Barb now operate two resource sites, 321Gold.com and 321Energy.com where up to 100,000 people a day visit. Bob travels to dozens of mining projects a year and then writes about them. He was one of the first analysts to write about NovaGold, Northern Dynasty, Silver Standard, Running Fox and YGC Resources among many, many others. He claims with some justification that all of his readers are financially better off since they have been coming to his site.

Now is the time when we Juxtapose:

 

But that’s not why Michael Campbell of Money Talks wanted to talk to Bob. No, Mike wanted to talk to Bob because his entrepreneurial mindset and wisdom motivates a 100,000 people a day to visit his 321Gold.com. Why? Because Moriarty has simply made those daily visitors money. Bob was so convinced gold/silver were at a bottom in 2001, he started one of the first websites devoted to teaching readers what they need to know about investing in resource stock, and what a success that has been.  

 

Ever looking for opportunity, Bob travels to dozens of mining projects a year and then writes about them. That’s why Michael thought there was no-one better to ask whether mid-tier and major Gold producing Gold companies are currently cheap and a bargain or in BIG trouble. Given Gold producer’s shares are trading at 2008 prices or lower despite Gold having exploded upwards close to 250% from its 2008 low to March 9th’s close of $1711!

 

 

When asked the whether the “Flash Crash” was important and whether Gold shares are a bargain here, Bob explained it like this: “If you were going to buy a new Cadillac, and the car was a $1000 cheaper than the price you thought you were going to have to pay, you’d think that was a good thing. But we have a whole group of Gold Bugs who when Gold gets cheaper to buy literally get into a panic, whereas I think it is an opportunity”. Well that’s pretty clear. By that measure Gold producer’s shares are remarkable opportunity here. 

 

As for the significance of the “Flash Crash”, Bob thinks that ultimately we will find out that rather than Central Bank manipulation “we will find out that somebody big had to meet a margin call, even then after the Flash Crash Gold immediately turned around and went higher and I think that is a good thing”. When asked why there appeared to be little concern about the prices the liquidator got on the day of the Flash Crash, Bob said “you’ve got to understand that the World’s Financial System is right on the lip of a major crash” that there will be things that are happening all the time, with time bombs going off everywhere, but its as simple as “if you like Gold at $1700. you have to love it at $1600″. 

How to make sense of Gold Producer’s shares trading at equal to or less than prices they were trading at in 2008 when Gold was in the $600’s.? “If you are going to make money in investing, what you always want to do is buy irrational behavior. If you see something deviate from the mean, you know that sooner or later it is going to regress to the mean. With $600 Gold in 2008, in relative terms Gold Shares are cheaper today at $1700 Gold than they were back then. Now rather than that be a cause for panic, its an opportunity because when something deviates from the mean its going to come back. So there is an incredible opportunity right now because anyone who is in production is going to be making money hand over fist. We have $33.Silver and that too is an incredible opportunity. So instead of whining, people should be getting there checkbooks out and saying I want to buy”.

 

One of the factors that is affecting Gold Share prices comes in the form of  Gold Bullion ETF’s, where people can invest giving them complete exposure to the price of Gold Bullion, but at the same time that diverts money away from Gold Shares. “Face it, people are goofy, they do irrational things all the time. So if you are going to make money you have to look at something that is irrational. Like the price of Kinross Gold, Botero or Agnico Eagle, say wait a minute, they are really good companies doing really good things, I want to invest because the price is cheap. What the average investor wants to do when you have $4 Silver they say Gawd, I don’t want to buy that, nobody wants it. But when you have Silver at $50 they say its gone up for 3 months in a row, I want to buy because its safe here!. What you have to do is break yourself from that habit. When you see Silver at $50 there are hundreds of guru’s saying buy, but why didn’t they say buy when Silver was $4″?

Its totally irrational, we have the lowest XAU over Gold Ratio we have ever had. Gold could go to $600 and the shares would still be cheap. As for the tension between Israel and Iran, Bob thinks we are literally talking about World War III. “Russia and China have literally

said is that if there is an attack on Iran, they will defend Iran, and one of the alternatives is that they mean that. We probably have right now a 1000 valid reasons to own Gold and Silver. Its like driving home and finding your house on fire and someone drives up and says Hey, do you want to buy insurance on your home? Gold is an insurance policy, I own Gold that I have had for 10 or 12 years, I was a big buyer at $252, I don’t care what the price of Gold does, it doesn’t make any difference to me, but we’ve got Greece defaulting, you’ve got the credit default swaps, a credit event has been declared, the entire financial system in the World is about to explode, we have enormous tension in Syria and Iran that could literally go to World War III, there are all kinds of valid reasons to own Gold and Silver.”

You can visit Bob’s Resource investment sites at 321Gold.com and 321Energy.com. Click on Twitter Logo to Follow 321Gold.com

About Bob Moriarty:

Bob Moriarty was a Marine F-4B pilot at the age of twenty and a veteran of over 820 missions in Viet Nam. Becoming a Captain in the Marines at 22, he was one of the most highly decorated pilots in the war. He went on to ferry General Aviation aircraft all over the world for 15 years with over 240 over the water deliveries. He holds 14 International Aviation records including Lindbergh’s record for time between New York to Paris in two different categories. In 1996 he began an online computer business on the internet with his wife Barbara becoming one of the early adopters of the internet.  Bob and Barbara started one of the first websites devoted to teaching readers what they need to know about investing in resource stocks. Bob and Barb now operate two resource sites, 321Gold.com and 321Energy.com where up to 100,000 people a day visit. Bob travels to dozens of mining projects a year and then writes about them. He was one of the first analysts to write about NovaGold, Northern Dynasty, Silver Standard, Running Fox and YGC Resources among many, many others. He claims with some justification that all of his readers are financially better off since they have been coming to his site.

The last few weeks have seen a larger consolidation pattern forming, pointing to a much bigger consolidating pattern that implies far more than just a short-term trading move just ahead of us. The forces that drive both supply and demand in the very short-term are just about in balance, so it is appropriate that we look at these forces to see how they influence gold prices in the short, medium, and long term.

The forces that influence the gold and silver markets are very different from those that affect industrial and base metals. They go far beyond simple prices and the technical picture of demand and supply. They encompass trust, confidence, dependability, and protection that have little or nothing to do with gold’s uses. Warren Buffett is quite right about the “uselessness” of gold. But he has missed the point as to its value. Such a master of management and investment must find such an unmanageable metal virtually useless to him. But therein lays its value as an investment.

Over the long term gold cannot be managed or controlled. It’s the last investment standing when push comes to shove and silver is its lesser sidekick. We mentioned the saying in an earlier article that people don’t buy gold to make money but because they have money. That’s why central banks hold gold. They wish they didn’t have to but they know that their currencies are vulnerable to mismanagement and that over time are almost inevitably mismanaged. Gold is bought to get away from people and their games in the knowledge that when those games are played gold stands at much higher levels than before the games started. During the time that these events are played out, the gold and silver prices reflect each step made.

At Gold Forecaster and Silver Forecaster, we track these influences as much as we track the fundamental and technical pictures. Failure to do this would make our work directionless as well as inadequate. After all, one cannot exclude any facet of the influences on gold or silver if you want a professional understanding of these markets.

Gold Supply

The supply of both gold and silver is rising but not in nearly sufficient amounts to satisfy the growing demand coming from all sides of the world. The production of gold is more difficult than that of gold because miners have to go to more and more different countries to extract gold. The governments of those areas may be friendly at the start of the operations, but if they feel that profits being made by miners are too large, then they move in with higher taxes and in some cases, nationalize the mines. With all the easily reached and exploited gold deposits having been mined out in the last century, miners are seeing costs jump inordinately; however, with the prospect of higher gold prices, even the far flung deposits are becoming profitable.

Bear in mind that miners first have to replace the deposits that they’ve mined out. After that their reserves can grow, but most miners are pleased simply to be able to replace mined-out ounces.

What is clear is that newly-mined ounces will prove insufficient to supply demand in the future. The only other source of supply has to come from what is badly termed, “scrap” gold. When this term is used it does not always mean gold that has to be re-refined like steel from a scrap car. It usually means that this is gold sold by current owners, who for some reason feel it necessary to sell it. This can be for reasons as simple as they need the cash with which to buy something else, pay something off, or because the owners feels the price is too high, wants to profit and buy it back after the price has fallen back to a level where it forms a base from which to rise again. Such sellers are confined to the retail side of gold and not to central bankers any more. That makes gold very different from silver.

This leaves the supply of gold relatively inelastic.

Only when prices ‘spike’ do we see dishoarding or scrap sales in volume. Such a ‘spike’ has to be significant because gold now has a habit of falling less than expected before consolidating ahead of the next rise. Many times traders are caught wrong-footed and pay a similar price to the one they exited at.

Gold Demand

The emerging world investors in a debt-distressed Eurozone and central bankers comprise the backbone of the demand for gold and will do so for many years to come. All three of these types of investors are driven by factors pertaining to the retention of value. Their buying reflects a need to counter the falling values of paper money not because they use gold or consume gold. This makes gold an entirely different metal from all others.

For gold to keep this quality it must not be consumed in significant quantities; it must persuade its owners to keep it out of reach of others in vaults or personal safes and the like. It is money when all else fails.

It is this facet that keeps its price rising and always will so long as paper money, over time, continues to cheapen.

Silver Supply

The supply of silver is mainly confined to the Americas, particularly Central and South America and Mexico. Apart from pure silver mines, silver is mined as a by-product of other metals. Where it is a by-product, its supply is reliant on the demand for the metal of the mine that the owners are targeting (i.e. nickel etc.). But there is a rapidly rising group of mines that are targeting silver alone. The supply from these mines again is insufficient to supply the rising demand from investment demand. It is growing and will continue to do so, but so is the demand, not just from the investment side of the market, but from industrial demand.

Silver Demand

From supplying photography and jewelry demand for decades, the changing face of silver demand is remarkable. Today, its qualities in the electronic and medical field have burgeoned. Solar Panels, price tags, silver in clothes, in medicine, in computers and similar uses have moved silver from a metal related to discretionary wants to important needs. The demand for silver has moved to a much less price and economic conditions, sensitive metal, to one where demand remains strong when economic conditions weaken.

In these uses, unlike photography and jewelry, silver is consumed once and for all and does not come back to the market re-cycled nearly so much as it used to.  This is ensuring that industrial demand is now rising, taking from the market significant amounts of newly-mined silver, which never returns.

Silver has set a pattern of moving alongside gold as monetary metal too. Do not expect silver to be accepted as a monetary metal by monetary authorities for the foreseeable future, but this has not stopped retail demand from treating it as such. As the price of gold has moved up and away from the poorer investor, so they turned to silver to fulfill the same requirements of retaining value. Silver’s track record is as remarkable as that of gold having moved up from $6 to the current level of $33. This has assured the place it found in the past, in the future. Silver too, is money in the hands of poorer investors. You will not see a central banker anywhere near silver, but you will see huge numbers of emerging world investors newly rescued from poverty. With the emerging world numbering above 4 billion people, this demand has not even been dented, let alone satisfied.

Relationship between Gold, Silver

The relationship we are talking about here is not the gold silver ratio; it is simpler than that. The price performance of the two metals since 2005, in particular, is roughly the same as ‘both have risen over five fold since then’. The question that investors should ask is, “Will this change?” We believe not! There is a likelihood that silver will outperform gold in the future, but remember why the two are rising in the first place.

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