Tues. June 24th - Home price news not depressing enough for you? Want some more bad news? Well read latest notes on U.S. economy. It's why Canadian markets were badly off today. Local Investors starting to look in the mirror.
Friday: June 20th - Westar announced acquiring a large chunk of ground in Sask. Coal Play. Unfortunately, their promotional efforts are somewhat misleading. Click on heading link above for story in Geoshares forum.
Wednesday: June 18th - Above target may sound unreasonable today but work it out. We offer some rough figures in the forum. Click headline above for details.
Weds: June 18th - The energy crunch is starting to hit harder at home, showing that even an energy superstar such as Canada will stagger under the strain of oil prices that have doubled to US$140 per barrel over the past year. (For more, click link above)
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These two markets have a recent history of diverging particularly during the summer months. In particular, the TSX-Venture exchange has suffered some large percentage drops on the order of 30% and sometimes more during what has become known as the summer doldrums.
Despite all the exploration activity underway, it could happen again this year. A few notes and a few charts on geoshares forum.
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Above is a link to an excellent video about coking coal and it's use in making steel. Give yourself 10 minutes, put on your earphones, and you'll see a great movie which explains the history and modern workings of a steel making plant. If awards are given out for good websites and videos, ELK Grove Coal deserve top honours.
Tues: June 17th - A few notes about goldsource. We've been doing very well with this stock and related players, thank you very much. Market action has been spectacular since we first started watching it. This truly has the indications of a major find. A short update and what to watch for. (Geoshares forum)
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A Commentary
Rising coal prices and new discoveries are bringing back King Coal.
Coal prices have been rising at an incredible rate in the past couple years. Unfortunately, I don't think many people have appreciated what's been going on. Many have the idea that coal is old news, boring, and an unclean source of energy likely as not to be eventually phased out. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Approximately 50% of our energy needs in North America are supplied by coal. That number will not be changing any time soon. One great irony has been Canada's Province of Ontario which decided to eliminate all coal burning electrical generating plants. They set a deadline of 2007 but failed to meet it. Meanwhile, each summer, due to Ontario's unwillingness to decide upon and build infrastucture, they purchase electricity from American sources. Those sources are primarily coal burning electical generation plants located in the Ohio Valley. Talk about hypocrisy.
Ways and methods currently exist to make coal more environmentally friendly. It's a big story which we will cover at a later time. It's also an expensive story but feasible and probably safer and more reliable as an energy source than the nuclear option.
As for companies involved in the Saskatchewan discovery, a couple figures are worth considering. Recent contracts for cheaper thermal coal have been running $125 - $150 tonne. The more expensive coking (metallurgical) coal have recently hit $300 tonne.
