re: Ann: Greater Whitewash and Gordons Drilli... Moly - big...

re: Ann: Greater Whitewash and Gordons Drilli... Moly - big hits, price wobbly.
Robin Bromby From: The Australian August 11, 2010 12:59PM

THE jury is still out on the short-term outlook for molybdenum, the metal used to strengthen steel.
Moly got down as low as $US14.10/lb in July - thats nearly $US3.50/lb below the average price for the first half of 2010. The upside is that the metal is trading considerably above where it was this time last year. The most recent sales reported have been at around $US15/lb.

Where it goes from here is anyones guess. Things in the US and Britain look fairly ropey at present, and now all our economic eggs are in the China basket. But the entire base metals complex fell last night, with lead dropping 3.4 per cent, zinc 3 per cent and tin 3.3 per cent (although still comfortably above $US20,000/tonne). The commentary was all about market jitters concerning the US and China outlooks.

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In the short-term, Pure Speculation believes in keeping the steel helmet close by. In the long run (as Keynes famously said) we are all dead. In the medium term? Well, the chances are that well be coming out of whatever economic crisis is lurking just around the corner, and those exploring now might just have their development timetable right.

This morning Zamia Gold Mines reported more high grade molybdenum (together with elevated copper) from the latest drilling at the Anthony prospect near Clermont, Queensland. The company said the results confirmed and extended the eastern high grade moly zone and there was now the potential to double the molybdenum resource.

Also out this morning was a similarly upbeat announcement from Aussie Q Resources regarding the Greater Whitewash project near Monto, Queensland. The latest results, it says, confirmed the consistency of molybdenum and copper grades and widths along a 2.5km strike length. The company has $4.2 million in the bank, and on Monday Washington H Soul Pattinson & Co announced it had lifted its stake in AQR from 4.9 per cent to 9.47 per cent.

AQR also said the spectacular molybdenum grades encountered at the northern end of the Greater Whitewash deposit were comparable to those at the Merlin deposit owned by Ivanhoe Australia (IVA). Last week, IVA upgraded its Merlin molybdenum resource by 43 per cent, and its rhenium resource by 49 per cent, to 6.7 million tonnes at 1.34 per cent moly and 23.2 per cent rhenium.