News

March 04, 2009

With Gold And Copper Assets, EMED Mining Offers Safety In The Bad Times And Exposure To Any Future Economic Recovery

By Alastair Ford

It’s not long after EMED Mining has issued a statement to the effect that its Biely Vrch gold deposit in Slovakia contains over a million ounces that Harry Adams pops in to see us at Minesite, just to make sure we’re kept abreast of events. The first question the EMED managing director is forced to field, perhaps somewhat unfairly, is whether he’ll now talk up the company’s gold assets at the expense of the copper EMED has in Spain, given that gold is still running rampant in the face of economic meltdown around the world, while copper seems finally to be catching up with the rest of the base metals as inventories rise and demand slumps. Harry’s answer is an unequivocal “no”. He always said he thought there’d be at least a million JORC ounces at Biely Vrch, and having gone to work on the property at double quick speed once the intial discovery was made now is about the right time to be making confirmatory noises. It’s fortuitous for EMED, yes, that gold is strong at the moment. On the other hand, it’s less of a boon that copper has slumped back to around US$1.50 per pound, back to levels last seen five years ago.

But, says Harry, the Spanish Rio Tinto asset still gets three times the spend from EMED than Biely Vrch does, and in some respects it gets more management attention too. Thus Harry doesn’t have to spend his time firefighting on the Slovakian gold in the same way he does on the Spanish copper. The latest, and perhaps the last, market whisper on Rio Tinto that he’s had to confront has been talk that the company doesn’t actually control the entire asset. This, concedes Harry is true as far as it...