News

July 07, 2008

Robert Friedland Talking Copper And Gold: Is He Barking Or What?

By Dan O’Sullivan

It was a few weeks ago now, but it will take far longer for the memory to fade – the memory of Ivanhoe Mines executive chairman Robert Friedland barking like a dog while expressing his views about gold, onstage at the World Mining Investment Congress in London. Repeated mentions of the yellow metal brought further barking from the colourful Canadian, the noise being rapidly refined to an amusingly chi-chi yelp – “It’s a nice enough dog, a cute little dog, but a dog all the same”, was his explanation.

Friedland’s canine capering is not just of theatrical interest. After all, this guy has no real interest in talking down the yellow metal - there’s 21 million ounces of the stuff measured and indicated in his company’s flagship Oyu Tolgoi copper deposit, a valuable by-product once Ivanhoe and partner Rio Tinto conclude contract renegotiations with a Mongolian government currently distracted by rioters protesting its own legitimacy. Friedland’s comment on Mongolia: “democratic, if not overly...