AND talking of hot mining stocks, Bougainville Copper shares have run up 29c or 20 per cent from $1.39 to $1.68 in the last two trading days. This is a company whose operations closed down 21 years ago in 1989 during a civil insurrection and whose controller Rio Tinto's chairman Paul Skinner made it clear at the May AGM that there were "no plans" to reopen the Panguna mine.
Rio owns 54 per cent of "Bogeys" and the PNG government, not universally adored on Bougainville, has another 19 per cent. There are however two other influences to consider. One is of course the burgeoning copper and gold prices and the other is the possibility that some resource-starved overseas (most particularly Chinese) player may take a different perspective on the risks involved.
There's a total resource there of 3.5 million tonnes of copper and 12.7 million ounces of gold. That said, there are reportedly six separate landowner associations that will need to be brought to common agreement before anyone starts spending the $US3-$US4bn required to get the mine back into production. The biggest passive shareholder we could track down was index-hugger Vanguard with 2 million shares or five per cent. They're clearly betting that one day it will be back in the major indices.
BOC Price at posting:
$1.68 Sentiment: ST Buy Disclosure: Held
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