In Tuesday's Australian:Copper riding high Robin Bromby From:...

In Tuesday's Australian:

Copper riding high
Robin Bromby From: The Australian October 19, 2010 10:10AM Increase Text Size Decrease Text Size Print Email Share Add to Digg Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Kwoff Add to Myspace Add to Newsvine What are these? COPPER continues to ride high - and not even news of another mine development can dent its appeal.

The red metal closed last night on the London Metal Exchange at $US8443 a tonne, up $US43 on the session. LME stockpiles fell another 575 tonnes, and now stand at 370,450 tonnes (against a 52-week high of 555,075 tonnes).

Yesterday China Minmetals Corp announced it would spend $US2.5 billion to develop its Galeno copper mine project in Peru, adding another 144,000 tonnes of concentrate to the globe?s annual supply.

Every one seems to be very bullish about copper at present with projections for a looming massive deficit by 2030 even with known potential new mines factored in.

This mining investment game is all about making the move ahead of the mob, so of interest might be a recent report from Foster Stockbroking on its small-cap copper hunches.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Here are five stocks that Foster?s team thinks of as highly prospective:

* Resources and Investment is run by Miles Kennedy, a mining veteran and who was one of the driving forces behind Sandfire Resources when it made its huge DeGrussa copper-gold discovery last year. RNI has its Doolgunna project north of Meekatharra and this is just 3km from DeGrussa. The report notes the experienced management and project location and says they ?all bode well for future exploration success?.

* Talisman Mining has the Springfield project which is also a neighbour to DeGrussa. Springfield covers 300sqkm and only 5km from the Sandfire discovery. The Foster team is also very impressed with TLM management, led by MD Gary Letheridge. They came out of the highly successful nickel producer Jubilee Mines, for which Xstrata paid $23 a share in 2008.

* Thundelarra Exploration is another DeGrussa neighbour, its Red Bore prospect turning up a recent drill intersection of 17m at 11.7 per cent copper and 1.73 grams/tonne of gold. Red Bore has been drilled before (by the old Western Mining Corp around 1970 and the former Great Australian Resources in 1987) but the ground was not tested at depth, the drilling hitting some shallow mineralisation. A new drill program is underway, and the report says the Foster team is very excited with the potential of the project.

* Redstone Resources has its ground in the much more remote West Musgrave region of Western Australia, close to where that state?s border meets both the Northern Territory and South Australia. Its Tollu project has returned encouraging grades, including 14m at 3.5 per cent copper. ?Initial drilling results at Tollu are indicative of a potential major greenfields discovery,? the report says.

* Silver Swan Group - we?re back to the Meekatharra region with this stock, although not part of the DeGrussa land rush. The company has reported a maiden resource of 1.48 million tonnes at 1.02 per cent copper and 1.39 per cent zinc along with gold and silver. Fosters belief the Quinns project has the potential to be a world class volcanic-associated massive sulphide (VMS) deposit. ?SWN?s ability to deliver 82 per cent of a maiden resource reported as ?measured? and ?indicated? is quite rare for a junior,? the report noted.