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Reuters quotes CFTC's Chilton repeating gold and silver market-rigging concerns
Four-Year Silver Investigation May Be Dropped: FT
By Stephen Mangan and Alexandra Alper
Reuters
Sunday, August 5, 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/06/us-silver-us-investigation-idU...
A four-year investigation into possible manipulation of the silver market looks likely to be dropped by U.S. regulators, the Financial Times reported on Monday, although a U.S. official said a decision is only expected by October.
The newspaper cited three people familiar with the situation as saying the regulator failed to find enough evidence to support a legal case.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced that it was investigating "complaints of misconduct in the silver market" in September 2008, following a barrage of allegations of manipulation from a group of precious metals investors.
... Dispatch continues below ...
Sona Discovers Potential High-Grade Gold Mineralization
at Blackdome in British Columbia -- 13.6g over 1.5 Meters
From a Company Press Release
November 22, 2011
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- With its latest surface diamond drilling program at its 100-percent-owned, formerly producing Blackdome gold mine in southern British Columbia, Sona Resources Corp. has discovered a potentially high-grade gold-mineralized area, with one hole intersecting 13.6 grams of gold in 1.5 meters of core drilling.
"We intersected a promising new mineralized zone, and we feel optimistic about the assay results," says Sona's president and CEO, John P. Thompson. "We have undertaken an aggressive exploration program that has tested a number of target zones. Our discovery of this new gold-bearing structure is significant, and it represents a positive development for the company."
Sona aims to bring its permitted Blackdome mill back into production over the next year and a half, at a rate of 200 tonnes per day, with feed from the formerly producing Blackdome mine and the nearby Elizabeth gold deposit property. A positive preliminary economic assessment by Micon International Ltd., based on a gold price of $950 per ounce over eight years, has estimated a cash cost of $208 per tonne milled, or $686 per gold ounce recovered.
For the company's complete press release, please visit:
http://www.sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR18_2011-opt.pdf
"While we have not acted on our silver investigation, I am hopeful and expect the commission to do so in September or October," Bart Chilton, a CFTC commissioner, told Reuters in an emailed response to the FT report.
"I continue to believe, consistent with my previous statements and information from the public, that there have been devious efforts related to moving the price of silver. There have also been silver and gold market anomalies outside of the silver investigative window that have raised and continue to raise market concerns."
The CFTC's five commissioners have not yet formally determined the outcome of the investigation but may drop the case because it doesn't have sufficient evidence, according to people familiar with the situation, cited by the FT.
"The investigation has not reached its conclusion," a CFTC spokesman was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
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Prophecy Platinum Announces Wellgreen Preliminary Economic Assessment:
38% Pre-Tax IRR, $3.0 Billion NPV, and a 37-Year Mine Life
Company Press Release
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) reports the results of an independent NI 43-101-compliant preliminary economic assessment for its fully owned Wellgreen nickel-copper-platinum group metals project in the Yukon Territory.
The independent assessment, prepared by Tetra Tech, evaluated a base case of an open-pit mine (with a mining rate of 111,500 tonnes per day), an on-site concentrator (with a milling rate of 32,000 tonnes per day), and an initial capital cost of $863 million. The project is expected to produce (in concentrate) 1.959 billion pounds of nickel, 2.058 billion pounds of copper, and 7.119 million ounces of platinum, palladium, and gold during a mine life of 37 years with an average strip ratio of 2.57.
The financial highlights of the preliminary economic assessment, shown in U.S. dollars, are as follows:
Payback period: 3.55 years
Initial capital investment: $863 million
IRR pre-tax (100% equity): 38 percent
NPV pre-tax (8% discount): $3 billion
Mine life: 37 years
Total mill feed: 405.3 million tonnes
Mill throughput: 32,000 tonnes per day
Prophecy Chairman John Lee says: "We are pleased with the preliminary economic assessment results. The numbers indicate that Wellgreen is one of most exciting mineral projects in the Yukon. The company is drilling to upgrade and expand the resource base. The infrastructure is excellent as the project is only 1,400 meters in altitude and 14 kilometers from the paved Alaska Highway, which leads to the Haines deep seaport. Discussions are under way with support from local stakeholders regarding permitting and logistics."
For the complete press release, please visit:
http://prophecyplat.com/news_2012_june18_prophecy_platinum_announces_res...
