Lara Crigger

Mongolia: Mining's Next Big Thing?

Ivanhoe owns Oyu Tolgoi, but Rio Tinto has a 9.95% stake, after a $303 million investment in 2006. Rio also has the option to increase their stake by investing more into the project.

Hope that clears things up. Sorry about the confusion!

On Sep 01 12:35 PM Alan Young wrote:

> Thanks for an interesting and informative piece. Good news for Mongolians
> and for China, but no news for investors.
> I wish you had explained the connection to Ivanhoe and Rio Tinto,
> but I can look it up.

Exxon's Biofuel Bet

The $2/bbl figure came from the other article linked to in that sentence.

As for your other point, here's more information behind the $33/gallon figure: www.greentechmedia.com.../

From that link:

"Algae biofuel startup Solix, for instance, can produce biofuel from algae right now, but it costs about $32.81 a gallon, said Bryan Wilson, a co-founder of the company and a professor at Colorado State University. The production cost is high because of the energy required to circulate gases and other materials inside the photo bioreactors where the algae grow."

Hope that clears things up a bit.

On Jul 20 03:12 PM Fred Linn wrote:

> from the Financial Times article-------"One recent estimate suggested
> that biofuels currently produced from algae cost about $33 per gallon."-------------
>
>
> A vague, uncredited, hearsay statement. Not even any mention
> of who made this "suggestion".
>
> That is not a reliable source at all.
>
> I find no mention at all for the $2 bbl oil production cost.
> I very much doubt that also. It costs much more than that to
> produce oil from Canadian tar sands----but there have been no announcements
> that tar sand strip mines are being shut down---on the contrary,
> plans to expand strip mining seems to still be in full swing.

Exxon's Biofuel Bet

From the link earlier in the sentence.

As for your other question, I don't know the exact details of how that cost breaks down.

On Jul 20 12:10 PM Fred Linn wrote:

> --------"Yes, it costs $33/gallon to produce algae fuel."--------
>
>
> Where did you get that number?

Exxon's Biofuel Bet

Both Exxon and SGI have been carefully vague about the timeframe needed to bring algae fuel to a commercially viable state--in part since they're still figuring out the process and whether it would work large scale at all. But if you dig around, you'll see that in some outlets, Jacobs has guardedly estimated it at "decades".

On Jul 19 10:38 AM jkmac wrote:

> I feel the last comment of the article,
> " this won't be easy & there's no guarantee of success"
> says a lot. Has anyone given thought to the time frame it will
> take to develop this to any level of significance, say more than
> 8 - 10 % of the
> total usage in this country. Also the end cost to the consumer.
> I feel although this quest along with other alternative means of
> energy are
> necessary for the distant future the real impact over the next 20
> to 40 years is still a large question.

Exxon's Biofuel Bet

Yes, it costs $33/gallon to produce algae fuel. But what *was* a typo was the estimated cost of producing Saudi crude: That should be $2/BARREL, not $2/gallon.That just goes to show just how wide the gulf is between these two production costs.


On Jul 18 08:03 PM Nate dP wrote:

> Uh John S Gordon? That's 33$/GALLON not per BARREL.

Exxon's Biofuel Bet

Yes, per year.


On Jul 18 10:22 AM thesheet wrote:

> ......................... strains of algae can produce 2,000 gallons
> of fuel per acre, compared with 250 gallons for corn-based ethanol".
>
>
> Is that per year?

Priming the Pump for $20/Gal. Gas: Interview with Chris Steiner

No, I'm not.

On Jul 11 02:23 PM mkreisel wrote:

> Isn't Lara Crigger the same person who wrote that "Pegasus Wireless"
> will make life difficult for Steve Jobs and Apple?
>
> Pegasus Wireless now: www.google.com/finance...

Gold, Green and the Fate of the Dollar

I couldn't find a place for his recommendation in the edited interview, but Mr. Rubino specifically mentioned in our discussion that he considers John Embry a great resource on this exact topic, as well as the writings of Doug Casey and Jay Taylor.

On Jun 26 06:57 AM ZagnZig wrote:

> Has anyone researched which of the junior miners are going to be
> the best-performing? What are the most important selection criteria?
>
>
> Interesting quotes:
> “spectacular gains to be had in the smaller silver miners if you
> choose wisely”
>
> “the precious metals junior miners are going to be one of the best-performing
> sectors in the next few years. Silver miners ought to be just spectacular.”
>
>
> Thanks in advance !

Gold, Green and the Fate of the Dollar

On Jun 26 01:02 PM Dave Dorgan wrote:

> I may sound jaded, but I am genuinely curious. I know that $12.5B
> just got paid out to senior citizens. I know that enough bail out
> money was paid to the likes of Goldman Sachs that they made $681B
> in trading in the first quarter (check the FICC in the Form 8-K).
> I do not understand the "upgrades into infrastructure" part. Or,
> I should say, I'm not seeing it.

Pres. Obama and his administration have made no bones about their desire to upgrade the U.S.'s energy infrastructure; I think he even called for it in his inaugural address. They haven't made much move toward it yet, but it will happen eventually -- it has to; our pipelines are falling apart.

I don't have much time free to do a ton of linking at the moment here's some info about the need for an infrastructure overhaul here: energyxxi.org/pages/Bl...

I think you're right about the other points you made, too.

The Bullish Case for Silver

Thanks for pointing out the slip up about Silver Wheaton, texpat and ducat. My mistake, not Mr. Morgan's -- I'll have a correction added to the original article ASAP.

As far as commentary on silver miners goes, I refer you to Mr. Morgan's site, Silver-Investor.com, which is an excellent resource on all things silver (including which miners he likes and why).

The Bullish Case for Silver

Rather, I should say: that sort of "whatever" attitude puts a real damper on silver's market value, because the very people who supply the silver to the market have no strong interest in its ultimate price. It's not your usual supply/demand dynamic.

The Bullish Case for Silver

Looks like I should clarify a few things:

On Apr 30 11:39 AM ZZ wrote:

> "If you're a copper miner, you don't care about the price of silver.
> You just pass it off to your bank for them to sell at any price they
> like. That puts a lot of pressure on silver prices," explains Morgan.
>
>
> Load of crap. The futures traders set the prices of everything and
> even the largest company's seem to have no control. Ever heard of
> Exxon saying, "Our price today is $75 a barrel?"

The issue here is not that pure-play silver mining companies are unable to set their own commodities prices, because you're right--nobody gets to do that.

Rather, the issue is that silver is overwhelmingly an "incidental" commodity -- most of the companies who mine it out of the ground do so only to get to the other stuff, like copper and zinc. So they really couldn't care less what silver ends up ultimately being priced at; they send it off to someone else and tell 'em, "sell it at whatever price you like, we don't care". That sort of "whatever" attitude puts a real damper on silver's market value.

> "The natural gold/silver ratio, or the amount of silver coming out
> of the ground relative to gold, is closer to 8 to 1," says Morgan.
>
>
> I thought the prices of gold/silver were used to compute the ratio,
> not how many oz. are mined?

What Mr. Morgan was getting at was that there's a discrepancy between the ratio of actual physical gold mined each year to actual physical silver mined each year (which he calls the "natural" ratio) and what we as investors regard as the "gold/silver ratio" -- and that the former doesn't necessarily drive the latter.

Getting in Platinum and Palladium Ahead of the ETF Launch

As part of its stimulus package, the Chinese government included subsidies for rural citizens to purchase cars and light trucks, which is one of the reasons behind the 10%/40% uptick in car/minivan sales at home. (Bloomberg: www.bloomberg.com/apps...)

At the moment, those citizens aren't buying electric cars--they're buying normal ol' gas-powered ones, which require catalytic converters and thus, platinum and palladium.

On Apr 23 07:26 PM Speedspirit wrote:

> The world economy is in a decline. The us was making a ton of cars
> last year too and they are still sitting there. China factories depended
> on the USA and with talk about zombie malls who needs Chinas goods.
> China employees wont be buying new electric cars.

Tangible Assets: Why Now's the Time to Buy

Excellent article! I also wanted to point out that Debra just wrote an article for us on fine art investing (www.hardassetsinvestor...) that touches on some of these points in more detail.

Debra, what's your opinion on the new Collection of Modern Art mutual fund offered by Castlestone Management?

Reviewing The Ivy Portfolio by Mebane Faber - For Those Who No Longer Buy 'Buy & Hold'

Interesting (and thorough) review! We actually just interviewed Mebane Faber for Hard Assets Investor (available here: www.hardassetsinvestor...), although we obviously focused more on the commodities side of things.