Turnipseed

Porter Stansberry: Sea Change in U.S. Natural Gas Industry

Much of the new "discoveries" of natural gas are in shales. These have been known for years but were uneconomic until improvements in horizontal drilling. Horizontal shale wells are short lived, with production falling as much as 50% in the first year, so to maintain production levels, new wells have to be brought in all the time. And since horizontal wells are much more expensive than conventional wells, they are probably uneconomic at todays low NG prices. Stansberry is correct when he asserts not many wells will be shut in - the major expense is upfront. But as drilling falls off in the shale basins, production will fall more rapidly than in other types of gas fields, and because more of our NG supply comes from shale basins than in the past, a balance between supply and demand might be achieved more quickly than Stansberry suggests.

By the way, I think Stansberry is confusing shale NG and coal bed NG. Not good for his credibility.

Before investing in CPN, investigate its bankruptcy and present debt obligations. A great company may not be a great investment.

Sticking with North American Palladium

Mark,
I was referring to your using a single intercept in ddh 07-007 of 29.69 gpt PGM and implying PAL has discovered an ore body of this grade. My comments were intended to point out that much more work was needed in order to prove your implication. If you didn't mean to imply this, then why do you claim PAL has the world's richest Pd mine?
The drilling in the OHGZ gave indicated reserves of 3.239 MT of 5.45 gpt Pd and 8.24 gpt of Pd equivalent, and inferred reserves of 12.794 MT of 5.25 gpt Pd and 7.90 gpt PdEq. Pretty good grades but a far cry from 29.69 gpt PGM and certainly not the world's richest Pd mine. Of course, we both know that average grades mined are also dependent on other factors like mining cost and dilution.

Sticking with North American Palladium

DaveW,
Mineral deposits can be highly irregular - a hole 10 feet away might show very different grades. Determining ore reserves requires considerable drilling and sampling, and sometimes requires underground drifting. I'm generalizing here because different types of mineral deposits and even deposits of the same type all have there own individual quirks. High grade intercepts can be interesting, but have little value in estimating the grade of a mineral deposit. Ore reserve calculations require the collection of a vast amount of data as well as geostatistical analysis. PALs drill hole results are interesting, but this probably represents less than 1% of the data needed to determine if this mineralization is economic (ie can become a mine). Mark obviously does not realize this, hence my comment.
By the way, I am a mineral exploration geologist by profession.

Sticking with North American Palladium

Mark,
Your comment about only needing one drill hole "in the richest part of the center of the ore body" is totally, completely wrong. You obviously know absolutely nothing about mineral exploration or ore reserve calculations. Goggle "nugget effect" and krieging to see how incredibly ignorant you are. Shame on you for misleading other investors.