Topic: How To Invest

Hello Pat: I would appreciate your opinion of Colossus Minerals, symbol CSI on Toronto. Regards.

Article Excerpt

Colossus Minerals, $8.48, symbol CSI on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 83.9 million; Market cap: $711.8 million), holds a 75% interest in the Serra Pelada project in northern Brazil. Serra Pelada contains high-grade gold, platinum and palladium. Gold was first discovered at Serra Pelada in 1979. During the 1980s, up to 80,000 “garimpeiros” produced an estimated two million ounces of gold, plus platinum and palladium on the property. (Garimpeiros are artisanal or “wildcat” miners who mainly use hand tools.) The garimpeiros mined the minerals from a 400 metre by 300 metre hand-dug open pit that was 110 metres deep. Garimpeiro production declined in the late 1980s, because the pit wall collapsed. The pit also flooded, and digging into the bedrock at the floor became more difficult. At the time, Serra Pelada was owned by mining giant Vale SA, which was then a Brazilian government corporation. However, Vale was unable to control the garimpeiros’ access to the site, so it permanently ceded Serra…