Gold has been in rallying mode lately and is now around the 1365.10’s levels. This seems to have helped push up Avocet stock strongly and its been trending for a number of days now. As the time of writing Avocet is trading up 36.95% on the day trading at 20.20p – that’s one hell of a rally and my 16p average position is in profit. 😛 I’m determined to continue holding the position for the near-term but won’t let a profit turn into a loss.

Meanwhile am very excited. Have been sent email by FBI saying they are holding $10.5m with my name on it and they just need my bank details and a written letter saying it’s not drug money to release the funds. I don’t know any drug barons, and am not sure why they’d be sending me $10.5m, but hey-ho.. not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I won’t be putting my windfall millions into Avocet just now, I hate to tell you.

Risk Warning: This is a high risk stock and trading it is high risk; just consider that it was trading over 200p in 2011!

Centamin reported second quarter and half year numbers to June 30 this year with pre-tax profits amounting $123.6m for the six months to the end of June – up from $92.9m a year ago.

Revenues rose to $272.5m – up from $87.9m – and gross profits increased to $140.8m from $102.1m. The company has $168m (£107.5m) in free cash

Company says relations with Egypt ministry “positive” although the company still faces a legal challenge over its operating license to operate the Sukari mine in Egypt.

M/C 410M PROFIT FOR 6 MONTHS 123M these are cheap down to the riots.  The army and the people of Egypt want to get back to work – of course the Muslim Brotherhood remains a problem and there is a risk that the situation will worsen before it gets better (and even then there are no guarantees!). The share price going up when the army moved in did seem counter-intuitive though. The share price jumped before we knew the gold would continue to go out and the fuel would continue to come in.

Mursi or at least a couple of his ministers seemed pro CEY and I thought of their statements as being the MBH put for a couple of months. They appeared to be angling for a hard bargain behind the sense though and the company felt the need to more generous. Luckily even with the unrest, the Sukari gold mine is very remote from Cairo. Also, the gold price doesn’t seem to affect CEY as much as a lot of other miners due to CEY’s relatively low production costs. But alas you shouldn’t forget. However unlikely, CEY are still facing a court case which could send their share price to 0p. Irrespective of how unlikely this is, it’s a good reason why investors are still cautious and the share price remains suppressed. In its yearly statement, management has tried to reassure investors, insisting that the mine is continuing to operate normally and hasn’t been impacted by the crisis in Egypt where several hundred protesters have been killed since the military took over in July and that it remain on track to meet its targets. The company is expecting to meet its planned production of 320,000 ounces of gold at an average cost of $700 an ounce, and while second quarter revenues have been lower due to the weak gold commodity prices Centamin has managed to improve output by 8% over the last quarter. In fact mining activities have continued to improve during the last quarter and Centamin has managed to produce a record 94,000 ounces. Unlike rivals like Randgold and smaller counterpart Avocet , Centamin management hasn’t felt the need to cut costs. Output in 2014 is expected to continue increasing with the company’s long term goal of reaching a production of 450,000-500,000 ounces from 2015 onwards.

But given the cost of production at $700 per oz, no debt, un-hedged, El-Ragghy bought 500,000 shares this year at 47.80p and a low P/E.

I liked this paragraph of the financial report:

– Centamin remains debt-free and un-hedged with cash, bullion on hand, gold sales receivables and available-for-sale financial assets of US$169.4 million as at 30 June 2013.

So as the price of gold increases this one should do ok, providing the appeal is upheld on the Concession Agreement Court Case. If the Diesel Fuel Court Case appeal is upheld that will be a bonus. On that basis I have purchased some more shares, will keep an eye on RNSs but for the meantime stick them in a drawer for the future.

But is it the fundamentals or technicals which are driving the share price?

As another blogger has pointed out:
the fundamentalist…who ‘presumes’ that the fundamentals drive the shares…
With Centamin…record production profits…very little effect…
State of emergency in Egypt bordering on civil war…zilch effect…
In fact…the shares seem to climb as unfortunately the ‘body-bags’ increase in number…even surprised Guessti TA guru mate that one…
What if the mine was nationalised ?….some may ask.
My answer is….look….mines have been ‘snatched’ in far safer places than Egypt…and will be again.
If one’s worried about this one shouldn’t even invest in gold mines…if it happens it happens…and it brings us back to only investing money one can afford to lose. It’s not about ‘law’…look where Morsi is now……he thought he was the law…
As long as the company is publicly traded…..focus on what those traders are doing…..not what you think ‘might’ happen in a worst case fundamental scenario.

But to conclude a play on Centamin is mainly a play on Egypt both in terms of country stability and the court case with 20% resting on what happens at Sukari which most analysts agree is an excellent operation. It took Algeria ten years and lost of over 200,000 lives to restore some sort of peace. Egypt could be worse than that if the Brotherhood are dissolved as they are powerful and well supported. The best way forward is through negotiation and inclusion of all parties but we will see…

Avocet Mining has had a rough year and things have been looking bad for sometime now. It has been falling sharply because it has rising cash costs (now well over $1000), earlier this year announced a large fall in its reserves at the operating mine, had to borrow $15m from one of its major shareholders just to get through the year (which are secured on the assets in Guinea and must be repaid in full by Dec 31st 2013), still has around 130k oz in a hedge agreement with Macquarie at $938, which is just further eroding any possible profit from the rest of the production ozs, a falling gold price during 2013 and is burning through its remaining cash pile quickly (and $12m of that is restricted due to the revised terms of the hedge).

But perhaps the situation is not as disastrous as the above might make one believe and we could have reached bottoms now. In its latest interim statement on 8th August 2013 the mining company reported an improvement in gold production (recovered ounces amounting to 960,000 ounces compared with March 2013 LOM plan of 707,000 ounces) with a plan for refinancing and bringing costs down. AVM might just survive with the new mine plan and the fact that H2 2013 should produce 12k oz per month at lower cash costs than H1. Assuming they come in closer to the $938 of the hedge and the exploration costs are kept under control then they could generate enough cash to pay off Elliott and Macquarie. I still think they need a cash call at this point in time but I’m less of a doom merchant after the Qlies, even though costs this Q were above $1200. Not one I’m willing to continue adding due to the high risk and also because I already hold a chunk but there are some encouraging noises and developments for rest of FY.