Tag: Guest Bloggers

Geologist Merrill McHenry Keeps His Eye on the Guerrero Gold Belt

Posted on by admin

The Gold Report: Merrill, speaking as a geologist, what makes the Guerrero Gold Belt in Mexico so highly prospective for gold and silver mineralization?

Merrill McHenry: Two words: plate tectonics. Two tectonic events in that area of sufficient scale to create an entire region filled with gold mineralization.

In more detailed terms, the Chortis plate, which was about the size of Colorado, impacted the western side of southern Mexico. The first event, about 140 million years ago, created "laramide" north-south extensional faults. That was followed, about 70 million years later, by a strike-slip to the southeast. As the strike-slip slipped and subducted under the southern portionwhat is today Guerrero Stateit rotated many of those north-south transitional faults and shear zones into roughly 40-degree and other angles, creating a chimney effect, which brought the mineralization, in liquid form, much closer to the surface. In geological terms, this is called a metasomatic transfer. The strike-slip also created various low-angle extensional faulting allowing laterally displaced mineralization and improving strike-length potential. Continue reading "Geologist Merrill McHenry Keeps His Eye on the Guerrero Gold Belt" →

What's Going on in CRM?

Posted on by The INO.com Team

By Doug Hornig, Casey Research

In Mike Judge's wicked 1999 satire of corporate culture, Office Space, there's a delightful character named Milton. Poor Milton. He's all but invisible. No one likes him, no one talks to him, and coworkers are forever stealing his stapler. Management doesn't notice him enough to fire him. Instead, Milton is shunted from desk to desk, each time losing more of that precious commodity denoted by the film's title, until he finally winds up alone in the basement, where he plots the delicious revenge he'll take on the company.

In times past, customer relations staffs were where the Miltons of the world most likely landed. If you couldn't do anything else, you could probably listen to phone complaints all day. No one wanted to, but somebody had to do it. And so they did, until they went mad from boredom or frustration.

That was then. Today, there's a new shine on customer relations departments, and the field has earned itself a fresh, glossy title and a widely recognized abbreviation: customer relations management, or CRM. And it's become an integral part of the SaaS (software as a service) industry. Continue reading "What's Going on in CRM?" →

Gold Chart of the Week

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Each week Longleaftrading.com will be providing us a chart of the week as analyzed by a member of their team. We hope that you enjoy and learn from this new feature.

WEEKLY GOLD REPORT (OCT 29th THROUGH NOVEMBER 2nd)

Before we rush into the pressing news about Hurricane Sandy and the closing of Wall Street today, let us quickly review a bit of the global news from last week. The week began with some promising news from China that suggested it was not in for as hard of a landing as many had previously suggested. We also saw a very surprising and positive GDP report from the UK. Next, the United States FOMC announcement was in line with its mediocre expectations, as economists expected few changes in policy ahead of the Presidential Election. The FED’s stance remained supportive, but the overall commitment was unchanged from the prior meeting. Despite an improvement in the US GDP report, the US markets remained pressured during a poor week of reported earnings and a circulating rumor that Fitch may look to cut ratings from AAA. Continue reading "Gold Chart of the Week" →

Putin Is the New Global Shah of Oil

Posted on by The INO.com Team

By Marin Katusa, Casey Research

Exxon Mobil is no longer the world's number-one oil producer. As of yesterday, that title belongs to Putin Oil Corp – oh, whoops. I mean the title belongs to Rosneft, Russia's state-controlled oil company.

Rosneft is buying TNK-BP, which is a vertically integrated oil company co-owned by British oil firm BP and a group of Russian billionaires known as AAR. One of the top-ten privately owned oil producers in the world, in 2010 TNK-BP churned out 1.74 million barrels of oil equivalent per day from its assets in Russia and Ukraine and processed almost half that amount through its refineries.

With TNK-BP in its hands, Rosneft will be in charge of more than 4 million barrels of oil production a day. And who is in charge of Rosneft? None other than Vladimir Putin, Russia's resource-full president. Continue reading "Putin Is the New Global Shah of Oil" →

Africa and Kurdistan Show Great Oil and Gas Potential: Lionel Therond

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The Energy Report: Let's start with Kurdistan, Lionel. It's one of the hottest countries in the world for oil and gas exploration, especially in terms of production share contracts. A few prescient firms, such as WesternZagros Resources Ltd. (WZR:TSX.V) and Genel Energy Plc (GENL:LSE) control promising properties in Kurdistan. What's the back story?

Lionel Therond: Prospects have never been better for players in Kurdistan. The key factor has been the recent entry of Turkey into the export debate. Allow me to explain: Turkey has an energy-hungry economy ready to buy oil and gas production directly from Kurdistan as long as the physical routes exist for exports. In response, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has started building pipelines toward Turkey, which should be operational at the end of 2013/early 2014.

"International majors are voting with their feet and entering Kurdistan."

That was a paradigm change. We had been waiting three years for an agreement between the KRG and the Iraqi federal government on the commercial conditions for exports, and Baghdad's initial stance was to declare all licenses in Kurdistan illegal. But with new export routes that could potentially bypass Iraqi territory and lead directly into Turkey, Baghdad's agreement is no longer necessary, which has brought the Iraqi government back to the negotiating table. Continue reading "Africa and Kurdistan Show Great Oil and Gas Potential: Lionel Therond" →