ATN - Ashburton Minerals

Trading in ATN this morning makes no logical financial sense (to us with no ulterior motive other than to get the share price up higher!), as it has fluctuated wildly and the last slam down seeking to dump 1 million shares down from 4.7 cents to 4.6 cents seems crazy at first glance. (Of course I have glanced it much more times than once!). IMO there is a motive for that but in about 8 trading days time that motive will be gone, but then again its just IMO (lol)!

As I mentioned yesterday in my last post, the trading in ATN seemed illogical and a waste, as mid-session it appeared that some positive momentum was building up, then all of a sudden some lemmings wanted to slam it down as hard as possible.

I believe that very short-term negative view will disappear immediately on the day of the Gen Mtg, only 7 trading days from now!

Soon after the Gen Mtg there is likely to be a positive announcement confirming that the rig is ready to commence testing numerous vein sets all over the place but immediately adjacent to the artisanal mining areas. As anticipation develops in coming weeks there is likely to be a gradual building up of the share price, and from the information provided by the company to date, I can see the project developing into a major new epithermal discovery with tons of excitement to follow! That's what I have invested in, and expect to see develop into a major new story in the months to follow.

IF you dump more shares at price below what its now at, I will be one of the buyers!!! (Make my day, sunshine, lol).

Just a word of warning to those watching the screen before the start of trading shortly (Friday 8 April) - there is a bid at 5.0 cents, 200,000 shares. IF that gets pulled BEFORE trading starts, then its possibly an indication that someone intends to sell down! (I noticed the same start to trading about 2 days ago, when the Bid got pulled about 5 minutes before trading started then someone dropped a couple of hundred thousand shares at a lower price than the day before!). The games people play!!!

Just for the record, those were not dummy trades at the open, in fact a few other bids as well managed to take out the balance of that 1 million dump (which began at 4.6 cents mid-session yesterday), on the open this morning. That was a relief!

So my view is that in the short term the trading seems fairly neutral at current share price of 4.6 cents, it has lost the downward momentum that was about over the past few days, and maybe it will start to test the upside soon. Knowing we are now only a week or so away from having the other rig equipment landed on Obi Island, and soon thereafter the Gen Mtg to announce such drilling to commence, I can't see much holding this share price down!

Beatle I always took you for a F/A - seems you're slowly slipping over to the dark side

It's well and truly going sideways at the moment but I like a nice strong base (my particular trading style).

I hold ATN too (bought in the last couple of days). Got out of NMR at around 0.095 as I could see it still struggling to break 0.1. Might go back to it one day, it's on the radar for now.

Hi KurwaJegoMac, its great to get your post and know that you are into ATN as well.

As for the comment "Beatle I always took you for a F/A - seems you're slowly slipping over to the dark side" - lol. Just to reassure you, that I am very much into the fundamentals of the company and its project, but when I have nothing better to do (to coin a phrase of the missus!) I watch the share trading, and nothing irks me more than to watch games being played, and in this case as its got limited duration before its ready to "pop" I was more than just amused - I don't like to start posting on something for it to immediately start getting dumped on, it makes me feel embarrassed to have commenced my posting. I certainly don't try to pump something up so someone can take advantage of that short term situation!

Back to the fundamentals, I am very excited about ATN's Obi Island project as you might have realised in reading my earlier posts. If it shows the promise in early drilling that there is indeed mineralised vein sets similar to the artisanal SSMA I expect the share price won't be sitting around its current levels and moving by 0.1 cents every now and then!

Today the general trading sentiment in ATN though is quite positive and although I can't read a chart other than to say its up or down, the flow of trading seems to show that to me, amateur as I am.

Now its ATN's turn to show us the money!!!

The ATN share price was kicked down once again, similar to yesterday, this time taking out all of 4.8 cents on the bid and down to 4.7 cents on the offer in one trade - its a similar tactic to that used yesterday when 1 million shares were put on the market, this time only 314,291 were involved in the dump, then a few more were used up, including 8,000 shares, to get the price down to 4.6 cents, so I guess someone wants to hold the price down for a bit longer - I can imagine the brake will be released in about 6 trading days time!

ATN's share price fell back over the week, due to the slight delay in getting a drilling rig and all its components to Obi Island, and the fact that we are still 1 trading week (plus a day) away from the Gen Mtg (to allow certain directors to get set for the move up in share price once the action occurs on the ground with the drilling). Its an interesting time, I suggest you only have the certainty of another week of relatively low share price before things might take off, thus whilst its unlikely to move up a lot in the coming week ATN's share price now is probably the lowest it will be for the next couple of months (IMO of course!), thus is a good buying opportunity - especially while there seems to be a few cappers out there - they are effectively sacrificing their shares at the moment, again IMO!
Go ATN

Since I began posting on ATN 8 days ago the number of views on this website has gone from 136 up to 766 views as of today! Of course its probably the same people viewing it each time, maybe it has grown a bit since that time and of course that means there are mainly repeat viewers, but my point is that some people clearly are interested to read about ATN.

Whilst I have spent a lot of time posting on ATN re recent trading activity and the games that are played by people from time to time, I don't want people to lose sight of the facts about ATN re its Obi Island gold/silver/base metals project. In particular:
1. We are only 6 trading days away from a Gen Mtg of ATN for shareholders to approve some share/option arrangements for 2 directors. That allows them to be fully motivated to get the share price up thereafter! (BEfore that date there is not so much motivation, esp the pricing of the option package is the VWAP of ATN for the 5 days from Tuesday trading to the following Monday). I therefore suggest that ATN's share price will probably be under wraps until the date of the Gen Mtg (19 april).
2. A drill rig and all its ancillary equipment is being shipped to Obi Island to shortly after commence a 3,000 - 4,000 m diamond drilling program.
3. The fundamentals of this raw project are compelling, and just to re-iterate an earlier post on here, taken from ATN reports previously:

" Re: ATN - Ashburton Minerals
ATN’s Obi Island gold/silver project has the hallmarks of being a company maker for a number of reasons, and an investment at current levels in the company will provide an excellent entry point, even though it is speculative in nature.

ATN’s project on Obi Island is targeting a large epithermal gold/silver/base metals system that has been the subject of extensive recent artisanal gold mining by around 1,000 miners – that area of artisanal mining is substantial:

The 7,700 Hectare licence area consists of NUMEROUS BRECCIA ZONES AND VEIN SETS, CHARACTERISTIC OF A LARGE EPITHERMAL GOLD/SILVER PROJECT (possibly similar to Gosowong - see *Note below), with OVER 1 KM OF STRIKE on current main artisanal workings – those artisanal workings include over 200 pits, shafts and adits scattered on the northern slopes of a hillside. Some of the larger veins appear to be continuous along strike for several hundred metres. At least 4 - 5 separate veins are noted across strike of the main zone, with individual veins occasionally worked to depths in excess of 50 m.

Random sampling of run-of-mine ore by Ashburton geologists, comprising 15 samples which were brought back to Perth for analysis, showed average grade to be 16 g/t, ranging from 4.3 g/t to 42.3 g/t.

Reconnaissance by Ashburton staff along the corridor extending southwards of the main artisanal workings confirmed scattered workings EXTEND FOR AT LEAST A FURTHER 3 KMS within the licence area. Numerous epithermal quartz vein boulders were noted in the river upstream from the artisanal workings indicating more mineralisation occurs to the south and southwest within the licence in areas yet to be investigated in detail.

* Note: Obi Island is situated to the south of the larger Halmahera Island which hosts the FIVE MILLION OUNCE GOSOWONG GOLD DEPOSIT with REGIONALLY SIMILAR GEOLOGY comprising a range of Late Eocene to Pliocene volcano-sedimentary sequences CHARACTERIZED BY EPITHERMAL MINERALISATION. "

Very interesting, at the open: Some slightly stronger start to the bidding at 4.8 cents caused the capper (who was holding 1 million shares at 4.9 cents but it became 953,000shares when it was chomped on slightly the other day) to move his offer higher, at 5.3 cents. It seems he is worried he will lose his shares (or that he thinks its gonna move higher soon!).

I have a feeling that this weeks gonna be a good week .... (but I don't sing as well as the Black Eyed Peas, lol)

At the moment trading in ATN is a bit like "Custers last stand", with the "capper" of 953,000 shares now positioned at 5.0 cents from 5.3 cents and another 1 million sitting at 5.1 cents. If buyers take that wall down (ie about 2.76 million shares at 5/5.1 cents worth around $140,000 which is slightly above ATN's usual trading volume around 2 million shares) then there is likely to be a spike up in share price.

Given that the company has no real motivation to put out a positive announcement UNTIL the VWAP period is over its going to be an interesting few days ahead.

Still ATN's share price has moved up well today, and its probably the last chance to get shares at this price before the company joins in to start putting out positive statements about Obi Island drilling from the time of the Gen Mtg 19th april (following tues).

While its still 5 trading days plus a few hours to go before the Gen Mtg for ATN, the share price performed very well today, up 0.4 cents (or 8.5%) to 5.1 cents, with more than average volume of 3.9 million shares traded. I'm not surprised that the share price is moving up, knowing the activity soon to commence on Obi Island, targeting a large epithermal gold/silver/base metals system that has been the subject of small scale mining by artisanal miners that has the potential to send the ATN share price rocketing with positive results.

I'd love for someone more competent to make comment on the technical chart of ATN, but from a simplistic point of view I'll make the point that ATN is now at the point of testing an area of resistance at 5.1/5.2 cents and an intra-day high of 5.5 cents. If ATN breaks through the 5.2 cents level at the close of trade in the coming week one should expect the price to keep moving up. That's from a technical perspective. Knowing the fundamentals of the Obi Island project there is a real reason for it to make that share price move upwards very soon!

At the moment I believe that the company is unlikely to put out a positive statement regarding the status of drill movement and activity until the Gen Mtg on the 19th April, and therefore there remains an opportunity to buy shares at the current level possibly for the last time before it makes new recent highs - and the current "cap" of around 1.15 million shares at 5.1 cents is possibly the last good opportunity to get set.

The next few days of trading will be very interesting to watch, and from 19th April will be more than interesting, more like VERY EXCITING IMO!!!

I have already acknowledged that ATN is a speculative explorer, with its focus of exploration on its recently acquired gold/silver/base metals project on Obi Island in Indonesia.
It is due shortly to undertake the first round of diamond drilling on the project, targetting vein sets and other likely mineralisation indicators evident and contiguous with the adjacent small scale licence area that has been the subject of widespread mining by artisanal miners. The share price has recently moved higher (slightly) with anticipation of that drilling to come.
Therefore I re-post an earlier commentary regarding the upside potential of Obi Island, to give you an idea of the sort of return you could expect if the drilling delivers the goods as we hope for:

"1. ATN currently has a market capitalization of $37 million (share price of 5.1 cents), and has recently raised $4.5 million to fund ongoing exploration, principally at its Obi Island project.

2. The best “upside analogy” for ATN share price is with ROL and its large gold project centred on Romang Island, also located in Indonesia. Whilst the share structure is very different for ROL, with only 85 million shares on issue and a market cap of $160 million, compared to ATN having 726 million shares, if we remove the cash that ROL currently enjoys (ca. $60 million) and ATN holds (ca. $4.5 million), then bare bones “Enterprise Value” of ROL is $100 million, and ATN is $30.5 million).

Thus upside potential for ATN on a “steady state” basis based on ROL is 100/30.5 = 3.27 x 5.1 cents = 16.5 cents!!! But in the immediate weeks after ROL’s first successful drill result being announced ROL share price was much higher (and also had negligible cash), thus the immediate upside to any positive drill result being announced is possibly FAR HIGHER:

IF we use the ROL analogy where ROL pre-drill price moved slowly from about 30 cents to 60 cents at the time of drilling and at the time of announcement it went from 60 cents to 240 cents!!! Thus ROL doubled from its pre-drill price, then went 8 times at the time of discovery from pre-drill price ie if ATN did a “RO:L” it could go from say 4 cents (pre-drill) up to 8.0 cents at time of drilling, then UP TO 32 cents if there is a discovery!!! (Although not certain of discovery this is NOT A WILDCAT drilling program, its a drilling of an ALREADY ESTABLISHED where considerable high grade gold samples have been taken by ATN geologists!!!). "

ATN is speculative, but the upside potential based on the above analogy makes it a most exciting play IMO - the next few days before the Gen Mtg might be the last chance to get set for that potential upside if I am reading the fundamentals and the market correctly. So far things seem to be following that course . . .

hi beatle, wrote a long reply last night and it got lost when i was doing stuff in background....
i read the annual reports 2003 to 2010, and last 18 months company ann.s ..they have had so many ASX queries! but they seem to have handled OK
I like the fact the directors and the MD have been with ATN for so long, the fact they reduced fees during GFC. But they have been around since 1994 and still haven't made a company yet! Their retained losses are up to $24.6M an annual rate of $1.4M p.a which is OK and not overly extravagant.

But Obi seems to be the answer to their prayers...its got a lot going for it not least the fact the artisanal miners have proved the stuff is there.

I worry that its MC has flown high enough already but looking at a simple 6 month graph shows that the only way is up.

I got a small holding for the ride last week and to justify chewing the fat but i might not stay very long!

Mgm1a, you clearly do a lot of historic due diligence in your investments, I am impressed! I have followed ATN for a number of years and you are correct, the directors and the company has been around for a long while, esp the Chairman and MD. The Chairman you probably will be aware is Rick Crabb (brother of Phil, but these days it might be said that Phil is the brother of Rick due to Paladdin fame!).

The past exploration and projects really don't have any significance to ATN now, even though I realise you take notice of past exploration expenses etc (they are sunk costs on past projects), the Obi Island project is brand new and is the entire reason for my exuberance, despite it being it being a speculative play. What you have to consider is that its now got a history of artisanal gold production, and the fact that many of the shafts have gone as deep as 50 metres is proof that the project has got real potential to carry gold at depth as well along strike on the vein sets which have been traced at surface for kms within ATN's licence area.

I have no doubt that the project will produce some exciting drillhole intercepts, that will surely excite the market when announced, and my only question is whether they will get visible gold in the core, as the island is remote and it will be many weeks before we get results back from the drilling. But I have no doubt that the assay results will be positive as they plan to drill below existing mineralised vein sets, to depths of up to 200 metres. It will be more a question of how extensive the mineralisation and veins are at depth rather than IF they will get mineralisation! That should be sufficient to excite the market and push ATN's share price along IMO!

I believe we won't see any announcements out for another week regarding drilling commencement, until after the Gen Mtg is over.

Whilst it was a nervous seller in ATN at the open pushing it down to 4.9 cents, then some fairly big Bids on ATN soon after opening, and now the take out of the capper at 5.1 cents plus a bit at 5.2 cents. It seems the cheap shares I referred to in recent posts maybe have just gone!!!

This sort of trading is a demonstation of the interest in ATN from investors with more than loose change in their pockets, and it certainly demonstrates the firepower ready to follow through in the stock as the activities on Obi Island begin to warm up. And its still 4 trading days plus a bit before the Gen Mtg . . .

Houston...


...we have lift-off!

:holysheep:

Hi beatle & KurwaJegoMac
Happy days. 13m volume but the depth is so thin - i am not able to pump more in during as I am away at work, darn it - the buyers obviously peeling off what ever the sellers were dishing up?? I thought there might be more resistance from unhappy holders from the peak in the graph of Oct09, obviously not.

The remoteness of the project is underlined by the infrequency of boat services..maybe a chance to top up if holders weaken in the meantime?

Beatle - i am a big fan of history when it comes to stocks - my fundamentals like to be flavoured by what they did, how well they did. Yes the page has been turned with Obi and that new page and the trading remind me of my (successful) foray into NRL. The ATN graph so seductively pointing north

The mention of shafts to 50m was something I missed - this is serious stuff that i hadn't seen in my research of my other area of interest in West Africa goldies.

What do you both make of the description of the processing eequipment form China - big deal / small time ?

I am pleased that this plant offers important local benefits to the environment and want directors to push this more.

See this link on mercury dangers in Halmahera:
http://www.newcrest.com.au/upload/mercury_on_halmahera.pdf

I have emailed directors a couple of questions, see if i get a reply
GL

Hi Mgm1a and KurwaJegoMac, what an amazing day for ATN and us holders! Gee its good to be watching it trade by trade as I did today, wondering if it would break 5.3 cents etc etc. The volume absolutely blew me away as I had no idea there was such a following, even though I am of the view that there are some very big investors sitting waiting to get in if there is a sniff of epithermal gold in those veins (and since we know the artisanal miners would not have been sinking such deep shafts without considerable success I honestly believe its a no-brainer - even if I have mentioned it being a raw speculative play!).

About your questions Mgm1a, esp re the China processing facilities. To be honest I don't know what to think of this, as I am unaware of the MD's processing capability (he is a geologist!), and I would have thought that the processing circuit would be more capably put together with the assistance and advice of a processing engineer/metallurgist, or maybe the principal of PT Eka Samudra Nusantara is a processing guru. What I did take some heart from is the comment that "During this trip Mr Dukovcic was introduced to a number of Chinese businessmen who appeared impressed by the Obi gold project and the Company’s plans and activities."
Maybe we can ponder whether it was this Chinese connection for pushing the price up today (lol). If it were the case then I would imagine ATN would get a great following all of a sudden.

I'm not sure how the market will react to the news that the equipment remains delayed for another couple of weeks, but certainly in my view its a great chance to get more shares on any weakness - at least you can be confident that a significant following in ATN is standing by, so there is every likelihood that once the drilling is underway ATN will be eagerly sought, and my post suggesting multiples of its current price is a real possibility!

I emphasise that ATN remains in the midst of the VWAP for determining the pricing of options likely to be granted to the MD, so its not surprise that the rig and ancillary equipment magically has been delayed further, and that announcement was put out today. I am wondering if ATN has also received a speeding ticket today for its rise in volume and price, even though I am sure you can easily explain it off with the expectation on the previous announcement that the rig is soon expected to commence testing mineralisation extent and tenor.

I would love someone to put out a much more detailed analysis of ATN's price/volume chart. From my amateur reading of it, I have not seen such a great build up to its price move, its not just a one day wonder rising out of oblivion, its been steadily rising now for a few months in anticipation of the Obi project being drill tested - I'm sure that means something in terms of how far the share price can rise to, even if we don't have much recent history other than a couple of spikes that almost tested 10 cents some time back.

ATN was surprisingly quite well bid at the open, and despite it falling away at the moment, its performed good on a day when it might have fallen back after yesterdays frantic trading, and a somewhat sombre announcement that the rig is delayed a couple of weeks. But the simple fact is that the project is very exciting, with an entire proved goldfield at ATN's feet, the possibility it could develop into a Gosowong-type epithermal project hanging in the minds of investors, and those investors/traders wanting to get on board before the real action takes place.

Since we are only a few trading days from the Gen Mtg, and likely positive announcements to follow once the directors are set, I still a believe we are looking at a cheap entry price for ATN, with the potential to move multiples of its current share price over the coming months!

AND still lingering in my mind from my several readings of yesterdays announcement that "During this trip Mr Dukovcic was introduced to a number of Chinese businessmen who appeared impressed by the Obi gold project and the Company’s plans and activities." Why did they put that throw away line in the announcement, its the sort of thing that would not be put into an annoucement if it wasn't something material (I would have thought that anyway!).

With Easter almost upon us, that means the rig will be on Obi Island with only 7 trading days to get set, with the Gen Mtg to intervene and whatever announcements that might follow from that Gen Mtg. Things are looking good IMO . . .