Another excerpt from a posting by me on the Sharps Pixley website. Although unable to attend this year’s PDAC due to my recent stroke, one is able to get a good impression of the general air of optimism overhanging this year’s Mecca for the juniot mining and exploration sector. Attendance was up and gold, as usual, was leading the way for the junior explorer in particular.
But beware the scammers and the pump-and-dumpers. Good stories abound, but few will stand up to detailed scrutiny! To get a heads-up on just a tiny number of those setting out to fleece the unwary investor I suggest you subscribe for free to the Inca Kola News daily blog. While this looks primarily at Latin American mining, it also highlights, with no pulled punches and some sometimes rather forthright language, some of the more unsavoury elements of the Canadian junior mining scene. Forewarned is forearmed.
Here follow the first few paras of the Sharps Pixley article:
The annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) Convention is truly something special. Although unable to attend this year I have been watching reports on the event with considerable interest as it is very much a bellwether of the mineral exploration sector – and that is itself a great indicator of the strength, or otherwise, of the global mining industry and where it is headed. This year’s PDAC took place from March 5th-8th inclusive.
I had been attending the PDAC since 1977 and it has always been one of the industry’s highlights. Back then the whole event took place in the Royal York Hotel and attendance rose to around 7-8,000 at its peak before it transferred to the nearby Toronto Convention Centre, since when it has grown enormously to become what is probably the world’s biggest annual mining event. Numbers of attendees peaked four years back at around 32,000 when the industry – and gold mining in particular – had been riding high, although had been beginning to turn down.
Gold exploration and mining has always been the principal driver of PDAC sentiment – and attendance. At the time of the 2013 PDAC Convention the gold price was at just under $1,600 on its way down to a low of around $1,060 by December 2015, and numbers attending the event had fallen accordingly, but this year 22,000 delegates were expected, in line with the 2016 figure, and in the event 24,161 passed through the doors indicating a more optimistic outlook for the industry……………..
To read the full article click here