Katanga Mining (KAT: TSX) shot up 28% on major volume of 5.5 million shares traded Tuesday. Copper is trading near a 2-year high as investors come back to base metals. Long-time member ‘funtime‘ selected Katanga for August’s Stock Challenge. So, his combined average return was third best overall on the day – totaling 16.28% on the day.
Katanga Mining has had a very up and down past few years as critics and delays hampered the company’s key asset. Today, Katanga operates a major mine complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo producing refined copper and cobalt. According to the company, it has the potential to become Africa’s largest copper producer and the world’s largest cobalt producer.
The TSX Venture had a weak start to the month, shedding a few points on just 47.3 million total shares traded.
Katanga Valuation Explodes in 2017
Katanga is without question one of, if not, the best performing mining stock on the entire TSX exchange in 2017. The company’s stock hit a low of $0.12 in December and has recently traded as high as $0.89 per share.
Katanga Mining – 1 Year Chart
Despite the run-up in 2017, Katanga has been dead money for the past 4 years. With nearly 2 billion shares outstanding, Katanga has a market cap of approximately $1.3 billion.
Katanga Mining – 5 Year Chart
On July 27th, Katanga Mining reported its 2017 Second Quarter production results. Certainly, these results underwhelmed the market as the company’s shares declined from about $0.80 to below $0.55. Below are two short excerpts,
“Waste mined in H1 2017 was 17,017,488 tonnes (624.2%) higher than in H1 2016 due to increased waste mining activities in 2017 in preparation for the commissioning of the WOL Project, which is expected to commence in Q4 2017;”
Furthermore,
“Reprocessing of the Kamoto Interim Tailings Dam (“KITD”) material commenced in January 2017. The concentrate produced is expected to be used to load the WOL Project commissioning circuits in Q4 2017. Concentrate produced from the KITD reprocessing amounted to 33,785 tonnes in H1 2017, with a copper grade of 14.44% (4,880 tonnes of contained copper).”
Click here to read the entire press release.
August’s Stock Challenge Surprise Forthcoming
August’s Stock Challenge is off to the races with even 20th place ‘bassman’ putting up a 4.80% return on day one of the Challenge. More than 250 members have squared off to battle for the silver bullion this month. Finally, despite ‘micronta’s last minute submission and a significant lead over the field, a solution is coming and will be announced on August 2nd.
