http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html

cheers GF.

Note out from Fairfax today:
"$400m to $500m K&S project finance agreed with ICBC and CNEEC, substantial Chinese state-owned groups.
The deal is a co-operative agreement which presumably gives the iron ore offtake agreement to the Chinese in return for access to relatively low cost capital of substantial scale.
Note: the company does not appear to be giving up a stake in the company, the project or the license away in this remarkable deal.
The loan is repayable over 10 years, presumably from the date of final commissioning. Interest is something like 4% over the base interest rate agreed on.
CNEEC will provide engineering expertise, procurement and EPC contractors. Eg the project will be built by Chinese contractors. This should ensure the rapid construction of the mine which lies relatively close to the boarder with China.
Production is scheduled to start in 2013 at 10mtpa to yield some 3.2mtpa of 65% iron ore concentrate. The start date is a year later than originally modeled but new certainty in the construction of the project should add to its value.
The statement indicates that the entire 3.2mtpa of product will be sold in concentrate form. We previously assumed we would sell 1.9mtpa as pig iron with only 1.2mtpa as iron ore concentrate.
Conclusion: Petropavlovsk report FY 2009 results tomorrow. We expect the results to impress investors despite the hard Russian winter experienced this year. Gold production has risen substantially and the company should now produce more gold than its London peer, Randgold Resources. New confidence in the production of iron ore from the K&S project adds substantial value to the company in our view. "

tempted to to top up, but after recent strong run, maybe weakness after results tomorrow, so would do then

I don,t know what expectations were,but this looks impressive.

Petropavlovsk EPS soars on record production
Business Financial Newswire
Russian gold miner Petropavlovsk reported a 263% increase in earnings per share to $0.98 for the year to December, which it said was driven by a record production result, cost control and a 15% increase in the average price achieved.

Underlying EBITDA was up 65% at $225m from $136m in 2008.

The group declared an interim dividend of 7p per share in January 2010 and said it planned to pay interim and final dividends in future.

Net debt at December 31 was reduced by $370m to $19m.

Total attributable gold production rose by 21% to 486,800oz, in the middle of the group's original 2009 production target range of 460,000-510,000oz.

Average price achieved was $975/oz, up from $845/oz.

Proven and probable reserves increased by 103% to 6.67Moz compared with the November 2008 estimate.

Attributable gold production for 2010 is expected to be between 670,000oz and 760,000oz.

Petropavlovsk said its total cash costs of $309/oz (2008 $319/oz) confirmed it as one of the lowest-cost gold producers in the world.

Chairman Peter Hambro said the record production figure 'demonstrates the effectiveness of our phased approach to the development of our project pipeline'.

He added, 'The production increase has coincided with gold price strength in 2009 and we are confident that we will be able to deliver our forecast production growth over the next few years.'

Story provided by Business Financial Newswire

Having a good day ,while still 100 points to go to reach previous high .Some mileage here,methinks.

while hindsight says i should have bought yesterday, am perfectly happy to have topped up this morning .... as you said, looks to have plenty of wind in its sails

The mining sector does have bad days, with quite large swings in the sp intra-day, so may be worth hanging on for a bad day, once the euphoria in the results has died down. Already 20p down from it's high today.

keep talking that way cynic..... i'm having a mental orgasm........

your wife tells me that's about all you're capable of

Tipped in todays' SHARES as a buy, and also the item below from yesterdays' Telegrah. One thing that particularly caught my eye was the earnings multiple
11.5 versus Randgold at 39 !! I have heard of risk being priced in,but this seems to be rather overstating it.







Questor share tip: Buy Petropavlovsk for iron ore as well as gold
News that large-cap miners had forged an iron ore agreement with Japanese steel mills to increase prices by 90pc is good for BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. It is also good for Russian gold producer Petropavlovsk.

By Garry White, Questor Editor
Published: 7:00AM BST 31 Mar 2010

Petropavlovsk

11.69 -6p


Related Articles
Rio Tinto shareholders should take up their rights as miner is back on course
BHP reveals move towards 'transparent' iron-ore pricing
China widens Rio Tinto spying investigation
Rio's management team are not covered in glory
Rio agrees iron ore price cut in benchmark deal
Rio and BHP shares yo-yo on EC approval talkQuestor says BUY

The group, which used to be known as Peter Hambro Mining, also has an important iron ore project, which some analysts believe could be worth 5 a share.

Iron ore prices are negotiated at what is known as a "free on board" price. This means that the iron ore producer is paid to deliver the mineral to a ship in a port but the purchaser has to pay the freight costs to get the goods to its steel mills. However, new contracts are likely to be at the "landed price", which means miners will pay the shipping costs.

This is where things can get expensive. Vale, the world's largest iron ore producer, mines its ore in Brazil. BHP and Rio Tinto mine their ore in Australia. Both of these locations are a significant distance from China, the largest iron ore importer in the world.

Petropavlovsk's iron ore operations are in Russia not far from the border with China. Once a bridge is completed across the Amur River, it can be delivered to Chinese steel mills by train very cheaply. Even without the bridge, transport costs will be a fraction of the major suppliers'.

The project is at an early stage but the company said last week that it had agreed terms for a
10-year loan from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China for 85pc of the funding for the first phase of the Kimkano-Sutarskiy (K&S) iron ore project in Far East Russia. The first stage of development is expected to cost $400m (265m).

This initial phase is expected to deliver capacity of 3.2m tonnes of 65pc iron ore concentrate a year from K&S by 2013.

There is also talk of a potential spin-off of the assets in Hong Kong. This is interesting because the iron ore operation was already spun off in London as Aricom.

Aricom was demerged in 2003, with Peter Hambro's son, Jay, as chief executive.

However, the slide in iron ore prices caused by a fall in demand from China resulted in Aricom's shares plunging from a high of 106p to a low of 5p. The spin-off was brought back into the group in an all-share deal a year ago.

However, despite the excitement of the iron ore division, the company is first and foremost a gold miner. Last week's full-year results were very good.

Petropavlovsk significantly upgraded its gold reserves, with measured and indicated gold resources up by 90pc to 8.2m ounces. There is also an additional 3.6m ounces of inferred resources to add to the mix.

In the 12 months to December 31, pre-tax profits rose to $197m from $40.3m in 2008 on revenues that rose 24pc to $742.3m.

The group is not currently paying a dividend and it expects to produce between 670,000 and 760,000 ounces in 2010, which brings the possibility that it could produce more than its FTSE 100 peer Randgold Resources.

The shares were first recommended as a buy on July 21 last year at 626.2p and they are now 87pc ahead compared with a market up 27pc. They are still trading at a sharp discount to the rest of the precious metals sector. The current-year earnings multiple is 11.5 compared with 39 for Randgold. With the iron ore operations appearing to have a minimal valuation in the current rating, the shares remain a buy. However, they are likely to remain volatile

In todays Shares reccommendation, Fairfax values POG at 17.95,50% above the current price.

sure glad i topped up yesterday! ..... offsets some other shit like DES!

you can get tablets for the sh*ts cynic./.

cures the symptoms but not the cause

Another point ahich should help POG is the entry into the FTSE (barring a repeat of the fiasco last time around!)

gold play today....POG up 85p and climbing.

Gold now at $1238. A new all time high

13 here we come....

Top sliced pog at 2.94p as seems to be stuggling to get past 13 nice profit all the same, kept some for another charge later on...

Petropavlovsk upgraded to buy from hold at Citigroup

Petropavlovsk agrees $60m iron ore business investment
StockMarketWire.com
Mining group Petropavlovsk has agreed terms for a $60m equity investment in its non-precious metals division by Hong Kong-based investors.

The group had been evaluating funding options for its iron ore projects. It says the investment will value its non-precious metals division at $860m.

Petropavlovsk is also exploring strategic options including a possible listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange

The investors are Asia Resources Fund, a subsidiary of General Enterprise Management Services (GEMS), and CEF Holdings. They will invest $50m and $10m respectively in return for an equity stake in a new holding company for the division.

Chairman Peter Hambro said, 'We are extremely pleased to have GEMS and CEF committing capital to our non-precious metals business, and their participation in our growth story is testimony to the underlying confidence in the opportunities in the iron ore market in China.

'Our potentially world-class iron ore business is focused on the nearby Chinese market with considerable economic advantages in both geography and transport costs over most other major iron ore suppliers to the Chinese market - we are c.19,000km closer to China than our Brazilian competitors.

'We believe that these developments are significant steps in delivering the value of the non-gold assets of Petropavlovsk.'

Petropavlovsk also says advanced debt finance discussions to fund stage 1 of its Kimkano-Sutarskiy iron-ore mining operation are progressing well with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Sinosure, the Chinese state export credit agency.

The first iron-ore operation, Kuranakh, is ramping up following successful plant commissioning in May.

Story provided by StockMarketWire.com