Petaquilla, Richard Fifer's mining scheme in Panama, published a press release recently saying that they now had ANAM approval and would go in production in December. Then Don Winner of the Panama Guide, a relentless pumper of Petaquilla stock who at least on one occasion indicated he was a shareholder himself, declared that the Petaquilla share might very well make a comeback. It didn't, the price tanked even after the optimistic press release and not even Fifer's insider trades are keeping it afloat. Undaunted, Winner continued later that those who declared Petaquilla "dead in the water" were "morons".
Well, it just so happens that one of Winner's "morons" is one of the few analysts specializing in mining stocks in Latin America who als happens to live in the area. Publishing under the name Otto Rock, he writes a blog, Inca Kola News, that anyone interested in Latin American commodities should read. So, what does he have to say about Petaquilla?
The short version: Rock contacted ANAM and found that the hyped approval doesn't really mean much in terms of getting the Petaquilla mine going. They're a bunch of lying shits, they won't go in production in December nor anytime soon and most likely never, they have taken three years for one environmental impact study and they need five more and so on. Oh, Don Winner, there's a special paragraph for you:
Meanwhile, another criminal with no record (as yet) is shamelessly pumping the stock to the local Panamanian ex-pat community. Don Winner is a sleazy lowlife that runs the website "Panama guide". Well known for his penchant of being in cahoots with any local sleazeball that'll throw him a few bucks, Winner is trying to get the English-speaking community to buy this PoS stock. So hopefully this post will get through to the innocent lambs before they are parted from their moolah. Don't touch PTQ.to with a bargepole, people.
But please, read the whole piece here.
UPDATE: Andrew Beatty (I think we met before), the local Reuters guy in Panama, gets the story hopelessly wrong, too, because getting it right would require independent verification of what he's told. Or just plain logic.