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Monday, May 16, 2011

[cpsinewswire] [CPSI NewsWire: ING Sold ₮7.4B Khan Bank 3 Year 8.3% Notes]

CPS International is a marketing arm of CPS Securities in Mongolia. CPS Securities is a Perth, Western Australia based AFSL License Holder. To trade ASX and international stocks, feel free to contact me at mogi@cpsinternational.mn or +976-99996779.

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Close: Mongolia Related ASX Listed Companies, May 13, 2011

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Last https://myasx.asx.com.au/images/price_unchanged.gif

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Bid

Offer

Open

High

Low

Volume

VOR

 0.055  Down

 -0.001

 0.055

 0.056

 0.055

 0.056

 0.054

 2,298,738

HUN

 1.600  Down

 -0.030

 1.550

 1.600

 1.620

 1.630

 1.540

 541,636

HAR

 0.350  Down

 -0.030

 0.330

 0.350

 0.355

 0.365

 0.330

 257,804

AKM

 0.790  Down

 -0.005

 0.760

 0.790

 0.795

 0.795

 0.750

 1,265,165

ALG

 0.450  Down

 -0.030

 0.450

 0.500

 0.480

 0.480

 0.450

 220,000

BDI

 0.016  No change

 0.000

 0.016

 0.017

 0.016

 0.016

 0.016

 800,000

BKM

 0.006  No change

 0.000

 0.006

 0.007

 0.005

 0.006

 0.005

 2,810,855

CEO

 0.059  Down

 -0.004

 0.059

 0.060

 0.065

 0.065

 0.059

 2,990,257

GMM

 0.180  Down

 -0.005

 0.180

 0.190

 0.180

 0.180

 0.175

 323,262

GUF

 1.300  No change

 0.000

 1.410

 1.190

 0.000

 0.000

 0.000

 0

LRL

 0.265  No change

 0.000

 0.265

 0.270

 0.265

 0.265

 0.260

 527,974

XAM

 0.520  Down

 -0.010

 0.505

 0.520

 0.525

 0.545

 0.505

 455,421

LEI

 22.870  Up

 0.090

 22.820

 22.870

 22.780

 22.980

 22.570

 1,114,937

RIO

 80.150  Up

 0.360

 80.150

 80.160

 80.000

 80.340

 79.500

 1,896,024

BHP

 44.320  Up

 0.190

 44.300

 44.330

 44.130

 44.320

 43.800

 11,776,175

Source: asx.com.au

 

Hedge funds demand exotic country notes as bond yields decline

May 13 (ctpost.com) Hedge funds are seeking credit-linked notes tied to bonds of the lowest-rated countries as yields on other fixed-income assets remain near record lows.

"We have had some hedge funds saying they want some seriously exotic stuff," said Guy Thomas, the global head of emerging-market credit structuring at ING Groep NV, who sold a credit-linked note on Mongolia this week. "The East European and Latin American countries are pretty well exploited."

Banks issued notes linked to Egypt, Venezuela, Romania, Mongolia and Vietnam in the past two weeks, offering coupons as high as 13.2 percent. Ten-year U.S. Treasury yields are currently at 3.22 percent, compared with the 10-year average of 4.1 percent. The difference between yields on corporate debt and government bonds remain near record lows.

Demand for notes which offer access to illiquid securities has surged as investors seek the higher-yielding investments.

ING sold 7.4 billion tugrik ($6 million) of three-year notes linked to Khan Bank LLC, Mongolia's largest bank, paying a coupon of 8.3 percent. Investors in the privately placed deal are exposed to both exchange rate and bank credit risks.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. sold 155 billion dong ($7.5 million) of structured notes linked to Vietnam government bonds this week. The 13.2 percent five-year notes, the first dong-issued deal this year, are tied to the performance of Vietnamese debt due in 2016 and were priced to yield 12.6 percent, Bloomberg data show.

"You're starting to see more high-yield assets at the expense of liquidity," said Albin Spinner, a credit structurer at Standard Bank Plc in London. "Yield is definitely the issue."

UBS AG, Switzerland's biggest bank, this week sold $5 million of structured notes linked to Venezuelan bonds, which are the world's second most expensive to insure using credit-default swaps after Greece, according to data provider CMA.

The one-year notes are tied to the performance of Venezuela bonds due in 2027, currently yielding 13.5 percent. The securities pay 7 percentage points more than the three month London interbank offered rate, or Libor, Bloomberg data show. Venezuela's one-year credit-default swaps cost 723 basis points.

"We've seen people looking at Venezuelan notes though these are people who have a connection to the country and a feeling for the bonds," said Thomas Maurer, senior adviser, structured products at Bank Julius Baer & Co. in Zurich. "It's very hard to access these bonds for foreign investors, most of the debt is kept internally, and hence difficult for dealers to hedge these notes."

UBS also issued $5 million of notes linked to Egypt paying a coupon of 2.83 percentage points more than Libor, even as the country's worst political crisis in three decades has deterred investors and hurt the economy.

Credit-linked notes offer investors exposure to bonds that are normally difficult or costly to access. Banks already active in these countries can source bonds more easily and pass the returns on to investors at a lower cost.

Link to article

 

Mongolia Targets $700 Million in Debut Domestic Bond Offerings

May 13 (Bloomberg) -- Mongolia's newly created development lender is aiming to sell $700 million of domestic-currency bonds in 2011, with sales scheduled to begin this month, the bank's chairman said.

Investors will be offered tugrik-denominated bonds due in five, 10, and 15 years in several sales from the end of this month to around September, Chuluundorj Khashchuluun, the Ulan Bator-based chairman of the Development Bank of Mongolia, said in a telephone interview yesterday. The bonds will be backed by the government, which has approved the sales, he said.

"In a week or two we will have another meeting with investors to make more concrete plans" to set terms for the initial sale, Khashchuluun

 said. The central bank and finance ministry are involved in "extensive consultations" on the sales, he said.

It will be the first sovereign offerings by the resource- rich nation that needs to quadruple the size of its rail network, add power and water plants, and build more roads before it can increase metal and mineral exports. New transport projects would also help Mongolia ease its economic reliance on its neighbor China, which took nearly 80 percent of shipments last year, according to official data.

The bonds will be offered via the stock exchange and the central bank, with a private placement also possible, Khashchuluun said. The size of the offering may be adjusted to reflect market demand and also bring in a wide range of investors with the number of sales not yet decided, he said. Domestic banks and international investors have shown interest in the debt and yields are being discussed, Khashchuluun said.

Surging Tugrik

Moody's Investors Service rates Mongolian sovereign debt B1, four levels below investment grade, while Standard & Poor's rates the North Asian nation BB-, three levels below investment grade. Moody's rates Mongolia the same as Sri Lanka, which sold 10-year bonds to yield 6.25 percent in September last year.

"The bank's lending can't be very costly, because it is policy-based financing," Khashchuluun said. Although, rates have to be high enough to attract investors, he said. "So it demands a balance."

The tugrik has strengthened 18.2 percent against the dollar since the beginning of last year, the second-best performance among all currencies tracked by Bloomberg after the Australian dollar.

The government has tasked Development Bank of Mongolia, which opened yesterday, to help finance rail, road and other infrastructure projects as well as the building of an industrial park. The bank is in a hurry to start the sales so that it can access funding before construction stops due to freezing temperatures in the winter months, Khashchuluun said. Lack of infrastructure is holding back economic development across the economy, he said.

Link to article

Related:

Mineral-rich Mongolia plans to issue first sovereign bondsFinancial Times, May 11

 

Guildford Coal in trading halt pending 'exploration results' announcement

May 12 (Proactive Investors) Guildford Coal (ASX: GUF) has been granted a trading halt by the ASX pending an 'exploration results' announcement by the company.

Guildford did not allude as to which project the results would be from, but earlier in the month the company kicked off exploration in Mongolia, intersecting coal.

Drilling commenced with two drills operating in the South Gobi Project with the first hole intersecting around 8 metres net of coal contained in three coal seams, with the deepest seam estimated at 87 metres.

Exploration also started at the Middle Gobi Project, with one drill in operation.

Guildford said the exploration plan aims to link in with previous historic exploration, with the goal to ultimately define both the strike extent and up dip extensions of this group of seams.

The company added that the four South Gobi licences are believed to be locally confined with the Ovoot Khural Basin, and the coal intersected in drilling interpreted to be from Permian strata of the Deliin Shand suite.

The nearby MAK and Ovoot Tolgoi mines produce high volatile bituminous coals from this same Deliin Shand Group which are marketed as a mixture of both thermal and coking coal products.

Guildford has already been a top performer for investors who participated in the IPO in mid-2010, which offered 10 million shares at $0.20 to raise $2 million, with the company last trading at $1.30.

Link to article

 

Alamar: Change of Company Name and ASX Code

May 13, Alamar Resources Limited (ASX:ALG) --

The new Company name and ASX code will be:

Company name: Mongolian Resource Corporation Ltd

Ordinary share: "MUB"

Listed options: "MUBO"

The Company's securities will continue to trade under its existing ASX Codes (ALG, ALGO), until Friday, 13th May 2011.

Link to release

 

Ivanhoe gearing up for construction of main project, posts US$492.5-million loss

May 13 (The Canadian Press) SINGAPORE - Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN) reported a US$492.5 million net loss in the first quarter, primarily due to the revaluation of a derivative security as the company worked on building the huge Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold-silver complex in Mongolia.

The company, which owns two-thirds of Oyu Tolgoi, said Friday that overall construction was about 15 per cent complete at the end of March — slightly ahead of schedule.

The loss, reported in U.S. currency, was the equivalent of 79 cents per share and compared with a net loss of $193.9 million or 43 cents per share in the first quarter of 2010.

The quarter included a $432.5-million loss related to a change in the fair value of a derivative.

Exploration expenses were $46.2 million, down from $71.4 million in the first quarter of 2010. Only about $13.5 million of the exploration expenses were in Mongolia, while $30.4 million was incurred by Ivanhoe Australia.

Revenue from coal sales by Ivanhoe's publicly traded subsidiary SouthGobi Resources (TSX:SGQ) was $20.2 million. That was up from $13.9 million in the first quarter of 2010 but down from $41.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

During the quarter, Ivanhoe generated US$1.18 billion from a rights offering to shareholders. At the end of the quarter, Ivanhoe had $1.9 billion of cash and as of May 13 its cash position was $1.6 billion.

Link to article

Link to company release

 

SouthGobi Resources Q1 loss narrows on higher prices

May 12 (Reuters) - Canadian Coal miner SouthGobi Resources Ltd posted a narrower quarterly loss, helped by an increase in selling price for coal.

The company, which owns the Ovoot Tolgoi Mine and two development projects in Mongolia, sees sales volumes of 0.6-1.3 million tonnes in the current quarter.

It expects selling prices to remain the same sequentially.

SouthGobi Resources, which sells metallurgical and thermal coal to customers in China -- one of the largest consumers of coal in the world, shipped 0.45 million tons at an average realized price of $50 per tonne in the quarter, up from 0.43 million tons at $36 per ton, last year.

For the January-March quarter, the company posted a net loss of $46.6 million, or 25 cents a share, against last year's $168.3 million, or $1.09 a share.

Revenue jumped 44.8 percent to $20.2 million.

Shares of the company closed at $10.89 on Wedneday on the Toronto Stock Exchange. 

Link to article

Link to company release

 

Ivanhoe Energy Q1 loss widens on higher costs

May 11 (Reuters) - Canadian heavy oil producer Ivanhoe Energy Inc posted a wider quarterly loss hurt by higher costs.

The company, which has operations in Canada, Ecuador, China and Mongolia, said January-March net loss was $11.1 million, or 3 cents a share, compared with a loss of $6.8 million, or 2 cents, a year ago.

Revenue rose 55 percent to $8.2 million.

It had cash and cash equivalents of $80.8 million at March 31.

The company also said production at its Dagang field in China rose 25 percent to 90,599 net barrels of oil after royalties.

Shares of the Calgary, Alberta-based company closed at C$2.47 on Tuesday on the Toronto Stock Exchange.  

Link to article

 

Entree Gold Announces First Quarter 2011 Results

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - May 13, 2011) - Entrée Gold Inc. (TSX:ETG)(NYSE Amex:EGI)(FRANKFURT:EKA) ("Entrée" or the "Company") has today filed its interim operational and financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2011. Interim Financial Statements and the accompanying Management's Discussion and Analysis ("MD&A") are available on the Company website at www.entreegold.com.

Highlights for the period ended March 31, 2011 include:

·         Announcement of 987.8 metres averaging 0.31% copper or 0.38% copper equivalent ("CuEq"), including a higher grade section of 340 metres averaging 0.40% copper or 0.51% CuEq, from the Ann Mason deposit, Nevada;

·         Appointment of Bruce Colwill as the Chief Financial Officer;

·         Appointment of Alan Edwards to the board as an independent director;

·         Extension of Oyu Tolgoi-type mineralization three kilometres to the north of Ulaan Khud, Mongolia;

·         Announcement of joint venture budget of US$7 million for the Entrée-OTLLC joint venture work programs, including US$2 million for development related work on the Shivee Tolgoi licence;

·         Continuation of exploration and infill drilling at Ann Mason with 7,518 metres drilled to date (both diamond drilling and reverse circulation);

·         Drilling at the Blue Hill copper target with 2,364 metres drilled to date; and

·         Net loss of $5,342,265 for the period.

Link to release

 

MERITUS ANNOUNCES FINAL CLOSE OF NON-BROKERED PRIVATE PLACEMENT

May 11, 2011 (TheNewswire.ca) -- Vancouver, B.C.: Meritus Minerals Ltd. (TSXV:MER) (OOTC:MERMF) (MML)(TSX-V - MER)(the "Company") announces that the TSX-Venture Exchange has accepted for filing documentation with respect to the closing of the second and final tranche of its non-brokered private placement previously announced on March 23, 2011 and April 18, 2011. The Company will issue a further 630,000 units ("Units") at a price of $0.12 per Unit. Each Unit consists of one common share and one half share purchase warrant with each full warrant entitling the holder to acquire one additional common share at a price of $0.20 per share for a period of one year from closing (the "Unit Warrants").

The Unit Warrants are subject to an acceleration clause whereby if, after four months and one day from closing, the Company's shares trade above $0.40 for a period of ten consecutive trading days, the Company will have the option to require the earlier exercise of these Unit Warrants within 30 days of formal notice from the Company.

There is a statutory hold period of 4 months plus 1 day, expiring September 6, 2011 on all shares and warrants issued pursuant to this private placement.

Link to release

 

Mongolia more booby prize than trophy for the LSE

May 11 (The National, UAE) Quite a lot has happened since the London Stock Exchange in February announced a "merger" - the term is in dispute - with the Canadian bourse operator TMX.

A multibillion-dollar bidding war has broken out between European and US exchanges over control of western financial markets; a general election in Canada has returned the same conservative government that expressed concerns about the London Stock Exchange (LSE)-Canadian plan a few weeks back; and a consortium of Canadian bankers has grouped together to try to block the deal.

Oh, and the LSE has done a deal with the Mongolian Stock Exchange.

You might have missed that one in the blur of global markets activity, but the LSE announced it was going to help the people of Mongolia to establish their very own bourse in the capital Ulan Bator. Now, Mongolia is a fascinating place and - thanks to soaring global commodity prices - will be able to boast high rates of economic growth for some time to come.

But for an organisation such as the LSE, which likes to claim it is the leading financial marketplace in the European time zone, to be even bothering about Ulan Bator while the future of global exchanges is being decided in Frankfurt and New York is indicative of how the LSE's world view has diminished.

Link to article

 

U.S. Embassy issues statement denying Mongolian nuclear fuel disposal plans

May 12 (Mainichi Japan) The United States Embassy in Japan has emphatically denied a Mainichi report that the U.S. and Japan were in talks to build a nuclear waste disposal and processing facility in Mongolia.

"The U.S. government is not negotiating a deal to send spent nuclear fuel to Mongolia," the U.S. Embassy stated on May 10. "There are a number of inaccuracies in the stories being reported today in Japanese newspapers about a spent nuclear fuel facility in Mongolia," the statement continued, referring to a media firestorm ignited by a Mainichi May 9 morning edition story outlining secret negotiations between the U.S. Energy Department and the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

The embassy added that "The U.S. government fully respects that it is the sovereign decision of any government whether and under what terms they participate in nuclear energy activities, including nuclear fuel leasing." The statement concluded by reiterating that "No discussions or potential fuel leasing services involve U.S.-origin spent nuclear fuel."

Meanwhile, however, Japan's Senior Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Chiaki Takahashi told a May 9 press conference that "There have in fact been informal talks with both the United States and Mongolia on the issue."

Link to article

 

Mongolia denies talks on taking US,Japan nuke waste

May 11, Vienna (Reuters) - Mongolia has not been in talks about importing nuclear waste from other countries, its embassy in Vienna said, after a report that Japan and the United States planned to build a spent nuclear fuel storage facility there.

The country's 2009 nuclear energy law "does not envisage import of nuclear waste from other countries," said a statement from its embassy in the Austrian capital, where the U.N. nuclear agency is based.

The statement, posted on the embassy's website on Tuesday, came after Japanese daily newspaper Mainichi said Japan and the United States planned to jointly build a spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Mongolia.

Link to article

 

More Mongolia Spent Fuel Storage

May 12 (Arms Control Work) The Manichi Daily has published a series of stories about US efforts to site a spent fuel repository in Mongolia.

The short version is that sources — probably in Japan – leaked more details about discussions between the Department of Energy and the Mongolians, then the Japanese Government and the US Embassy in Japan both denied the story. (Japan would be involved in any Mongolian reactor construction.)  Then Reuters carried a denial by Mongolia and the Wall Street journal attributed the same US statement attributed toDOE.

I find this fascinating.  Certain people at the Department of Energy do believe Mongolia will agree to host a waste repository and are having relevant discussions.  But every time the press reports on the progress of those discussions, the Mongolians vociferously deny it all.

The Mongolian public position ought to tell you something about the ability of the government to successfully site a regional waste repository.

The US denial would be more interesting if a State Department official had not already confirmed the existence of discussions in March.  But he did.

Link to article

 

GTSO Applauds New Defense Bill's Multi-Source Rare Earth Inventory Plan

GTSO Plans to Employ 3rd-Party Security Firm to Ensure Safe Arrival of First Rare Earth Shipment

May 13, SAN JOSE, Calif. (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Green Technology Solutions, Inc. (OTCQB:GTSO) today applauded the inclusion of important new rare earth-related language in the Fiscal Year 2012 National Defense Authorization bill (H.R. 1540) passed this week by the House Armed Services Committee. The new bill directs the Department of Defense to shore up domestic supplies of rare earths by establishing an inventory of the critical materials from multiple sources.

Link to release

Related:

GTSO Positioned to Capitalize on S. Korea's Push to Secure Rare Earth ResourcesBUSINESS WIRE, May 12

 

Gobi Desert Sandstorm Affects Mongolia And China

May 12 (Irish Weather Online) Less than two weeks after a similar storm, dust once again blew out of the Gobi Desert and across the Mongolia-China border.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured the below natural-colour image on May 11, 2011.

Camel-coloured dust forms a counter-clockwise arc that sweeps across the border into China, then back over the border into Mongolia. Clouds hover over the dust plume, and a large cloudbank fringes the plume's northern edge. The clouds could be related to the same weather system that stirred the dust.

The sparsely vegetated grasslands of the Gobi rank among the world's most prolific dust-producing regions. This is especially true in the Northern Hemisphere spring.

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott. Instrument: Terra – MODIS

Link to article

 

Mongolians develop a taste for luxury

May 15 (AFP) ULAN BATOR - In the 13th century, Mongol emperor Kublai Khan and his harem sported silk gowns, fur cloaks and jewel-encrusted head ornaments at their home -- the legendary pleasure palace in Xanadu.

Today, latter-day khans are again stepping out in some of the world's finest luxury fashions as Mongolia's minerals-fuelled economy boosts disposable income for the country's nouveaux riches.

Louis Vuitton, Emporio Armani, Burberry and Hugo Boss have led the charge of high-end shops opening in Mongolia's sprawling capital Ulan Bator, the flashy stores jarring with the city's Soviet-era apartment blocks and shantytowns.

"The domestic fashion industry is growing with the Mongolian economy and people have more money to spend," Hugo Boss shop manager Siizhuugiin Nasantulga told AFP.

"They would rather spend it here than go on overseas shopping trips."

Link to article

 

Mongolia's changing scenery

May 13 (Washington Post) A high-level conference held three years ago warned that the language and culture of the Tsaatan, part of the dying Darkhad tribe, could vanish from Mongolia within the next decade. But on a bright April morning, three tribal girls streaked through the Central Asian taiga atop reindeer as white as the snow melting underfoot. The young herders steered their charges toward higher ground, whooping and giggling as if they were chasing a wind spirit.

The threat of extinction had no place in this moment.

Link to article

 

---

"Mogi" Munkhdul Badral

Executive Director

CPS International LLC

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CPS International is a marketing arm of CPS Securities in Mongolia. CPS Securities is a Perth, Western Australia based AFSL License Holder. To trade ASX and international stocks, feel free to contact me at mogi@cpsinternational.mn or +976-99996779.

Disclosure/Disclaimer

CPS Securities, its directors and employees advise that they may hold securities, may have an interest in and/or earn brokerage and other benefits or advantages, either directly or indirectly from client transactions mentioned in correspondence from CPS International.

CPS International advise this email contains general information only and does not include advice. In preparing this communication, CPS International did not take into account the investment objectives, financial situation and particular needs of any person. As with any speculative mining company there are significant risks.

 

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