No matter what such a jv may mean for Cantex and its shareholders, it doesn’t hurt the case for gold bugs if the world´s largest base metals producer is shifting its focus to the metal.

I’ve had trouble following Chuck Fipke´s doings over there on the Arabian Sea. There´s been very little news of late, in fact the last publicly available press release was issued January 25 when the company announced it was letting its Greenland exploration licences lapse.

Around the same time it announced that assays from the last of its 77 drill holes on the Al Hariqua gold prospect in Yemen were pending, though I have yet to see them.

However, added to the release was the statement that ´…a very progressive gold miner visited Al Hariqua in December of 2007, and ´…another large company is scheduled to visit in January of this year.´ I suppose that is Fipke-ese for ´…something big is brewing´, but he has certainly kept his shareholders in suspense.

Many investors followed Fipke to Yemen from the incredibly profitable diamond fields of Canada´s NWT, which he discovered and pioneered in the early 90s. Initially, Cantex had the exploration rights to a whopping 38,600 square kilometers of ground, (go big or go home seems to be Fipke´s motto).

By 2004, that had dwindled down to a little more than 1,000 square kilometers, deemed to be of the greatest strategic interest to the company.

The Government of Yemen is entitled to an NSR plus 36% of the net profits from any commercial production there. It also has the right to offer to acquire an undivided interest of up to 49% of the Cantex Exploration License.

It is also worth noting that the country is trying to diversify away from its dwindling oil resources. In 2006 it began an economic reform program that raised about $5 billion for development projects. So the will is certainly there. All we need now are the assays from the final drilling and that ´…large company´that was alluded to back in January.

Hg

http://barkerletter.mining.com/2008/...