"David Palmer's Probe Mines Ltd. (PRB) rose 11 cents to $2.43 on 146,000 shares. The company has assays, including 42 metres of 4.9 grams per tonne gold, from its Borden gold property in Ontario. Probe drilled 84,000 metres there last year, the results from which it will now use to update a resource estimate. Borden currently has four million ounces of gold, 3.6 million of which are indicated. Newsletter writer John Kaiser is a fan. He says Probe should be able to bring Borden to profitable production at today's gold prices. Probe has yet to complete a preliminary economic assessment, but with close to $30-million in working capital, it has more than enough money to complete one this year. The company had been hoping to receive a large cash injection of up to $100-million for its Black Creek chromite property, also in Ontario, but that no longer seems likely. Black Creek sits, sat rather, in the way of a planned billion-dollar access road to the Ring of Fire area. Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (CLF: $24.45 (U.S.)) had been planning to build the road with the help of the government, but this fall Cliffs put its project on hold indefinitely. Probe will have to wait for another company to come along, or the government, and hope its road plan will take the same path.

Unlike most stocks, Probe had a good 2013, rising 30 cents. It did suffer one big drop, in April, when it slid almost $1 to $1.10 along with the price of gold. Probe's drop, however, attracted Agnico Eagle, which subscribed to 7.5 million Probe units (9.9 per cent of the company) at $1.50. Agnico's shares have since gained $6.9-million in value, while its warrants to buy 5.6 million shares at $2.10 are worth $1.85-million on paper. Agnico's chief executive officer, Sean Boyd, has called gold's plunge an overreaction. He predicts the metal will return to $1,800 an ounce this year."

GLTA