I have spoken often of late about my expectations that Chinese companies are ram-ping up their acquisition mode in the mining and exploration industry worldwide. I felt that Continental Minerals (KMK-TSX-V $1.15) was an ideal target and had purchased a very large personal position.

This news of Zijin Mining is very bullish in my biased opinion. We now have two very large competitors with equal interests. It’s fair to say IMHO that Jinchuan, which currently owns a similar position as Zijin, will take full notice of this development. In the end, I believe the bottomline for these two companies is not a paper gain in their shares but eventual ownership of the projects. In Jinchuan’s case, a clock is now potentially ticking that they felt didn’t exist before the news. For Zijin, they now appear to have equal footing.

Let the games begin!

Because there’s no warrants and Zijin almost certainly has no shares to sell higher than $1.07, there’s no likely cap to the share price until the deal closes, which I believe is anticipated to be in short order. I maintain my aggressive speculative buy up to $1.20. There’s no reason to expect an immediate big boost, but I suspect as the perception one of the now two Chinese major shareholder mining companies is in this for more than a passive stock gain, the share price can work its way much higher over time.

http://grandich.agoracom.com/2009/10/continental-minerals-the-countdown-has-begun/