Eric Lemieux, metals and mining analyst with Laurentian Bank Securities, focuses on the emerging mineral wealth of the James Bay area of Quebec and discusses his favorite explorers in this exclusive interview with The Gold Report. Despite producers being more in favor, he believes the James Bay area with its exploration plays and favorable geological, geographic, and social fundamentals retains its advantages.

The Gold Report: Eric, when we last spoke (October 2008), you were focusing on mining companies in the James Bay area. You liked the area because it provided good infrastructure, a skilled workforce and promising geography. Do these advantages hold true today?

Eric Lemieux: Many things have happened since last fall that have made long-term focus and exploration plays much less attractive. Cash (the U.S. dollar) is said to be king and with gold’s rebound in December 2008, quality gold producers have been more in favor as opposed to speculative …

The bulls continued to run during Wednesday trading on the Canadian Markets as even lofty oil inventory numbers failed to damper to jubilant mode. For the tale of the tape, the TSX Exchange climbed 0.35%, while the TSX Gold Index tacked on 0.8% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, added 0.49% with the advancers beating out the decliners by a 360 to 352 margin on volume of 148 million shares traded.

Vantex Resources cut 0.52 grams gold per tonne over 245 metres at its Galloway project in the Rouyn-Noranda mining district. Vantex ended the day up C$0.01 at C$0.055.

Shares of Salazar Resources continued to move higher after the junior announced that it received official notice from the Minister of Mines and Petroleum of Ecuador authorizing the restart of its field operations. Salazar ended the day up C$0.13 at C$0.61.

Despite a lack of news, Titan

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Focused on silver exploration and development in Mexico, MAG Silver Corp. (NYSE AMEX: MVG) owns more than 100 square miles of prospective ground. With its successful geological modeling of both the epithermal vein systems of the Fresnillo Silver Trend and the carbonate replacement deposits (CRDs) in the Chihuahua Trough, the company is a leader in the application of modern geoscience in the venerable Mexican Silver Belt.

The company has 100% interests in the Lagartos North West property located in the Fresnillo Silver Trend; the Sello property located to the north of the San Martin and Sombrerete mining districts in Zacatecas state; the Batopilas (Don Fippi) property located in the western Sierra Madres of Chihuahua state; the Cinco de Mayo property, which is a 5,000 hectare carbonate replacement deposit located in north-central Chihuahua state; the Guigui property located in central Chihuahua state; and the Sierra de Ramirez property covering approximately 15,000 hectares

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In the February issue of The Morgan Report, we produced a feature that is of extreme significance to those of us who are serious about making money in the mining sector. We have diverted a bit from starting off the report with a quote and instead ask a very important question.

“What is an economic mining project?” A question any serious mining investor should ask!

The idea of how to define what really constitutes a good project from one that really might just be promotions by a junior mining concern led me to seek out an answer. In reality the answer came to me through my many contacts in the industry, specifically a certain PhD geologist, who stated to me that a myth existed that “open pit” silver mines could be profitable. This gentleman pointed out the facts that, although very few silver projects are profitable, many base metals operations are—but …

History of Zinc (from International Zinc Association, (http://www.iza.com/uses.html) Centuries before zinc was discovered in the metallic form, its ores were used for making brass and zinc compounds, its ores were used for healing wounds and sore eyes. It is believed that the Romans first made brass in the time of Augustus (20 B.C. - 14 A.D.). In the 13th century Marco Polo described the manufacture of zinc oxide in Persia. At Zawar, India, both zinc metal and zinc oxide were produced from the 12th to the 16th century. From India, zinc manufacturing moved to China in the 17th century where it developed as an industry to supply the needs of the brass industry. In 1743, the first European zinc smelter was established in Bristol in the United Kingdom. A major technological improvement was achieved in Germany which led to the erection of ...