Yesterday US Tungsten Corp. dropped over 36%, down to a close of $0.37 per share, obliterating what gains investors made over the last month. Promoters have gone silent, with only a few morning emails sent before the stock tanked.

The pumpers at Penny Pick Finders came forward to announce Monday's drop as a "pullback" and a "lucrative" opportunity for new investors. It turned out this was not the case, as the stock kept sliding, but it doesn't really matter what you tell your subscribers so long as you're getting paid $35 thousand to tout a certain stock it seems.

Every investor who bought USTU shares throughout February is now sitting on a loss ranging roughly from 10% to a whopping 50%. The promotional pumps that targeted the company this month, starting February 9, seem to have had their run. The news release around the market open yesterday concerning the appointment of a new CEO did very little to promote investor confidence.

Despite the horrid performance of the stock over the last two days, promoters Awesome Stocks extended their feelers to USTU as well. In a new pump running on a compensation of $50 thousand that arrived towards the end of yesterday's session, Awesome Stocks tout the investment of $80 million Warren Buffet made in a South Korean tungsten mining venture last year, without pausing to think why Buffet chose to take his money to Korea instead of supporting U.S. production of the metal.

3PMCM_fail.pngAwesome Stocks previously pumped other companies that started trading actively only recently and that crashed horribly when the emails stopped coming. One recent example is Primco Management, Inc. a one-day promotion by Awesome Stocks crashed before it had a chance to run, with the promoters pocketing $60 thousand for their efforts.

Traders are advised to be extra careful with penny stocks, especially with companies that are currently being targeted by paid pumps. Even USTU's run and crash in February should be enough of a red flag that no amount of promotions can be any guarantee for the price performance of a stock.

Tungsten Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
Tel.: 86 592 5129696; Fax: 86 592 5129797
Email: sales@chinatungsten.com
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An initiative aiming to relaunch legal mining in eastern Congo after an export suspension of conflict minerals will produce its first refined tin by the end of March 2013.

Under the Conflict Free Tin Initiative (CFTI), over 200 tones of tin ore worth around $1.7 million have already been sold to the Malaysia Smelting Corporation from the Kalimbi Mine in South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The CFTI ensures that each mined ore receives a plastic tag with a bar core that corresponds to a certification document, so that the minerals extracted from it can be exported legally.
The initiative aims to permit legal mineral exports from Congo after the adoption of the United States Dodd Frank law, which almost entirely halted the African country’s mineral trade.

The Dodd Frank Act aimed to ensure that the purchase by international firms of "conflict minerals" coming from the DRC, such as columbo-tantalite, wolframite, cassiterite and gold, did not financially support the conflict. Section 1502 of the law requires "that companies publicly traded in the US disclose the use of conflict minerals from the DRC and adjoining countries in their products and describe the process used to ensure that the purchase of these minerals does not fund illegal armed groups operating in the DRC to the greatest extent possible." It is assumed that illegally extracted minerals are currently helping to finance the leaders of the M23 rebels in the North Kivu province, which has displaced early 250,000 people since April 2012 and determined 57,000 people to seek refuge in neighboring Rwanda and Uganda since the beginning of 2012.

The Enough project, a key supporter of the law, claimed that its implementation resulted in a 65 percent profit reduction for armed groups from tin, tungsten and tantalum in 2011. In turn, a U.N. report, published in December 2011, stressed that the export suspension had a devastating impact on the lives of ordinary people who depended directly or indirectly on mining and was ultimately directing mineral trade into the hands of smugglers, such as Bosco Ntaganda, one of the M23 rebel leaders.
Out of the around 900 mines located in South Kivu, Kalimbi remains currently the only one which has internationally recognized traceability. A multi-stakeholder team, which included representatives of the DRC Government, the United Nations, the German Geological Service (BGR), the local project manager of the ITRI Tin Supply Chain Initiative (iTSCi), representatives of local business and civil society, validated Kalimbi as a conflict-free mine. The Congolese government is seeking to similarly tag other mines in the upcoming months.

As a result of the crackdown brought by the Dodd Frank Act, local prices collapsed by a factor of 6 to less than $1 a kilogram, while the only remaining buyers were Chinese exporters and smugglers. A week after the introduction of the conflict-free certification system at the Kalimbi mine, the price has returned to $3.5 per kilogram and more than 3,300 kg have been tagged. Currently, around 1,294 miners work at Kalimbi and have more than doubled their earnings to $4-$6 per kg from $2/kg. It is expected that the conflict-free tin will easily find buyers, given that global supply is currently limited, as a result of low stocks and a lack of investment.

Eastern Congo has been affected by violence since the 1990s. One of the key reasons for the ungoing conflict is the fact that region is extremely valuable from an economic standpoint, due to its oil reserves, gold, tin, tungsten and coltan-a metal used to make mobile phones, for which both Rwanda and Uganda have fought in the past. Rwanda has twice invaded the DRC in the last two decades, even igniting in 1998 a conflict known as "Africa's Great War," in which several countries were involved. The Rwandan government justified this latter intervention by emphasizing that it had to react to hostile Rwandan Hutu fighters who had fled to Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Similarly, in the recent past, Uganda and Congo have fought over regulating border oil exploitation and resulted in the signing of the 2007 Ngurdoto Accords.

If legal production and sale of minerals would replace the current illegal and violent extraction process, Congo could enjoy a peaceful transition from its current state of conflict. Still, one potential problem for the conflict-free trade minerals is that there are currently thousands of tons of minerals extracted during the export suspension, which are stockpiled throughout eastern Congo, which could enter clandestinely on the trade market, thus threatening the credibility of the traceabililty project.

Tungsten Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
Tel.: 86 592 5129696; Fax: 86 592 5129797
Email: sales@chinatungsten.com
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The stock promotions for US Tungsten Corp. that started on Feb 9 seem to have finally coughed, spat and come to a halt. Yesterday USTU dropped over 16%, losing 11 cents on unprecedented volume of nearly 1.2 million shared traded.

The company was first promoted on February 9 for a compensation of $35 thousand. Since then other pumpers hopped on the bandwagon, touting USTU and the hot sector the company strives to operate in. The last promotion for the stock ticked in only yesterday, curiously after the trading session when USTU had already dropped. Promoters Penny Stock Prophet again disclosed $35 thousand received to advertise the stock.

USTU has not generated any revenues since inception in 2007 and is an exploration stage enterprise that is looking to stake out and develop its land claims, looking for tungsten deposits. The company also announced securing a loan of $1 million that it intends to use to develop its claims and finance operations. In 2012 USTU also obtained an option to acquire full interest in mineral claims in Montana, in a deal detailing total cash payments of $1 million, in deferred growing installments over each successive year.

To the company's credit, they have filed very comprehensive reports and have updated shareholders with the full details around their various acquisitions and contractual payments required. The recent cancellation of 123 million shares by USTU's President may come as a bit of a surprising move, but USTU will need to issue a fair amount of new shares to cover its loan and the loan comes with warrants for the purchase of 2 additional shares for each of the 1 million dollars.

Despite the positive PR and the secured line of credit, USTU remains an exploration stage company that has not proven that it can generate revenue and cannot as of yet guarantee that its land claims will yield significant tungsten deposits.

HKTU_fail.pngThe promoters at Penny Stock Prophet have a track record of promotions that turned quite sour once the promotions stopped, so this could also serve as a bit of a red light for traders. They touted Hokutou Holdings Int, Inc. only a couple of days ago, after other pumpers have had their way with the company and left it a smoldering ruin after pumping started in early February. Despite the promotion, HKTU closed another 16% down yesterday.

Traders are advised to be careful with promoted penny stocks as they are a hugely volatile market and the enticing future possibilities they offer often end up in disappointment.

Tungsten Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
Tel.: 86 592 5129696; Fax: 86 592 5129797
Email: sales@chinatungsten.com
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The person in charge of the Division of the Ministry of Land and Resources geological exploration, said recently that China prospecting breakthrough results exceeded expectations since the implementation of the strategic action to find and identify a number of world-class reserves of scale deposits.

It is reported that the prospecting breakthrough strategy action is based on the domestic action of a national strategy to enhance energy resources and support capabilities. The actions to implement the two years since, China has successively proven Nanpu, Hua Qing, Tahe, Penglai 19-3, 15 more than 1 million tons of proven reserves of oil fields; proven the Sulige, Puguang, Xu, deep 14 proven reserves of more than 100 billion cubic meters of gas fields, the initial formation of the the Sulige Tabei one trillion cubic meters of world-class scale atmospheric District; resources to add more than one hundred billion tons of coal exploration in Xinjiang and Shanxi reserves ; identify a very large sandstone type uranium the (camp uranium) in the Ordos Basin; tungsten, molybdenum, nickel, and other multiple large deposits of the emerging material resources in Gansu, Xinjiang newly discovered more than three large mineral deposits.
 

Tungsten Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
Tel.: 86 592 5129696; Fax: 86 592 5129797
Email: sales@chinatungsten.com
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