Thursday, June 19, 2008 Quelle: The Quest For Profits On Thursday, Quest Minerals and Mining Corp. (OTCBB: QMNM) gained more than 200% on nearly 206,000,000 shares traded. That's not a typo, folks. The stock surged out of the gates from an opening price of $.002 and ran all the way to its intra-day high of a penny before settling down at $.0053 by the closing bell. Thursday's Gains Attract Friday's Investors Despite the stock lingering in sub-penny land for some time now, the sheer volume in today's trading generated a significant amount of capital for investors and likely sounded an wake-up call to the market. There will likely be more eyeballs watching the stock by Friday, as Internet message boards light up and investors quickly realize that Quest was the most heavily traded stock on the OTCBB Thursday and was also one of the exchange's biggest percentage price gainers. Calm Before The Storm? The company has been silent over the past day after making a number of positive announcements back in May. Quest announced a letter of intent to purchase the assets of Mountain Ridge Mining which include: a high wall miner and the rights to mine coal with estimated reserves of 6 million tons of Met coal. On 4/14 Quest announced the successful completion of one of the last stages of rehab on its Pond Mine Creek property. Federal agents witnessed and approved the company's rescue plan for the mine, a key area of industry concern in the light of recent mining disasters in the U.S. Back on the 30th of April, QMNM moved one step closer to mining coal with the announcement that it has obtained the approval of their ventilation plans from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). On May 7, QMNM announced that it had sent notification to the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) that it intended to soon start mining coal under their recently approved ventilation plan while the rehabilitation is being completed. By the company's account. coal should already be flying out of its mine in Eastern Kentucky. While we've seen no update in this regard, maybe the smart money knows something that we don't here. With today's run up coming on zero news, just think what a coal-producing announcement could do for the stock, short-term. Coal Reserves May Be More Valuable Than Once Thought If Quest does in fact own proven coal reserves that they are indeed about to prospect, said reserves may actually prove to be even more valuable than today's high prices would indicate. According to energyandcapital.com: * The peak of world production is only ten to fifteen years away; * The peak of U.S. production is in the past; * Reserves have been overstated by as much as 90%; * The media are still reporting that there will be abundant supplies for another 150 years, 200 years, or more; * The reserve numbers from Asia are particularly suspect, some dating back to the 1960s. China hasn't reduced its reported reserve numbers in 15 years, even though we know they've produced some 20% of their reserves since then; * For the last 20 years, all major coal-producing nations that have updated their reserve numbers have adjusted them downward. And in the last 25 years, the global total reserve estimate has been cut by 60%; * In terms of coal production, China is the largest producer, and will hit its peak "within the next 5 to 15 years, followed by a steep decline." The U.S. is the second-largest producer at 30%, and will likely peak between 2020 and 2030; * Total global reserves: about 909 billion tons. A little more than half of that is the good, high-energy stuff, and the rest is low grade; * About 90% of all coal in the world is in just six countries: the U.S., which has the most, plus Russia, India, China, Australia and South Africa; and * The absolute peak of global coal production will likely be around 2020 . . . approximately ten years, maybe less, after the global peaks of oil and gas. After a record day in the market on the 19th, the world is certainly watching this morning as Quest Minerals and Mining gears up for another session of trading. As the buzz around coal continues to build and weekly volume picks up in Quest as a result, any news related to initial coal production could make the stock's 'thousandth of a penny' days a thing of the past. QMNM traded nearly 84 million shares and has already surpassed 274 million before Friday. Tomorrow could get quite interesting, folks. |