{"id":444659,"date":"2010-03-18T13:39:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-18T17:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"e2249889-c78b-43e3-9643-b1d7d4aa587b:409523"},"modified":"2010-03-18T13:39:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-18T17:39:00","slug":"semafo-makes-good-first-impression-scotia-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/444659","title":{"rendered":"Semafo makes good first impression: Scotia Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gold miner <a href=\"http:\/\/www.financialpost.com\/markets\/company\/index.html?symbol=SMF&amp;id=34806\" >Semafo Inc.<\/a>&#39;s success in West Africa has impressed Scotia Capital, which recently initiated coverage on the company.<\/p>\n<p>Leily Omoumi, analyst with Scotia Capital, gave Semafo an initial Outperform rating with $6 target price in a note to clients.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Semafo, in our opinion, has transformed into a meaningful player in the region of West Africa with the successful commissioning, ramp-up, and exploration program at its flagship asset, Mana, in Burkina Faso,&quot; she said. &quot;We believe Mana, aside from its current steady production, presents a signficant resource growth opportunity with both underground and near-surface exploration potential.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Omoumi expects the Mana mine, which opened in 2008 and is the largest active gold site in the country, to account for 70% of the 250,000 ounces of gold she forecasts Semafo to produce in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>As well, Semafo began exploring underground mining at Mana in 2009, and based on the results Ms. Omoumi estimates 840,000 ounces of gold at 3.20 grams a tonne for the site.<\/p>\n<p>However, the company&#39;s other projects in Niger and Guinea both pose political risk. Ms. Omoumi is more concerned about the Kiniero site in Guinea, which is Semafo&#39;s smallest operation at 20,000 ounces. She figures the mine has 3.5 years of life left in it, as Semafo is &quot;weighing its options&quot; and committments to the country.<\/p>\n<p>Cosmos Chiu with CIBC World Markets Inc. also praised Semafo&#39;s handling of the Kiniero project.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Semafo has done well in focusing on its strategic objectives in 2010 while, at the same time, exercising financial discipline in the management of operations,&quot; he said in a note Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>As well, there will likely be an upside surprise to Semafo&#39;s production in 2010 as its guidance has been &quot;conservative,&quot; he said. Mr. Chiu rates Semafo a Sector Outperformer with a target price of $7.50.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Scotia&#39;s $6 target price implies a return of 17%.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:erlam@nationalpost.com\">Eric Lam<\/a> <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/network.nationalpost.com\/NP\/aggbug.aspx?PostID=409523\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gold miner Semafo Inc.&#39;s success in West Africa has impressed Scotia Capital, which recently initiated coverage on the company. Leily Omoumi, analyst with Scotia Capital, gave Semafo an initial Outperform rating with $6 target price in a note to clients. &quot;Semafo, in our opinion, has transformed into a meaningful player in the region of West [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4586,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-444659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4586"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}