Place your bets, Fools! Surviving this credit crunch and global recession can be something of a crapshoot even for well-funded companies, while for the debt-laden it's pure Russian roulette.
One week after mapping out a general strategy to pay back a crippling $9.8 billion debt, Canadian miner Teck Cominco
Compared to dry bulk carrier Diana Shipping
Unfortunately for Teck shareholders, survival may ultimately cost a bundle, as prized assets like Petaquilla in Panama and the Lobo-Marte gold prospect in northern Chile have been abruptly torn from the project pipeline.
Kinross Gold
Tragically, Teck also ceded control of the Petaquilla Project to Canada's Inmet Mining for just $30 million in cash. Thought to contain 9.4 billion pounds of copper -- plus gold, silver, and molybdenum -- Petaquilla represents about one-fourth the copper content of Freeport-McMoRan's
Fortunately, Petro-Canada's
Further Foolishness:
- The impact of China's stimulus plan could be substantial.
- Can those Fording assets regain earnings like these?
- Weak zinc prices are causing widespread problems for miners.