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Additional	Information
Market:	CNQ
Sector:	General Mining
Epic:	HIHO
News:	Latest news
Web Site:	Hi Ho Silver
Other Articles:	02-09-200812-08-200823-07-2008

Hi Ho Silver: a lot more than a silver play

by Ian McInnes

Hi Ho Silver, as the name implies, should be about silver, and, yes, the company has silver interests too. Right now though, the company is focusing on molybdenum, moly for short. Hi Ho is close to getting a 43 -101 resource estimate for zone E of its Carmi (Kettle River) property, which is located in south-western BC. In the main, molybdenum concentrate is roasted to convert the sulfide to technical molybdic oxide, which is used to add molybdenum to steel; molybdic oxide can also be upgraded and used as a solid lubricant. Simply put, molybdenum adds hot strength, corrosion resistance and overall increased strength in all kinds of items from oil and gas pipelines to light bulbs.

Created by president and CEO Fred Fisher in 2005, Ontario based Hi Ho Silver, focused first on the moly property at Carmi. Fisher leads an experienced mining and business team and says that he is, ideally, not looking to go into production at the Carmi property and thinks that once the resource is delineated that it will pose an attractive buy for an Asian moly importer into China. Fisher expects the initial resource estimate to come up with around 3m tons of ore for zone E and thinks that the whole property could eventually total between 100-120m tons. “I am very pleased with the results to date from Carmi. My goal is that with further drilling we can prove up greater than 50 million tons of mineralized material with economic grades of molybdenite (MoS2),” said Fisher; Fisher expects zone E’s 43 -101 resource estimate sometime within the next eight weeks.

More in keeping with its name, Hi-Ho has other properties including a promising silver one at its Silver Tip Silver Project, which is located within the prolific Slocan/Nelson mining camp of BC. The company has a 51 percent interest in the property and expects to acquire the remaining 49 percent by the end of 2007. Initial samples have been encouraging in silver and gold and Hi Ho is looking to step up its exploration program in 2008.

Getting back to the work in hand and, standing at around $34/lb, moly looks an attractive proposition for investors. That’s the up side. The downside is that the moly market is regarded as one of the most opaque markets in the world. Much of the world’s moly supply comes as a by-product from copper miners such as Southern Peru Copper and Teck Cominco and 25 percent of moly comes from China and, therein lays the problem to market visibility.

Getting accurate and timely market information out of China rates high in the, “tough things to do,” list. Nevertheless, in the last three years, moly prices have been nicely above the $20/llb mark and this was the prime reason why Hi Ho took on the lapsed moly claims at the Carmi property. However, look back further and one will note that five, ten, and indeed 15 years ago, moly was languishing around the $2/lb mark, which was why the Carmi claim was lapsed. To the copper miners a drastic drop in price would be an inconvenience after enjoying some nice cash flows. To a dedicated moly mine looking for a long term project a return to the moly norm makes the term, “inconvenient,” an understatement. Some sort of correction is expected, projections going forward from Adanac Moly expects a drop in moly prices to around $20/lb in 2008 and $15/lb by 2012. But with 25 percent of the market veiled by China who can say what the true picture will be? In the meantime, Hi-Ho is on the brink of starting to prove, what is now a valuable resource, and with $1m in the bank and Fisher says the ability to get more for the next goal, a listing on the TSX, the company appears to be in a good position.

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