Minera Andes Inc - McEwan (aka. past CEO and Founder of Gold Corp GG ) joins board!

Minera Andes is a favorite of us here at Mining 101, simply because the hybrid production-explorer business model guarantees certain protection against shareholder dilution like most risky explorers out there.

From one of their recent news releases, they have been making some good money last few quarters.

Minera Andes Inc. has released details of the San Jose mine performance to June 30, 2008. The San Jose project is operated by Minera Santa Cruz SA (MSC) and is owned 49 per cent by Minera Andes and 51 per cent by Hochschild Mining PLC. Hochschild is the operator of the project. Gross proceeds from metal sales during the second quarter of 2008 were $63.7-million. Over the past 12 months, the San Jose project has produced gross sales of approximately $74.6-million in gold and silver, mostly from the last three quarters.

The San Jose mine commenced its operation a year ago and is now at full production. Production in the second quarter 2008 totalled 1,093,000 ounces of silver and 12,410 ounces of gold, of which 49 per cent is attributable to Minera Andes. Currently, plans are under way to expand the mine and double the current production rate by year-end 2008.

Allen Ambrose, president of Minera Andes, said: "The San Jose project now has cash flow that is being used to pay for the expansion of the mine this year and for the connection to the regional power grid. Remaining funds will be used to begin repayment of the joint venture project debt. With our current cash position of approximately $8.4-million and the mine with cash flow, we are well positioned to grow the company."

Very impressive indeed. So when they added their last news release, you would only expect their share price to go up even more, right!

No.

Apparently adding the expertise of the founder and ex-CEO of Gold Corp. (Yes, the one and only), Robert McEwan, is not even enough in this market to trigger a positive response!

Remember, this is the man who grew Gold Corp and gave investors $23,000 for every $1,000 invested from 1993, before he resigned to start his new company US Gold.

WHEN ROBERT MCEWEN got up to speak at his company's annual meeting earlier this month, his first words were: "GOLD is money." It's become a mantra for the soft-spoken chairman and chief executive of Goldcorp Inc. "You can help your family and friends," he went on, offering advice to the 500 or so believers and investors gathered at the CBC's Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, "if you get them to buy gold." It's worked for McEwen. In a market that's lost 50 per cent in value since its September 2000, peak McEwen's company's stock price has doubled, twice, in the past two years. Investors who put $1,000 into Goldcorp in 1993 now have an investment worth close to $23,000. With $460 million in assets and no debt, McEwen is sitting on a gold mine. Literally.

McEwen's firm is a mid-size Canadian mining company with operations in North Dakota and Saskatchewan. It has stakes in a handful of junior exploration companies. But its crown jewel is in northwestern Ontario: the Red Lake mine, first developed in the 1940s. By the time McEwen bought it, in 1989, it was thought to be nearly played out. Wrong. Today, Red Lake is the world's richest gold mine. It's made his shareholders happy and McEwen enormously wealthy. Recently, he donated $10 million for research to Toronto's University Health Network (three major hospitals) and on June 23, Prince Edward will officially open the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine. But before riches and royalty entered his life, McEwen had to overcome major hurdles. In his bid to extract the gold he believed all along was at the Red Lake site, he faced lawsuits, a family feud, a debilitating strike and a death threat, not to mention an investment community that didn't believe in him. "It's funny," McEwen says today, "how things turn around."

Looking at Minera Andes`s chart from that news release and onwards, you would think that maybe a horrible accident had happened at the San Jose mine or something!

It spiked from $1.04 to $1.14, then down to $1.01, lower than it opened earlier before the news release!

Minera Andes operates in the very mining friendly province of San Juan, Argentina, and has two key properties.

The producing San Jose gold mine (49% MAI`s) joint with Mauricio Hochschild & Cia. Ltda (51%) - keeps MAI`s bottomline profitable, while most of their exploration goes towards bringing their promising Los Azules project to production stage.

As MAI`s already at $1+ 200 day moving average range, I would put my money on the promising junior - TNR Gold Corp which has a 25% on portions of Los Azules.

Think about it, TNR`s at about $0.25 - when this inferred resource is announced from Los Azules by 2008 Q4 (CEO from MAI says so!) TNR would have 25% on say... 4 million lbs of copper... it would really solidify the company`s worth. If MAI`s at $1.40 and has only a 49% portion on a mine, 25% on Los Azules should at least justify $0.50 from where TNR is currently at, no?

the exploration program at Los Azules is designed to define an inferred resource and provide sufficiently detailed engineering and technical information to allow the completion of an economic scoping study (a preliminary assessment as defined by National Instrument 43-101) of the property by the fourth quarter of this year.

Not to mention MAI is the type of company that loves to advance projects with help of a major, and with a heavy weight advisor like Mr. McEwan, I am pretty sure the name Gold Corp carries some weight in the mining world... financing money wouldn`t be as big as an issue for him...!

I am definitely liking the story for TNR more and more... if they are fully carried to production with this Los Azules and MAI... story is going to get really interesting, to say the least.

Did I mention, Barrick Gold also owns close to 10% of TNR?

Barrick on the brink of a new century was much the same as Barrick historically aquisitions, steady production, and exceptional profit. In March, the company reached an agreement with TNR Resources to buy many of its Argentinian properties, an area in which Barrick was already established through its El Indio gold belt explorations and mining. Yet Peter Munk was determined not to take his company's fortunes for granted. Quoted in the corporate history by Peter C. Newman, which Barrick commissioned and published in 1995, Munk said: '... We tell each other not to get too euphoric. I remind them [his executive management team] not to be caught in the deadly sin of hubris. We must never start believing we're invincible; that would be fatal. I keep repeating to my people--and I make them repeat it back to me so I'm sure they get it--that we are still the same human beings we were 10 years ago when we were struggling. Balance sheets change but people don't. We'll never get too big for our britches.'