Petaquilla (PTQ.to): LatAm's worst miner about to hit a serious cash crunch

We've documented just how bad this mining company really is on several occasions.

• We've mentioned the as-yet unpaid multi-million dollar environmental fines imposed by the government for reckless disregard for the law, the land and the people around the mine.

• We've observed that it's run by a convicted drug trafficker.

• We've noted the BS promo techniques via lapdog press friends and BS scammy expat bloggers in Panama.

• We've seen its flagrant disregard for correct procedure and how it produces gold even though it still has no licences to do so legally.

• We even know that Panama's ombudsman has recommended it closed immediately.

But we haven't mentioned the big big financial problems at PTQ.to yet.

If we check out the working capital position at PTQ.to, we see that according to the last earnings report it is in deficit to the tune of $7.7m or so. OUCH.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Now that's a lot of money for such a pisspoor company, but the progress towards PTQ.to imminent cash crunch has now been made that much quicker by recent rulings from Panama's government. According to latest reports, in order for the company to make itself legal and get the licences it needs to operate, it will have to:

1) Pay its outstanding fines to the Environment agency ANAM that amount to U$1.93m

2) Pay its amount outstanding to the MICI commerce ministry, precisely $900,000

3) Deposit U$14.3m at ANAM as a bond to cover any future environmental fines caused by the company as well as final clean up charges.

And the funniest thing is that so far not a single dollar of the above U$17.3m is set aside as contingency by the company, so somehow they have to add all this burden on to the books in order to get a licence to operate. Or in other words, I sure hope you're not long PTQ.to right now, dude, because if you are there's a financially religious experience coming your way very soon. DYODD.

Petaquilla Minerals (PTQ.to) and its total disregard for the law

On this link find today's press release from Petaquilla Mineral (PTQ.to) that tells us it has just poured its first gold (on April 7th). It has done this without having environmental approval and in total disregard to the government ANAM office that specifically ordered the company to stop all work until it met with and gained environmental approval for its operations.

• This is also the same company responsible for a toxic leak last month that killed fish and wild animals in the region.

• It's the very same company that refuses to pay a previously imposed environmental fine for its manifold breaches of regulations and disregard for local people, their land and their water supply.

• It's the same company that faces a further round of sanctions, fines and prolonging of its suspension (the one being totally ignored) due to the recent investigations by ANAM and the failure of the company to comply with environmental law, as announced last week.

• It's the company that has brought locals out to block the access road to the mine for the second time in a month (on April 6th) due to its unrelenting malpractice.

Against all this, these bastards calmly announce that they have poured gold to an unsuspecting audience. The image of Voltaire's firing squad "pour encourager les autres" once again springs to mind. If PTQ.to moves up today it will give a shorting opportunity of a lifetime to the people at Kingsford Capital (and other shortside traders). I strongly encourage them to take that chance, as this company is an embarrassment to the mining community and should be traded out of existence in the shortest possible time.