Since I last posted on 12 May, Contrarian Miner is down 2% to £129,763. In current volatile sector conditions I am happy enough with that, however I have made a few tweaks to the portfolio in the last few days:

• Sold my holding in OILB (a Brent Oil Tracker) – 250 shares at $23.42 – a 45% profit. This is not to say that I think we’ve seen the end of the oil price rally. I bought this oil tracker as a “placeholder” to ensure I had some exposure to oil price recovery before I had a chance to hunt down the particular oil stocks I wanted. I have since invested in  Tullow, Wentworth, Ophir and Maurel et Prom which together make up 17% of Contrarian. That is enough oil for a mining portfolio, so I am saying goodbye to OILB.
• Sold 4,000 Roxgold (Toronto: ROG) at C$1.22 realising an 87% profit. When I last sold down my holding in ROG  on 19 April, I explained my rationale – which hasn’t changed other than the move up in price from C$1.13 then to C$1.22 now (via C$1.40 – pity I missed it). I retain 3,500 shares, but don’t see it as a long term holding.
• Bought a further 90,000 Highland Pacific. Increasing my holding in what I continue to think is an interesting play. Sure both Ramu and Frieda River need higher prices to work (nickel and copper respectively) but both are world class in terms of scale and in addition you get exploration potential thrown in. All for an EV of A$38m . Bargain.

I have £7,512 in cash and lots of ideas for it.

Contrarian Miner has been fortunate to escape the volatility of the mining sector over the past week relatively unscathed. Since I last posted on 5 May, the Contrarian Miner portfolio is up 1.8% against the FTSE 350 Mining Index down 3.4%. Since inception Contrarian Miner is now up 32% against the index down 3% as shown on the chart below.

Portfolio holdings are unchanged since my last post. Contrarian remains close to fully invested (just £3,776 in cash) with a good spread of commodity exposure (see below). So trying hard not to fiddle.

Took advantage of a second day of market weakness yesterday to put some of Contrarian’s cash to work, buying:

• A further 70 Caterpillar (New York: CAT) at $75.33;
• An additional 75 PHPD at $57.22 (this is a physical palladium ETF – i.e. it holds the actual metal as the backing for each share so should track the palladium price very closely apart from a small mgt fee) – I already had a fairly substantial holding but I really like palladium;
• 4000 Ophir Energy (London: OPHR).

So why Ophir?

The shares fell 28% in three days after the company announced that the Schlumberger deal to fund their major Fortuna FLNG project had fallen through. Whilst we are scanty on details, it would appear to be commercial rather than technical considerations which scuppered the deal. This puts back the timing of that project, possibly significantly, and there is no certainty a new deal can be found on similar commercial terms.

But…

• The Fortuna project itself still looks robust (albeit at slightly higher gas prices), and the $450-500m capex estimate is relatively bite sized (for LNG where capex usually runs into the billions)
• The company has a market cap of $684m and, unusually for a producing oil and gas company a significant net cash position ($355m) giving an EV of just $329m.
• In addition to the (albeit now unfunded) FLNG project, Ophir has low cost ($15/bbl) producing assets in SE Asia with 55MMbo of 2P reserves and Indonesian gas to come on stream in H216. And loads of exploration acreage.

This may be a slow burn, but I believe the upside is 3-4x the current share price.

Pretty flat today, Contrarian stands at £129,615, and I now have just £3,421 in cash.

Contrarian Miner is down 4% today, to £131,550. Whilst it is never that much fun to watch £5,000 disappear overnight, the portfolio is down just 1% since I last posted on 20th April against the FTSE350 Mining Index down 11% so I am feeling OK. Portfolio performance has been helped by the fact that 15% of the portfolio was in cash when I last posted, as well as good performance from some of the gold stocks – Roxgold +15%, Caledonia Mining +11% and Goldcorp +9%.

I have taken advantage of today’s market weakness to top up two existing holdings, buying:

• 1250 Tullow at 247p (down 12% today)
• 1500 Maurel et Prom at €3.12 (down 3% today)

Both are holdings I have been wanting to add to, but in the case of Tullow I thought I had missed the boat as it has been so strong. With Tullow off 12% today I got a chance.

That still leaves me with £12,770 in cash, and while I have a few ideas for it I am trying to sit on my hands. Itchy fingers also keep wanting to sell Roxgold (up 98% from where I bought it) but I tell them no – gold has broken out of downward trend and could do almost anything.