Re: A brief history of the Santa Maria Mine, or 8,000,000 shares go poof!
?/?/99 - Gordon Lee, Don Blackburn, Tom Mills, and Larry McMillan form the Santa Maria Mining Company (SMCC), a California corporation.
7/13/99 - Orex announces Letter of Intent to "acquire the Santa Maria Mine and Mill, substantial reserves of moderate grade gold ore substantial high-grade reserves of uranium, vanadium, mining equipment, contract mining agreements as well as a current contract with Phelps Dodge (NYSE PD)."
8/16/99 - ORXX, "a gold mining company that has a license to use an environmentally safe gold extract process", agrees to merge with SMCC for 8,000,000 ORXX shares to be issued within 15 days of the closing.
Section 3.6 of the SMCC merger agreement in the 10SB filed on 1/31/00 says "The assets set forth in Section 3.6 in conjunction with any assets which the Company leases, constitute all of the assets used by the Company in connection with its businesses as presently conducted." No assets are listed; thus the Santa Maria Mine was not acquired as per the 7/13/99 PR.
10/14/99 - "Orex Gold Mines Commences Mining" at the Santa Maria mill and mine.
11/22/99 - ORXX announces "it will be testing the silica circuit at the Santa Maria Mill on or before November 30th, 1999."
11/30/99 - ORXX issues a PR to announce "it has begun crushing and milling silica ore from the Santa Maria mine to prepare samples for purity analysis" implying the mine is operational and work is being done on-site.
12/10/99 - ORXX applies for an Aquifer Protection Permit (APP) from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) for the Santa Maria Mining site. ORXX tells the ADEQ "We would like for the review process to be confidential..." Why? Was ORXX operating the mine without a permit or were they in fact not operating the mine at all?
12/22/99 - ADEQ cites 17 items ORXX must address before they can get their APP permit.
1/10/00 - ORXX announces 99.94% SiO2 at the Santa Maria site.
1/19/00 - Jeffrey Blackburn of SMCC informs the ADEQ that ORXX will not be using the Santa Maria site nor the "touted HGP process at our facilities, now or in the future." Contrary to the 11/30/99 PR they also write: "... the mill was not operated except to check the operation of that part of the [grinding] circuit." Hmmmm...
Recap: ORXX tells shareholders they intend to acquire the SMM mine, but never do. Instead, they merge with SMCC, a newly formed shell company owned by insiders that admits to not having any assets, for 8,000,000 shares. ORXX first tells shareholders they were interested in the mine because it contained gold on which they could use the Haber process for which they had a non-exclusive license. They then proclaim they will mine the 99.94% silica instead of the gold. They inform shareholders the mill is operational yet tell the ADEQ it was not except to test the grinding circuit. ORXX then tells the ADEQ it will be moving on to another property. ORXX shareholders scratch their heads wondering exactly what they got for 8,000,000 shares.
Lather, rinse, repeat as often as possible. (gg)
- Jeff |
