I had the pleasure of talking briefly with William Rohtert again yesterday. I'll try to fit it into a Q and A format so that it is a bit easier to organize the information -- note that this is my recollection of what he said, not anything verbatim.
Q: Could you comment on the optical sorting being done by True North?
A: For some background, here is how optical sorting of gemstones came about. There is a company in Germany called Scan & Sort that became quite successful at applying optical scanning technology commonly used in the food industry for more than twenty years to the scanning and sorting of different coloured glass in materials for recycling. Obviously there are optical similarities between glass and gemstones, and things progressed from there. De Beers has now purchased 40 optical sorters, Tanzanite One is using them, and a friend of William's with an emerald mine in Brazil is also using them successfully. This technology is very new, and what is really exciting is that more advanced second generation machines are now coming out that use two light sources and two cameras. These machines are designed to detect fine gradations of colour, and determine if material is transparent or translucent.
Q: What has True North been doing with these machines -- there was mention of tests at the Cornwall School of Mines in England?
A: True North has been renting an optical sorter from the mining school. Note that SGS, which True North has been using to extract concentrate from at Lakefield, Ontario, is also in Cornwall and has screens, jigs, and tumblers that assist in the work of developing a totally automated extraction of material. Calibration tests for the optical machines were done in Germany and testing done in England.
Q: What are the results?
A: 35 pails of ruby and pink sapphire concentrate -- sorted from more than 800 kg of corundum concentrate from 2005 bulk sampling -- is ready to look at. Grades from the samples are fantastic! The company is just now going to peruse the results of this completely automated gemstone extraction -- we see we can now successfully compete with the armies of third world slave labour in the gemstone business!
Q: I heard you were in Greenland recently. How did things go there?
A: I was there for two weeks in a pilot program to train Inuit artisan in jewelry making to kickstart this for the arctic tourism industry. $50,000 of equipment, including six faceting machines and gemstone rough purchased at Tucson, were made available. I was really happy and excited about the results -- there were four Inuit guys who were top notch who were maybe good enough to be diamond faceters! Among other things, we made a pink sapphire bead necklace that was absolutely stunningly beautiful.
[As an aside, I did some reading on the history of the Inuit -- absolutely amazing that they have survived on what is the most difficult and hostile environment on the planet. Without a doubt this survival has depended upon enormous patience and concentration in hunting, and near perfection in crafting weapons, tools and kayaks with very little resources available to them. Make a flawed kayak, and a quick death in icy waters awaited their ancestors. Is it any wonder that Inuit craftsmen are known for their great skill, and ability to make something elaborate out of very little?]
Q: What was the weather like in Greenland in February?
A: We actually went to Greenland via Baffin Island. When we took off from Baffin, the temperature there was -50 degrees centigrade! 400 miles east across the Davis Strait, the temperature was +2 degrees centigrade, and in fact later warm winds came in such that temperatures went up to 12 degrees and the Inuit kids were playing outside in t-shirts. Warm water from the Gulf Stream makes an enormous difference to the climate, I can report that the waters were ice free, with boats moving in and out, and it is certainly possible to work in Greenland year-round.
Q: Did you do anything else in Greenland?
A: I made our proposal regarding the work for the summer, and it is currently being reviewed with a reply coming within 30 days. The board of directors, and one individual in particular, decided that commiting resources to aggressive drilling was not desireable. One concern was avoiding share dilution with the shares currently being at what is considered low prices, and money is not being fully diverted from the emeralds because apparently some shareholders view True North as a Canadian focused company and apparently would not understand an extreme focus elsewhere, even given that the gem grades coming out of Greenland are truly bonanza grades and those from the Yukon are very modest and requiring a great deal of efficiency in extraction to make any money on. The proposed plan for Greenland is to take two bulk samples of ten tonnes each -- from Aappalutoq and Kigutalik -- such amounts being statistically sufficient to extrapolate tonnage on a large enough scale. Extensive drilling would come in 2007, and by the end of that year, True North would need to come to a decision of whether to convert its licenses to exploitation licenses and start mining.
William had to get back to his work -- I should also comment that he said that True North has never been in better shape, and management should be very excited with the incredible grades of rubies it has just got back from its samples. |
