Subject: A New Age In Gold Refining
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To: +Michael J. Wendell (0 )
From: +Michael J. Wendell
Wednesday, Dec 24 1997 3:40PM EST
Reply # of 365
Happy Holidays Folks,
A little Greetings Card
December 24, 1997
The time of the year has come for all of us to pause and reflect. We can reflect upon
our accomplishments and maybe what we should have accomplished. So in tribute to
some really great acquaintances, people I have worked with, friends and people that
have effected my life including some that are no longer with us, let me start by wishing
all of you a happy holiday first. That way you may not have to read this. Please forgive
me if occasionally I misspell a persons name.
I start my list of Happy Holiday wishes with Dr. Richard Garnet. This guy stuck with a
project and kept on working when the financing was gone. He believed. He fought
assay problems and incompetent petrology work to overcome all that and Voisey Bay
was born. Rich, having been forced to work for stock as compensation in a company
that appeared to be going nowhere, became rich over night. He is living proof that hard
work and perseverance when placed on a higher level than greed, the will to produce,
can make it big time. And followers of such a person and his likes will likely win again.
He has had coffee in my home and I wish I could find and set aside his cup as a
momento. Good work Rich. We are proud of you and what you stand for. Happy
Holidays
Dr. David Evans and Dr. Mike Sherrat. Happy holidays to you guys also. I have met
both of you and worked a little with one of you. Through perseverance and hard work
you started with an idea that platinum should be in the Stillwater ultrabasic complex.
The copper and chrome were there in once commercial quantities; the platinum must
be there too. But technical problems, assay difficulties and petrology accuracy plagued
the project from the beginning. After the discovery, metallurgical problems continued to
plague the project. But you guys were great and North Americas largest platinum
today operates as a tribute to a fine piece of work you did there.
Max E. Anderson, I hope where you are today the balloons fly higher than they did
when you were with us. I only met Max twice, and cannot say I really knew him. Once
was at a meeting dinner of the AIME and once we were invited guests for our
accomplishments at a dinner put on by the Security Pacific Bank. I didn't belong in that
group. Max did not discover anything new. But his ideas in finance were spectacular.
His innovative financing methods allowed him to accomplish his dream. Through hard
work and setting uranium production goals he built Ranchers Exploration. The uranium
industry in this country is gone now as is he himself. Happy Holidays Max, where ever
you fly.
James H. Cazier - Happy Holidays- I spent a lot of great years working with Jim. He
had worked under Reno Sales, Reno was Mr. Big at The Anaconda Company. Reno
did more to influence the mining industry in this country from 1910 to 1960 than any
man alive. Jim was an engineer working together with another future great, geologist,
Ed Sholtz at Anaconda in those early years. Together and apart they did one project
after another. They operated the Copper King massive sulfide mine near Bagdad,
Arizona, Jim converted Bagdad Copper into the pit mine it is today, As president of
Web Resources he co-started the second large scale successful gold pit mine in the US
as a JV with Placer Development. He invested early into Las Vegas real estate
development as well as developments in Phoenix and Denver. But his greatest
accomplishment was being hired as a very expensive consultant for Inexco Oil Co,
NYSE. I had moved up in the company to the top floor and management felt that Jim
would be a good tutor for me. They never said that way, but I was a young realist and
knew and appreciated their motives. Well, to be honest, Jim was running the show.
What was the end result? We pulled out of everything, Alaska Mercury, US Uranium
(Sold all of our deposits), US base and industrial minerals and placed our bets
(Focused) on a massive sulfide exploration in Canada. The project had been originally
put together by Jordan-Digger- Smith. Talk about risk. But one with major company
building possibilities. That project JV, co-managed with team of professionals from
Uranerzbergbau gmbh of Germany discovered the Key Lake Uranium deposit. That
deposit ultimately became so big it destroyed the market for high cost uranium
throughout the world. Last projections I saw was that that KL deposits by the year
2000 may have a world wide 75% market share. And Jim's influence allowed it all to
happen. But most of all he influenced me to look at the negative side of everything and
still try and find some reason to continue. Happy Holidays Jim.
Les Bracken (or Les Brecken) Happy Holidays Les. I believe you too were a person I
should be wishing a Merry Christmas to. I never did know you, but I heard a lot about
you and your philosophies from Jim. You to are gone now, but your passing has
caused the DDs a lot of grief. Back in your day, if a man wanted to mine, he did so.
You started at the Kennedy McCarthy massive copper deposit and flooded the world
with copper. When that was "petering out" you and your company took over Utah
Copper. You admired the gold mining work of Anderson in Juneau Alaska. You felt
mass mining would be better off as an open pit rather than below ground. The first
modern copper pit mine was born. In the beginning you and your engineers took a lot
of flak over that one, Bingham Canyon Copper, but today we have pits all over the
world making our standard of living possible by producing tons of base metals, gold
and coal for cheap, cheap, cheap. But Less, you had such a good reputation with the
banks and investors, that your death sure messed things up a bit. In your day a good
man could use a lot of "rule of thumb judgement" The experienced man with good
common sense had good quality hunches and investors would follow his concepts and
views. But after you died, your exploration company, Bear Creek Mining, started
focusing on geophysics, geochemistry, assay data by the ton that brought about the
cheap low bidder assays we have today and specialists for every phase of the project.
That has left us with no rock to put into the ore box. No one can make rational
decisions today with so much data compiled that no one can understand it. You died
and your quality of professional expediency went downhill a bit. We replaced you with
high tech hocus-pocus. You see, Less, you had the confidence of investors and
bankers alike, and you took that confidence with you. So for the good you caused to
happen, Thanks Les and Happy Holidays.
Robert Friedland - Happy Holidays - Robert, you helped finance a company called
Summitville Mining. The deposit had problems too. They built a 20,000 ounce per year
processing facility. But an ecological disaster that was not in man's control, caused a lot
of harm. But you are a good man with a reputation for getting quality projects. You
bounced back. You stuck with Diamondfields through thick and thin and almost broke.
That perseverance paid off big time for your investors. I understand some made 600
times on their money, but that is only a rumor. But they did make it big time. Some
would say you are lucky, but I will say you are a man that has a focus and ability to
make things happen. Voisey Bay was luck and one heck of a lot more than that.
Happy Holidays, Robert.
Well, that covers the past. Now I want to wish Happy Holidays to a few pioneers that
any one of which and collectively can make the next big impact on an industry built
around the DDs. The names are arranged in alphabetical order by first name.
Doug Rowe, Birch Mountain Mining; Einar Myrholm, Agau Resources; Fred Okosh,
Naxos; Hugh Abercrombie, Birch Mountain; Jimmy Johns, Naxos; John van Engelen,
Chauncey Assay Laboratory, Toronto; Kenneth Richardson, Agau Resources, Lee
Furlong, IPM; Mike Mehrtens, International Gold; Murray White, White Technology;
Raymond Wendell, Consolidated Noble; Richard Jensen, GPGI; Rick Childress,
unaffiliated; Robert Lipsett, Birch Mountain Mining; Russell Twiford, GPGI; Sahe
Sabag, Tintina Mines; Stanley Wardle, Consolidated Noble; Wayne Palmer, GPGI.
The above are the current pioneers. The folks going into the DDs seeking that special
place in history. The one that can someday say, "been there, done that". Well for
everyone here and those I missed, Happy Holidays and let us all work together to get
the job done in 1998. We must not approach this endeavor as "we can do it", we must
approach this endeavor as "we will do it". Failure is not an option. Happy Holidays
mike |
