EET ANNUAL MEETING SUMMARY
I attended this year's Etruscan annual meeting and took a few notes. Here's a summary of what I saw and heard:
The formal part of the meeting went by very quickly. In only about 15 minutes, the basic business motions regarding the directors, auditors and minutes were presented, voted on and accepted by the attendees.
CEO and Chairman of the Board, Gerald McConnell then closed the formal part of the meeting and spent about 20 minutes talking about the state of the company. Here are some of the points he made:
- He discussed how they want to focus EET on West African gold and Nova Gold (NRI) on Canadian base metals and gold. He said that they would likely make another effort to have the independent council agree to an acceptable price to move the hacket river asset over to NRI.
- He recognised the "lack of news" over the past "4 to 5 months" and indicated that we should see some news soon.
- He spoke about seeing "...the biggest opportunity [he] has ever seen in the mining industry" when talking about the potential to acquire new properties in the West African region. These can come from the under-funded juniors and the current strong cash position of EET, which can make these acquisitions possible. He said that he wants EET to "...emerge from the current market conditions with the premier gold portfolio in Western Africa".
Then President and COO, Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse then began a 30-minute presentation. Here is what I can summarise from it:
- First of all, the presentation was very professional. It looked great had a lot of quality content and Rick really knows his stuff. He recently joined EET from Placer Dome.
- He spoke about the 1.8 M oz. in the Samira target and showed a great 3D animated model of the deposit. He said that the gold is in very easily and cheaply mineable soft rock costing an estimated <$200 u.s./ oz to mine.
- He then talked about the reduction of the exploration area by 50%, which is required by the local government. This has to happen every 3-years or until a production permit is issued. EET and Placer have spent much of the past 6-months identifying this boundary so that they don't miss anything significant. This is done with lots of arial and auger surveys. They showed the proposed a boundary, and are waiting for government approval of it.
- He said the Samira drilling program has been "on hold" to free-up the people and tools to do a good job of identifying the new reduced exploration area, but it will continue in the future.
- He identified a newer target called "Darboundey" which he says could be "as impressive - or even more impressive" than the Samira deposit. They (Placer) are doing auger drilling on this target now and will commence diamond drilling in the fall (after the rainy season from June - September).
- Finally he showed a slide of some local African school kids, and talked about EET's contribution to the local community. He said that they are very highly respected by the locals and by all of the government and military officials.
- McConnell and Nieuwenhuyse took questions from the audience. Many of the questions were related to the Placer option and new announcements. McConnell said that Placer wouldn't announce anything less than 5M oz. and that the option deal was a win-win for EET. If they prove a target of 5M oz, they get half of it. If they don't, Placer has put-up lots of exploration capital and EET gets to keep the targets that have been identified. He said that Samira alone would be a "cash cow" for 3 to 4 years. The Placer Dome option ends on Sept. 19, 2000.
- I spoke with the directors the end of the meeting and feel very confident in this team. They again told me to be watching for some news in the near future.
Regards,
Brantz
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