While we are talking PARTNER, take a look at what Maxam and Max Cooley did on their SUMMER VACATION, in those June NRs...LOL..Strathcona and Pincock, Allen & Holt:Maybe 1999 will be our year, someone else post this on Maxam Gold Thread( I just posted Boo on Birch Mountain Thread!), I felt it applied HERE and the Partner Comment on Joint Cooperation that THEY all announced publically in May-June just may come to fruitation in 1999 if we are lucky, I have no EXACT CLUE...but maybe the Guys Who Prooved that BreX was a scam...just might ( Strathcona ) proove Dale Runyon was the Father of The Desert Dirts and Complex Mineralizations rather than just the Poppa of WSRI. Think on that! I am tired of tieing this all together for everyone as we await, I am not even posting this on B-M Thread here, some1-else pick up the discussion, I am plane tired of talking to myself about my-OUR view of the FUTURE IN<of>MINING!
Birch Mountain raises $565,000 privately
Birch Mountain Resources Ltd BMD
Shares issued 27,777,790 1999-11-23 close $1.53
Wednesday Nov 24 1999
Mr. Doug Rowe reports
Birch Mountain has closed a non-brokered private placement for gross proceeds of $565,000, less expenses estimated to be $5,000. No agents' fees or commissions were payable on this transaction.
The private placement consisted of 491,305 units. Each unit was priced at $1.15 and consisted of one common share and one-half of one common share purchase warrant, under which 40,000 common shares were issued with attached flow-through benefits and 451,305 common shares were issued without flow-through benefits. Each whole common share purchase warrant entitles the holder to purchase one common share at an exercise price of $1.50 per common share on or before Nov. 10, 2000.
The proceeds of the private placement will be applied to the working capital of Birch Mountain and will be primarily committed to furthering the Prairie gold project in Western Canada.
Birch Mountain completed the acquisition of 846785 Alberta Ltd., a private Alberta corporation, the sole asset of which is a 0.70-per-cent undivided net smelter return royalty in certain metallic and industrial mineral permits held by Birch Mountain. As consideration for the acquisition, Birch Mountain issued 25,000 common shares at a deemed price of $1.14 per share.
Strathcona Mineral Services Limited and Pincock, Allen & Holt Ltd. have been retained to provide independent recommendations and expert opinions on Birch Mountain's Prairie gold exploration, related technology development and scoping economics.
Strathcona has conducted independent sampling on Birch Mountain's Athabasca property and will prepare an assessment of sampling and analytical results, including precious metal assay methods currently under refinement.
Pincock, Allen & Holt is working with management to prepare conceptual economic models of precious metals development in Athabasca for internal strategic planning.
canada-stockwatch.com
Chucka-Go TECH...oops...NEWTECH
P.S.- Strathcona Mineral Service- The BEST their is:
edmontonjournal.com
Tarnished Gold:
There is no gold at Busang, report says
MORE
Finding answers
The company that probed the samples
Get the latest
Through the Calgary Herald
Bre-X Web site
Includes useful charts, graphs and history
GO HERE
for information about discussion groups and bulletin boards relating to Bre-X
BERTRAND MAROTTE
Southam Newspapers
TORONTO - The Busang gold discovery in Indonesia is a bust and likely the result of a massive operation involving the "salting" of thousands of drill samples with gold taken from elsewhere, according to new test results released late Sunday night.
Samples from the property on the island of Borneo that sent tiny Bre-X Minerals skyrocketing to the top ranks of the mining world contain only "trace amounts of gold," with no samples producing "gold values of economic interest," says a summary of an independent audit by Strathcona Mineral Services Ltd. of Toronto.
"The magnitude of the tampering with core samples that we believe has occurred and resulting falsification of assay values at Busang, is of a scale and over a period of time and with a precision that, to our knowledge, is without precedent in the history of mining anywhere in the world," says a letter to Bre-X president David Walsh, dated May 3, from Strathcona president Graham Farquharson.
The report says the gold found in Bre-X's drilling samples from the allegedly rich southeast zone of Busang "originated from a source other than the southeast zone . . . and has resulted in falsification and misrepresentation of many thousands of samples with . . . subsequent erroneous estimates of gold resources.
Bre-X president David Walsh said in a news release: "We share the shock and dismay of our shareholders and others that the gold we thought we had at Busang now appears not to be there.
"Bre-X is devastated that the Strathcona analysis does not confirm earlier analytical work done by Bre-X. The report instead indicates that the company's belief about the size of the Busang II reserve was based on falsified data."
WHO'S WHO
David Walsh: Bre-X president and chief executive. A once-bankrupt stock promoter, Walsh, 51, has become rich by selling off pieces of the company. Has an office in Calgary but lives in Nassau, Bahamas. Insisted Bre-X would be proved right after doubts were raised about the size of its deposit.
John Felderhof: Senior Bre-X vice-president of exploration. A 56-year-old geologist who graduated from Dalhousie University in the early 1960s and spent years in the Third World searching for gold. A native of the Netherlands, Felderhoff met Walsh in 1983 and impressed him with his unconventional theories about gold deposits.
Mike de Guzman: Philippine native and former chief Bre-X geologist who discovered Busang. De Guzman plunged to his death from a helicopter while on his way to the gold site in March. The helicopter pilot said de Guzman must have jumped, and police found a note that said he was taking his life because of a terminal illness.
Jim Bob Moffett: President and chief executive of Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold. The New Orleans-based mining giant and Bre-X partner revealed in March that its tests for gold at the Busang deposit were coming up virtually empty.
- The Canadian Press
Walsh had insisted right until the very end that he would be vindicated and that there would be at least the 71 million of ounces of gold claimed in the official estimates.
Instead, the report vindicates Jim Bob Moffett, the chairman of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., Bre-X's U.S. partner that set off the meltdown in Bre-X's stock price in late March when it announced that its due diligence program had found only negligible amounts of gold at Busang.
More than a half-dozen class action lawsuits by Bre-X shareholders have been filed in the United States and Canada. Lawyers for the shareholders are expected to swing into action in light of Sunday's bombshell.
Bre-X stock, which closed Friday on the Toronto Stock Exchange up 19 cents at $3.23, once flew as high as $200 before a 10-for-one split. The TSE said late Sunday it will halt trading in Bre-X stock today.
Strathcona recommends in its report that "those authorized and qualified to carry out investigations into the fraudulent activities that we believe to have occurred should be contacted immediately and requested to pursue the matter that we are bringing to their attention of Bre-X and any other parties concerned."
The report says it makes its opinions and conclusions "without reservation," and adds that it does not anticipate any changes in a final report when all the drill core from its audit program will have been assayed.
"What I'd like to see is how far back this salting goes," said Brian Fagan, editor of Asian World Stock Report, based in Grayland, Wis.
"This is a premeditated, well-executed fraud," he said.
"This thing has to be investigated from top to bottom and the dirt has to be out in the open and they've got to lay some criminal charges," he said.
Too often in the past, mining fraud activity that has come to light in the junior exploration sector has been swept under the rug and now is the time to take quick and decisive action if the entire industry - particularly in Canada - is not to suffer irredeemable damage, said Fagan.
One aspect of the bizarre Bre-X saga was the alleged suicide in March of its chief geologist, Mike de Guzman, when he dropped out of a helicopter flying over the Borneo jungle on his way to meet with Freeport-McMo-Ran officials about alleged discrepancies in the test results.
Speculation about a sophisticated salting operation had centred on de Guzman.
KEY DATES
1993
The Calgary-based company begins exploring for gold in patch of rain forest in Indonesia.
1995
Bre-X says Busang deposit may contain over 30 million ounces of gold.
1996
February - Indonesia says Bre-X has found 40 million ounces.
May - Bre-X shareholders approve 10-for-1 stock split. Shares hit $201.75.
July - Bre-X raises estimates to almost 47 million ounces.
October - Indonesia announces delay of mining permits for Busang until ownership dispute with local partners is settled.
December - Bre-X and Barrick Gold of Toronto agree on framework of deal to develop property.
1997
January - Indonesia gives Bre-X and Barrick a month to agree with local partners. Deal falls apart.
Feb. 16 - Bre-X, Freeport-McMoRan and Indonesian businessman Bob Hasan sign deal giving Bre-X 45 per cent of Busang, Freeport 15 per cent and Indonesian interests, including the government, 40 per cent.
Feb. 17 - Bre-X hikes its estimate to 71 million ounces.
Feb. 19 - Bre-X vice-president John Felderhof says deposit may hold 200 million ounces of gold.
March 19 - Bre-X geologist Mike de Guzman, co-discoverer of deposit, plunges from a helicopter in an apparent suicide. Bre-X says a note written by de Guzman indicates he had a fatal illness.
March 21 - Indonesian newspaper quotes unnamed sources suggesting find may not be the giant Bre-X had claimed. Bre-X shares fall $2.25 to $15.20. Bre-X issues denial.
March 26 - Bre-X announces independent consultant has found gold estimates may have been overstated. Bre-X partner Freeport-McMoRan reveals its initial tests found "insignificant" gold.
March 27 - Bre-X shares skid to $2.50 in panic selloff as experts debate whether the deposit is a hoax.
April 12 - Securities regulators announce a task force to look at mining standards.
May 5 - Bre-X releases a long-awaited independent report on the Busang field.
- The Canadian Press
The Busang fiasco has already given a black eye to Canada's booming mining industry, to the dozens of securities dealers who sold Bre-X in a rarely seen display of hyperbole about how great Busang was going to be, and to the Toronto Stock Exchange, which hurriedly listed Bre-X last year on flimsy information.
Now, fingers will be pointing everywhere.
In the line of fire will be securities regulators, most prominently the Ontario Securities Commission, the country's biggest securities watchdog, .
Bre-X started life as a penny stock on the Alberta Stock Exchange, but grew on the strength of a drilling program at Busang, in East Kalimantan, on the Indonesian side of Borneo.
Thousands of investors rushed into the stock as estimates grew from an original three million ounces to 71 million ounces, and even an unofficial 200 million ounces, claimed by Bre-X director John Felderhof as recently as February.
Many investors bought stock on margin - that is, they leveraged everything they had, including their house - to get a piece of the hot Bre-X action.
Bre-X said Strathcona and legal, accounting and investigative consultants have been retained to conduct an investigation into how the salting could have occurred.
Bre-X said it will fully co-operate with all authorities and said the Strathcona-led investigation "be directed wherever the professional advisers think it should go."
Walsh said in his statement: "We have spent millions of dollars in the strong belief that a sizable deposit existed and have directed all our efforts towards development of the project. It is paramount for us to redirect our energy to protecting the company's remaining assets for the benefit of shareholders."
Strathcona - which has a no-nonsense reputation - was hired by Bre-X when Freeport-McMoRan's drilling program indicated huge discrepancies with results from Bre-X's program.
Strathcona audited both Bre-X's and Freeport-McMoRan's drill results and punched its own six holes on the site.
Results from the interim report released Sunday are based on 350 metres of core that was assayed using both fire assay (testing for gold) and bottle cyanide leach techniques.
Results from the full 1,470 metres of core drilled will not be available for several weeks.
Strathcona's assaying was carried out at laboratories in Australia, Indonesia and Canada, with all results received just prior to its issuing its preliminary report."The assay results have been quite conclusive," says the summary of the report.
It adds that its own results were confirmed by subsequent drilling done by Bre-X and by the results from Freeport-McMoRan's drilling program.
Strathcona recommends in its report that all core samples not yet assayed and all documents relating to Busang be placed under tight security until full investigations are concluded.
It also says that all exploration work on the southeast zone should cease.
- Southam News
| Speak Out | Search | Front Page |
There is no gold at Busang, report says
MORE
Finding answers
The company that probed the samples
Get the latest
Through the Calgary Herald
Bre-X Web site
Includes useful charts, graphs and history
GO HERE
for information about discussion groups and bulletin boards relating to Bre-X
BERTRAND MAROTTE
Southam Newspapers
TORONTO - The Busang gold discovery in Indonesia is a bust and likely the result of a massive operation involving the "salting" of thousands of drill samples with gold taken from elsewhere, according to new test results released late Sunday night.
Samples from the property on the island of Borneo that sent tiny Bre-X Minerals skyrocketing to the top ranks of the mining world contain only "trace amounts of gold," with no samples producing "gold values of economic interest," says a summary of an independent audit by Strathcona Mineral Services Ltd. of Toronto.
"The magnitude of the tampering with core samples that we believe has occurred and resulting falsification of assay values at Busang, is of a scale and over a period of time and with a precision that, to our knowledge, is without precedent in the history of mining anywhere in the world," says a letter to Bre-X president David Walsh, dated May 3, from Strathcona president Graham Farquharson.
The report says the gold found in Bre-X's drilling samples from the allegedly rich southeast zone of Busang "originated from a source other than the southeast zone . . . and has resulted in falsification and misrepresentation of many thousands of samples with . . . subsequent erroneous estimates of gold resources.
Bre-X president David Walsh said in a news release: "We share the shock and dismay of our shareholders and others that the gold we thought we had at Busang now appears not to be there.
"Bre-X is devastated that the Strathcona analysis does not confirm earlier analytical work done by Bre-X. The report instead indicates that the company's belief about the size of the Busang II reserve was based on falsified data."
WHO'S WHO
David Walsh: Bre-X president and chief executive. A once-bankrupt stock promoter, Walsh, 51, has become rich by selling off pieces of the company. Has an office in Calgary but lives in Nassau, Bahamas. Insisted Bre-X would be proved right after doubts were raised about the size of its deposit.
John Felderhof: Senior Bre-X vice-president of exploration. A 56-year-old geologist who graduated from Dalhousie University in the early 1960s and spent years in the Third World searching for gold. A native of the Netherlands, Felderhoff met Walsh in 1983 and impressed him with his unconventional theories about gold deposits.
Mike de Guzman: Philippine native and former chief Bre-X geologist who discovered Busang. De Guzman plunged to his death from a helicopter while on his way to the gold site in March. The helicopter pilot said de Guzman must have jumped, and police found a note that said he was taking his life because of a terminal illness.
Jim Bob Moffett: President and chief executive of Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold. The New Orleans-based mining giant and Bre-X partner revealed in March that its tests for gold at the Busang deposit were coming up virtually empty.
- The Canadian Press
Walsh had insisted right until the very end that he would be vindicated and that there would be at least the 71 million of ounces of gold claimed in the official estimates.
Instead, the report vindicates Jim Bob Moffett, the chairman of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., Bre-X's U.S. partner that set off the meltdown in Bre-X's stock price in late March when it announced that its due diligence program had found only negligible amounts of gold at Busang.
More than a half-dozen class action lawsuits by Bre-X shareholders have been filed in the United States and Canada. Lawyers for the shareholders are expected to swing into action in light of Sunday's bombshell.
Bre-X stock, which closed Friday on the Toronto Stock Exchange up 19 cents at $3.23, once flew as high as $200 before a 10-for-one split. The TSE said late Sunday it will halt trading in Bre-X stock today.
Strathcona recommends in its report that "those authorized and qualified to carry out investigations into the fraudulent activities that we believe to have occurred should be contacted immediately and requested to pursue the matter that we are bringing to their attention of Bre-X and any other parties concerned."
The report says it makes its opinions and conclusions "without reservation," and adds that it does not anticipate any changes in a final report when all the drill core from its audit program will have been assayed.
"What I'd like to see is how far back this salting goes," said Brian Fagan, editor of Asian World Stock Report, based in Grayland, Wis.
"This is a premeditated, well-executed fraud," he said.
"This thing has to be investigated from top to bottom and the dirt has to be out in the open and they've got to lay some criminal charges," he said.
Too often in the past, mining fraud activity that has come to light in the junior exploration sector has been swept under the rug and now is the time to take quick and decisive action if the entire industry - particularly in Canada - is not to suffer irredeemable damage, said Fagan.
One aspect of the bizarre Bre-X saga was the alleged suicide in March of its chief geologist, Mike de Guzman, when he dropped out of a helicopter flying over the Borneo jungle on his way to meet with Freeport-McMo-Ran officials about alleged discrepancies in the test results.
Speculation about a sophisticated salting operation had centred on de Guzman.
KEY DATES
1993
The Calgary-based company begins exploring for gold in patch of rain forest in Indonesia.
1995
Bre-X says Busang deposit may contain over 30 million ounces of gold.
1996
February - Indonesia says Bre-X has found 40 million ounces.
May - Bre-X shareholders approve 10-for-1 stock split. Shares hit $201.75.
July - Bre-X raises estimates to almost 47 million ounces.
October - Indonesia announces delay of mining permits for Busang until ownership dispute with local partners is settled.
December - Bre-X and Barrick Gold of Toronto agree on framework of deal to develop property.
1997
January - Indonesia gives Bre-X and Barrick a month to agree with local partners. Deal falls apart.
Feb. 16 - Bre-X, Freeport-McMoRan and Indonesian businessman Bob Hasan sign deal giving Bre-X 45 per cent of Busang, Freeport 15 per cent and Indonesian interests, including the government, 40 per cent.
Feb. 17 - Bre-X hikes its estimate to 71 million ounces.
Feb. 19 - Bre-X vice-president John Felderhof says deposit may hold 200 million ounces of gold.
March 19 - Bre-X geologist Mike de Guzman, co-discoverer of deposit, plunges from a helicopter in an apparent suicide. Bre-X says a note written by de Guzman indicates he had a fatal illness.
March 21 - Indonesian newspaper quotes unnamed sources suggesting find may not be the giant Bre-X had claimed. Bre-X shares fall $2.25 to $15.20. Bre-X issues denial.
March 26 - Bre-X announces independent consultant has found gold estimates may have been overstated. Bre-X partner Freeport-McMoRan reveals its initial tests found "insignificant" gold.
March 27 - Bre-X shares skid to $2.50 in panic selloff as experts debate whether the deposit is a hoax.
April 12 - Securities regulators announce a task force to look at mining standards.
May 5 - Bre-X releases a long-awaited independent report on the Busang field.
- The Canadian Press
The Busang fiasco has already given a black eye to Canada's booming mining industry, to the dozens of securities dealers who sold Bre-X in a rarely seen display of hyperbole about how great Busang was going to be, and to the Toronto Stock Exchange, which hurriedly listed Bre-X last year on flimsy information.
Now, fingers will be pointing everywhere.
In the line of fire will be securities regulators, most prominently the Ontario Securities Commission, the country's biggest securities watchdog, .
Bre-X started life as a penny stock on the Alberta Stock Exchange, but grew on the strength of a drilling program at Busang, in East Kalimantan, on the Indonesian side of Borneo.
Thousands of investors rushed into the stock as estimates grew from an original three million ounces to 71 million ounces, and even an unofficial 200 million ounces, claimed by Bre-X director John Felderhof as recently as February.
Many investors bought stock on margin - that is, they leveraged everything they had, including their house - to get a piece of the hot Bre-X action.
Bre-X said Strathcona and legal, accounting and investigative consultants have been retained to conduct an investigation into how the salting could have occurred.
Bre-X said it will fully co-operate with all authorities and said the Strathcona-led investigation "be directed wherever the professional advisers think it should go."
Walsh said in his statement: "We have spent millions of dollars in the strong belief that a sizable deposit existed and have directed all our efforts towards development of the project. It is paramount for us to redirect our energy to protecting the company's remaining assets for the benefit of shareholders."
Strathcona - which has a no-nonsense reputation - was hired by Bre-X when Freeport-McMoRan's drilling program indicated huge discrepancies with results from Bre-X's program.
Strathcona audited both Bre-X's and Freeport-McMoRan's drill results and punched its own six holes on the site.
Results from the interim report released Sunday are based on 350 metres of core that was assayed using both fire assay (testing for gold) and bottle cyanide leach techniques.
Results from the full 1,470 metres of core drilled will not be available for several weeks.
Strathcona's assaying was carried out at laboratories in Australia, Indonesia and Canada, with all results received just prior to its issuing its preliminary report."The assay results have been quite conclusive," says the summary of the report.
It adds that its own results were confirmed by subsequent drilling done by Bre-X and by the results from Freeport-McMoRan's drilling program.
Strathcona recommends in its report that all core samples not yet assayed and all documents relating to Busang be placed under tight security until full investigations are concluded.
It also says that all exploration work on the southeast zone should cease.
- Southam News
| Speak Out | Search | Front Page |
P.P.S.: Strathcona Mineral Services, Ltd- UNLIMITED in NEWTECH MINING IMHO:
cgi.canoe.ca
fraud
By Sandra Rubin
The Financial Post
Barrick Gold Corp. should be forced to answer for its role in the Bre-X Minerals Ltd. fraud because it failed to warn investors of the "bombshell results" when it tested 135 core samples and 130 showed no gold, says a filing in a Texas-based class action lawsuit.
Barrick has asked it be dropped from the huge suit because it was conducting limited due diligence on Bre-X's Indonesian property and had no direct duty to the Calgary junior's investors.
It has also said it was bound by confidentiality agreements.
But lawyers behind the class action argue Toronto-based Barrick made statements aimed directly at Bre-X shareholders when it promised to be "fair" in any partnership deal to develop the Busang deposit -- and that changes everything.
"Once Barrick began to disseminate such statements, which targeted Bre-X shareholders, it assumed an important duty: to make full and complete disclosure," says the filing in Texarkana, Tex.
"In concealing the most crucial piece of information in Barrick's, or anyone's, possession -- namely that independent testing had indicated there could be no gold at Busang -- Barrick violated its duty to make full disclosure."
The 34-page filing, in opposition to Barrick's motion to dismiss, says Barrick went even further by continuing to talk publicly about its plans to acquire the junior explorer.
"These statements were calculated to leave investors with the false impression that Barrick had confirmed Bre-X's representations regarding the size of the gold deposit at Busang."
Class action lawyers also claim Barrick had an ally in former executive Daniel McConvey, who had joined Lehman Bros. Inc. as a gold analyst and became "a bell cow for Bre-X stock."
Their filing says Barrick told Lehman about the dud test results, then turned a blind eye as the New York investment bank made statements saying Barrick had "done its homework" and was "perfectly positioned" to acquire Bre-X.
Barrick, one of the world's biggest gold producers, argues in its bid to have the allegations thrown out it makes no sense to say it knew about the salting scam and ignored it, because the deception was destined to be uncovered and the company would only be embarrassed by its involvement.
"Barrick will be vigorously putting forth its case in court to dismiss these frivolous claims," spokesman Vince Borg said yesterday.
It has maintained that its testing of Busang core was "inconclusive."
Barrick has declined to elaborate, citing the confidentiality agreement, but a report on the fraud by Strathcona Mineral Services Ltd. said three months after the dud results, Barrick obtained and tested 53 salted core samples that all showed gold.
Barrick also said in court documents it was prepared to commit billions to develop the remote Indonesian property, which would have been financial folly had it been aware of the fraud
Chucaupt2/Chuca/...now: Chucka |
