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Gold/Mining/Energy : Solv Ex (SOLVD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mqmsi who wrote (5953)	8/19/1998 12:09:00 PM
From: Larry Ricker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6735

"Correct me if I am wrong. Doesn't Solv-Ex have a pilot plant operation in Albuquerque? I also understand from eye witness accounts that it works very well. " No dispute that they own a test facility in Albuquerque. It may have worked exactly as intended -- I don't have the data. The problem is that they tried to jump from that facility to full production. Either they didn't do enough preliminary work with the real feed material, or there were design changes in scaleup (e.g., recycles closed that weren't before), or both. There's no disputing that they had problems with their startup. The only question is how difficult it would have been to make the process work. Meanwhile they promised their investors that they would be producing large quantities of bitumen by summer of 97. They were unrealistic about the difficulty of startup. If they had started with a smaller facility (as Shell has done), they might have had some money left over to get it to work. On the other hand, they might not have gotten funding for that approach, as they had already been "testing" for many years. They put themselves in a very difficult position. If all had gone perfectly, they would have been heros. Instead, a lot of people lost money. (Note: I am not and have never claimed fraud. I'm waiting for the SEC call on that.) Now they are hoping to start up mineral production. They have apparently run tests in Albuquerque, but that part of the process was not included in the Canadian tests. It's not just separations; there are a number of reaction steps. They have little if anything left to fund further research. My question: given the funding situation and past performance, what are the chances that SOLV will be producing TiO2S at a "commercial" rate in the next two years? "Would you mind revealing the source and the specific claims, as I haven't seen them. " We've been through that. Look at the SEC complaint, etc. They claim negligible production and poor quality. I know -- that's not specific enough for you. OK, I'm content to wait for SOLV to disclose data that shows otherwise. Larry