HARD CREEK NICKEL
When we first met Mark Jarvis years ago…heck, almost
a decade now, he was part of a band of adventurists behind
Ultra Petroleum that had latched onto a new concept—
unconventional gas—and somehow this bunch from Van-
couver had tied up an absolutely enormous chunk of land
in Wyoming.
The story had several ups and downs, but Jarvis (a di-
rector with the company) and the driving force, particularly
for many of the IR tours, was part of one of the most spec-
tacular stock plays in the history of the markets. Ultra went
from virtually nothing to $130 a share...the kind of stuff you
dream of!
Jarvis’s dream might have been to sit on a bench and
write scripts and write the ‘Great Canadian Novel’ but once
you’ve been part of something enormous, I guess there’s
that thing that makes you want to do it again.
He’s faced a lot of hard work and frustrations as he
spent the last four years with Hard Creek Nickel and just this
week received their engineering report. It’s a massive, $3
billion project in Northern B.C. and it looks like Jarvis has
quite a selling job ahead of himself here.
We ask Jarvis to write a few paragraphs describing what
next:
“This engineering report is the culmination of two years
of detailed metallurgical and process engineering work.
Because our deposit is unconventional, we have to prove
every step of the processing in order to be credible to in-
dustry. We have done that and we are ready to be sub-
jected to detailed due diligence from prospective partners.”
Mark writes “Our operating costs, at U.S. $3.34 per
pound of nickel (net by-product credits), are very competi-
tive, particularly compared to other giant greenfields de-
posits. (Giant is defined as capable of producing more than
20,000 tonnes of nickel per year.) Our average output will
be 35,000 tonnes of nickel metal per year, or 77 million
pounds.”
He continues “Capex, at $3 billion, is high, but it in-
cludes a refinery so we can produce nickel metal. This is a
gigantic project and we are looking for a gigantic partner.
The search for a partner begins today. Without naming
names, I can tell you that a long list of companies have
been waiting to see this engineering report.”
“Let the games begin. Gentlemen, start your engines.”
Yes this is another project that is absolutely enormous,
you read it right folks ($3 billion dollars) and Jarvis would
have one heck of a sales job to see if he could sell the com-
pany here.
EAST ASIA MINERALS
(V-EAS)
GOLD
MINERA ANDES
(V-MAI)
It’s PDAC! The world’s biggest mining conference
over the last couple of days in Toronto and it was
packed. Estimates were somewhere around 25,000 and
we weren’t there, but veteran mining speculator/
investor Scott Wellington was.
We had asked him to check out a couple of stories
for us and he compares the immense crowds and hy-
per-activity this year with six years ago. At that time
there was a lull in the mining market and he said the
convention was basically deserted.
He had taken his 14-year-old daughter Samantha at
the time to tour it and see what the mining show was
like. So many people in the booths had nothing to do,
Samantha had a couple of very intriguing experi-
ences...they happened to be going by one of the dia-
mond companies and some people there obviously had
too little to do...so they took out a bag of diamonds, a
million and a half worth to show her what they look
like.
Later they went to the Placer Dome booth where
once again the guys had nothing to do. “Here you go
Samantha, here’s a 500-ounce gold bar for you play
with.” Scott didn’t tell us if that turned her into a ge-
ologist or not, but as we said, we asked him to check
out some stories for us…and one in particular, East
Asia. He writes the following:
“Investors forget that East Asia is more than just the
Miwah gold deposits. Their Barisan porphyries have
strong potential to be world class structures. Rio Tinto
was actively exploring several targets in the '90's with
strong results until the government stopped work in
'98. East Asia will drill 2-3 holes in both Lower Tengker-
eng and Bahu by mid-year. LT has a previous drill re-
sult returning 339m of .47g Au & .2 Cu and the com-
pany feels there's a strong probability for substantial
improvement in grade and width. Bahu has not previ-
ously been drilled but surface work shows a large
structure with encouraging grade.”
“The Abong gold deposit has been overshadowed
by Miwah but most juniors would love to have such a
problem. 130 holes have been drilled showing a flat
near surface 10-15m thick deposit of about 1g Au with
higher grade pockets (4-6g) open in both directions
and a 43-101 due sometime mid year. These proper-
ties along with their other Indonesian properties are
being forgotten in the Miwah shadow.”
“At Miwah, the company continues to show
the deposit trends north into the Moon River area where
surface work has the same rock type as Miwah.
We hope to be running either Friday or Monday, an
interview with the Coffin’s of the Hard Rock Analyst fame
again and we suspect East Asia Minerals is going to con-
tinue to attract an awful lot of attention.
UNDERWORLD RES.
ATAC RESOURCES
KAMINAK GOLD
Yesterday, we did a piece on Underworld Resources
with a picture of an incredibly handsome young guy
sitting in a sluice box with a gold pan full of gold...of
course it was yours truly.
The season is starting up in the Yukon and boy did it
start with a bang today as Underworld Resources ended
being bought out by Kinross on a friendly arrangement
between the two companies.
Obviously today, the world is suddenly aware of the
Yukon and for someone who had lived up in the Yukon
for several years, it’s nice to see the attention going
back where it belongs.
Once again, it’s hard to believe that a 100 years after
the original gold prospectors were up there from the
Trail of 1898, it looks like it’s going to be a very busy
season up north.
Now that Underworld is gone, the two companies
that seem to be getting most of the chatter are Kaminak
Gold and Atac Resources.
One look at the volumes today on the associated
companies and it tells you the interest will be there for
the Yukon this year and with the takeover Underworld
does almost 19 million shares trading.
Meanwhile, Kaminak does 1.3 million and is up
nicely. And Atac also does 1.6 million—also up nicely.
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