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Standard Silver Corporation (SDSR-OTCPK) |
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July 31, 2009 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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Energy | Energy-Tech | Energy-Infrastructure | Oil & Gas | Natural-Gas | Clean Energy | Renewable-Energy | Green | Energy-Analyst |
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CURRENT ISSUE | COVER ARCHIVES | INDEX | CONTACT | FINANCIALS | SERVICES | HOME PAGE |
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With Preliminary Sampling Showing 1% Uranium, Standard Silver Corporation’s Round Top Beryllium-Uranium-Rare Earth Deposit Looks Like A Winning Combination In The Business Friendly State Of Texas |
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(Trading Symbol SDSR.PK) Standard Silver Corporation was initially formed to develop silver properties located in the Cornucopia Mining District of Nevada. Over time the focus was broadened to include other natural resources such as gold, coal, oil, and gas. Between 2003 until February 2007, operations were minimal. In March 2007, the company acquired interests in two mineral properties, the Old Hadley and the Macho Mines, located in southwestern New Mexico. In November 2007 Standard Silver acquired rights to lease the Round Top Beryllium deposit located in Hudspeth County, Texas.”
In early 2007 the Company was reorganized to take advantage of developing conditions in the resource industry that promised end the chronic oversupply that had affected the industry for the previous one hundred years. Worldwide economic development, depleting reserves and decreased discovery rates gave clear indications that there was a fundamental shift taking place in resource supply and demand. We believe that these changing economics hold out the opportunity for a small mining company to develop and produce the smaller, higher grade ore deposits that were the mainstay of the mining business in the late 19th century.
The crisis that has affected the financial
institutions during the past year has brought commodity prices off their
speculative highs of mid 2007 but has had relatively little effect on the
long term supply-demand trends that were evident in early 2007. Daniel E. Gorski. Mr. Gorski has served as president and director of the Company since January 2007. From July 2004 to January 2006, Mr. Gorski was the co-founder and vice president of operations for High Plains Uranium Inc., a uranium exploration and development company that went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in December 2005. Between June 1996 and May 2004, Mr. Gorski served as an officer and director of Metalline Mining Co., a publicly traded mining and development company with holdings in the Sierra Mojada Mining District, Coahuila, Mexico. From January 1992 to June 1996, Mr. Gorski was the exploration geologist under contract to USMX Inc. and worked exclusively in Latin America. Mr. Gorski earned a BS in 1960 from Sul Ross State College, in Alpine, Texas and an MA in Geology in 1970 from the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. Mr. Gorski has over forty years of experience in the mining industry.
Mike McDonald. Mr. McDonald has served as the Company’s vice president and director since January 2004. From 1998 and to the present, Mr. McDonald has been involved with various companies. From 1994 to 1998, he served as the president of Ferex Corporation. From 1987 to 1994, he was self-employed and pursued his own interests primarily in the oil and gas business. In 1980, he founded the oil and gas exploration company, Roseland Oil & Gas, Inc. and served as its president until 1987. From 1975 to 1980 he was employed with Exxon. From 1960 to 1975 he was employed by Shell Oil Company. Mr. McDonald received his B.S. Degree in Geology in 1955 from Sul Ross University in Alpine, Texas. |
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Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFOinterviews.com, Published – July 31, 2009
Mr. Gorski: “Our vision is basically that the dynamics of the resource business, particularly the metal mining business, that have been in place for over a hundred years is changing. Beginning in 1892 a general decline of real commodity prices began that, with the exception of brief periods of increased demand, notably World Wars I and II, has extended into the beginning of the 21st century. The mining industry responded to this long-term price deflation by developing ever-larger mines and compensating for lower prices with the “economics of scale”. The development of these mass mining techniques in turn increased the oversupply potential and led to a negative feedback loop that caused further downward pressure on prices. We believe that epoch is coming to an end. Depleting reserves, decreasing discovery rates and the rapid economic development of China, India and Brazil are causing a “paradigm shift” in the resource industry.”
“We think that the economics of mining are more or less going back to what they used to be in the late 19th century, which was really the golden age of mining. Myself and a long time associate G.W. (Mike) McDonald, assumed control of Standard Silver in early 2007 with the intention of taking advantage of these new developments by finding and developing the smaller, higher grade mineral deposits. This was put on hold last year when the economic crisis dried up the sources of finance. This present recession, however, is the first one that we’ve seen in our 40 years experience where the mining industry has recovered ahead of the rest of the economy. The fundamentals of almost all the metals are quite good and, while they are off their speculative highs of last year, most of them are well ahead of their long term forecasts of 2006. We believe that the assumptions made in early 2007 are still valid.”
CEOCFO: Why have you chosen to look at the property that you are looking at right now? Mr. Gorski: “Our acquisition of the Round Top beryllium-uranium-rare earth property in West Texas was one of those fortunate events that change the whole outlook of things. This property was drilled in the late 1980’s by two companies, Cabot Corporation and Cyprus Minerals, and talk around the industry at the time was that they had made a major beryllium discovery there. We also knew that during the last cycle of uranium activity in the 1970’s that area had been looked at very seriously by a number of companies for uranium. Because we consider uranium as having probably the best fundamentals of all the metals, we inquired as to the status of this property. We found out that the deposit was located on Texas Public Land, both mineral and surface and that it was open for location. What we have found out to date about this deposit is truly amazing. The work that was done there was extensive and of very high quality. Much of the data was in the public record in Texas. Round Top is basically a developed, high grade beryllium deposit with extraordinary potential for uranium and rare earths. We reopened the mine and took a scintillation counter underground and did a reconnaissance radiometric survey. The background radiation is extremely high. A preliminary sample in one of the mine headings retuned a value of over 1% uranium, which really got our attention. I refuse to use the phrase “world class”, because it is a tired and overused word, but we think we have a very high potential uranium play. In all my experience in the uranium business I have never seen a prospect where the geologic conditions were better. One of the benefits is that we’re in the state of Texas, which is a very business friendly place, and our landlord is in the State of Texas. We are completely free of dealing with the problems that companies have working on public land in the United States. Not to say that we will not have our regulatory and political considerations, but it’s all going to be done here in the State of Texas, in a structure that we know we can work with.”
CEOCFO: How do you proceed from here?
Mr. Gorski:
“We are in the process now of raising the capital to initiate physical work
there. Mr. McDonald and I took over this company a little over two and a
half years ago and we have been personally been financing its operations. We
wanted to make sure we had a high quality project before we started
publicizing the company. We didn’t want to take something mediocre and then
try to make something out of it, which quite often happens with a junior
mining company. We’re confident now that we have an exceptional property and
it is going to be our flagship.” CEOCFO: What is beryllium used for? Mr. Gorski: “Beryllium is a light, strong, very ridged metal with high thermal conductivity. It is alloyed with other metals, particularly copper, to make springs, contacts and other applications where rigidity, fatigue resistance and good electrical and thermal conductivity are required. Almost all everyday electronic applications use beryllium-copper alloys in contacts and current carrying springs. Pure beryllium metal and high beryllium alloys are used where reliable, dimensionally stable parts are needed in high stress or high heat environments. Transparency to x-ray and other radiation is another important characteristic of beryllium metal. Aerospace, X-ray equipment, oil drilling, sub-atomic particle research, and nuclear reactors are the main users of beryllium metal. Beryllium oxide ceramics are used where superior heat conductivity and light weight are required. Its use varies from the substrate of computer chips to sparkplugs. We’re working on a number of avenues to see if we can find a way to develop a market for our beryllium but is the future that we are most interested in. There are ongoing developments that promise to significantly change the entire dynamic of this metal. Research has demonstrated that the addition of 5% beryllium oxide to a conventional nuclear fuel pellet may extend the life of a fuel rod by as much as 25%. This mixed uranium-beryllium oxide fuel more efficiently transfers energy out of the reactor and prevents degradation of the fuel because of excessive heat retention. The research is now in the process design stage, which will be followed by field testing. We believe this research, if successful, could increase the demand for beryllium seven fold.”
CEOCFO: What should people be looking for from Standard Silver Corp. going forward? Mr. Gorski: “Because of the excellent work done by Cabot and Cyprus and the advanced state of development of the property, we are going to be able to acquire a lot of data at a reasonable cost. We believe that we will be able to make radiometric logs of many of the existing drill holes, both surface and underground, which should give us a pretty good idea of the distribution of uranium. In time, hopefully within the next year, we’ll start up underground development and start following the beryllium and the uranium. The beryllium and uranium occur together and the development will be pretty much the same for the both of them. We are planning to conduct sampling and metallurgical testing of the overlying rock to see if the rare earth and rare metals can be recovered economically; there is an estimated 1.76 billions tons present with a rare earth-rare metal oxide content of around 2 lbs per ton. The prices of all these metals are transaction based and vary widely but there is a good possibility that there is an in place value of approximately $20 per ton of the oxides of these metals. You can do the math and see that the potential is quite astonishing. $20 per ton is a reasonable value for large open pit mines.”
CEOCFO: Summing it up for potential investors, why is Standard Silver Corporation a company to look at?
Mr.
Gorski: “We
have a company that still doesn’t have that many shares out. We have
something over 22 million shares out, a large part of which is in the hands
of the founders. We have invested a lot of our own money in this company so
we are committed to its success. We have an outstanding property with
developed value and a very large upside. We have a fairly simple, clear cut
set of things that we need to do to move it up. It’s quite a nice little
package.” |
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“Our acquisition of the Round Top beryllium-uranium-rare earth property in West Texas was one of those fortunate events that change the whole outlook of things.” - Daniel E. Gorski |
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Company
Profile:
Daniel
E. Gorski