Post by fastwalker on Sept 21, 2004 11:42:06 GMT -5
Why is everything so secret with CMKX?
This is an article from October 2002, published in the Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper, titled THE ICE STORM. In reading this article one will begin to appreciate the possible reason for CMKMs present lack of informaiton flow to we the stockholders and the business community.
It is about De Beers, BHP --the Australian mining titan that struck diamonds in Canada-- and Bill Zimmerman, a miner; one who, because of his ability and stamina, eventually broke the De Beers cartel for BHP by selling diamonds from Canada to the center of the world's diamond industry in Antwerp.
This is a VERY educational read --long_ but as good as any move drama I have seen in years. It shows the importance that diamond prospectors/companies --like our own Urban Casavant-- put on secrecy about their property, strategy, drilling and master plans. It is full of intrigue, suspense, and, eventually success for the underdog.
This might explain a lot of what is NOW going on with CMKX, lawyers, drilling, locked samples, quiet time on the part of CMKM; the quiet time that is driving so many of us "nuts".
Here is the link:
www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=18160380
However, below I have cut-and-pasted just a few paragraphs from the long article to whet ones appetite.
A few cut-and-pastes as follows:
"Mind you, promising possibilities blossom everywhere on the Canadian diamond scene. More than 500
diamond targets have been identified since the first discovery in the Northwest Territories more than a
decade ago and the emergence of Canada as a world diamond power are no longer in doubt. It was
Zimmerman, more than anyone else, who brought this about, and he did it by pulling off a feat that
many observers said was impossible-breaking the hold of the Oppenheimer cartel."
“Zimmerman looks more like a high-school football coach than a high-stakes player. He moves his big frame slowly and speaks in a laconic voice, probably the way he spoke when he flew an A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bomber from the deck of the USS Coral Sea during the Vietnam War. He likes to fish with his friends. He is the kind of man who drives his mother home when she comes for a visit-even though she lives in Pennsylvania, 2,500 kilometres away from Zimmerman's home in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. There is a feeling about him that nothing would ruffle his calm. This is a good quality for a man who suddenly found himself facing off with De Beers, the Goliath of the diamond world.
When The Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd. (BHP), the Australian mining titan, struck diamonds northeast of Yellowknife in 1991-a site now home to the Ekati mine-the chief concern of the top executives in Melbourne, once they established the viability of the project, was what they would do with the diamonds. Somewhere down the road, the Australians would have to confront De Beers. Could they? It
was just as this question was being asked that Zimmerman appeared.”<br>
“Canada's diamond potential is hard to overstate. Within sight of the Ekati mine is the country's second diamond mine, Diavik, an enormous open pit created by damming off a corner of Lac de Gras. Diavik is a joint venture of the British mining giant Rio Tinto PLC and Toronto's Aber Diamond Corporation. Before
next summer, the mine will begin to produce the first of a diamond stream that will reach seven million carats a year. Together, the two mines will produce some $1.2 billion worth of rough a year, 12% by value of the world's annual supply of gemstone rough.”<br>"Compared to the kimberlites in the Northwest Territories," says Zimmerman, "the Saskatchewan kimberlites are immense. To develop a mine at Ekati, we had to put five different pipes into the mine plan, so that when the pipe runs out, as it will this year or next, there is another pipe you can strip the overburden from and start to mine. At Fort à la Corne, if a mine proves out, we could just keep mining it for 25 or 40 years or even longer."
“The irony at Fort à la Corne is that the very size of the target is its biggest problem. Costs forbid the comprehensive drilling of such a large area. By comparison, BHP's Panda pipe in the Northwest Territories covers an area of 3.1 hectares, whereas the Fort à la Corne joint venture's main target, FalC
140-141, sprawls over 250 hectares. Its great area comes from the huge, lens-shaped layer of diamond-bearing kimberlite that blankets the volcanic vent.”<br>“If a diamond mine with an exceptionally long life lies beneath the sand hills of Saskatchewan, it makes sense for De Beers to sit on Kensington. A low Kensington share price would make the company a cheaper buy if De Beers decided it liked the target enough to take out Kensington and scoop the whole
property for itself. In the diamond world, such speculations are shaded with a marvelous paranoia.”<br>
“Yet as Molyneux himself said, the FalC 140-141 pipe "is the biggest kimberlite body within the Fort à la Corne area, which is the largest kimberlite province in the world."
This is an article from October 2002, published in the Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper, titled THE ICE STORM. In reading this article one will begin to appreciate the possible reason for CMKMs present lack of informaiton flow to we the stockholders and the business community.
It is about De Beers, BHP --the Australian mining titan that struck diamonds in Canada-- and Bill Zimmerman, a miner; one who, because of his ability and stamina, eventually broke the De Beers cartel for BHP by selling diamonds from Canada to the center of the world's diamond industry in Antwerp.
This is a VERY educational read --long_ but as good as any move drama I have seen in years. It shows the importance that diamond prospectors/companies --like our own Urban Casavant-- put on secrecy about their property, strategy, drilling and master plans. It is full of intrigue, suspense, and, eventually success for the underdog.
This might explain a lot of what is NOW going on with CMKX, lawyers, drilling, locked samples, quiet time on the part of CMKM; the quiet time that is driving so many of us "nuts".
Here is the link:
www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=18160380
However, below I have cut-and-pasted just a few paragraphs from the long article to whet ones appetite.
A few cut-and-pastes as follows:
"Mind you, promising possibilities blossom everywhere on the Canadian diamond scene. More than 500
diamond targets have been identified since the first discovery in the Northwest Territories more than a
decade ago and the emergence of Canada as a world diamond power are no longer in doubt. It was
Zimmerman, more than anyone else, who brought this about, and he did it by pulling off a feat that
many observers said was impossible-breaking the hold of the Oppenheimer cartel."
“Zimmerman looks more like a high-school football coach than a high-stakes player. He moves his big frame slowly and speaks in a laconic voice, probably the way he spoke when he flew an A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bomber from the deck of the USS Coral Sea during the Vietnam War. He likes to fish with his friends. He is the kind of man who drives his mother home when she comes for a visit-even though she lives in Pennsylvania, 2,500 kilometres away from Zimmerman's home in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. There is a feeling about him that nothing would ruffle his calm. This is a good quality for a man who suddenly found himself facing off with De Beers, the Goliath of the diamond world.
When The Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd. (BHP), the Australian mining titan, struck diamonds northeast of Yellowknife in 1991-a site now home to the Ekati mine-the chief concern of the top executives in Melbourne, once they established the viability of the project, was what they would do with the diamonds. Somewhere down the road, the Australians would have to confront De Beers. Could they? It
was just as this question was being asked that Zimmerman appeared.”<br>
“Canada's diamond potential is hard to overstate. Within sight of the Ekati mine is the country's second diamond mine, Diavik, an enormous open pit created by damming off a corner of Lac de Gras. Diavik is a joint venture of the British mining giant Rio Tinto PLC and Toronto's Aber Diamond Corporation. Before
next summer, the mine will begin to produce the first of a diamond stream that will reach seven million carats a year. Together, the two mines will produce some $1.2 billion worth of rough a year, 12% by value of the world's annual supply of gemstone rough.”<br>"Compared to the kimberlites in the Northwest Territories," says Zimmerman, "the Saskatchewan kimberlites are immense. To develop a mine at Ekati, we had to put five different pipes into the mine plan, so that when the pipe runs out, as it will this year or next, there is another pipe you can strip the overburden from and start to mine. At Fort à la Corne, if a mine proves out, we could just keep mining it for 25 or 40 years or even longer."
“The irony at Fort à la Corne is that the very size of the target is its biggest problem. Costs forbid the comprehensive drilling of such a large area. By comparison, BHP's Panda pipe in the Northwest Territories covers an area of 3.1 hectares, whereas the Fort à la Corne joint venture's main target, FalC
140-141, sprawls over 250 hectares. Its great area comes from the huge, lens-shaped layer of diamond-bearing kimberlite that blankets the volcanic vent.”<br>“If a diamond mine with an exceptionally long life lies beneath the sand hills of Saskatchewan, it makes sense for De Beers to sit on Kensington. A low Kensington share price would make the company a cheaper buy if De Beers decided it liked the target enough to take out Kensington and scoop the whole
property for itself. In the diamond world, such speculations are shaded with a marvelous paranoia.”<br>
“Yet as Molyneux himself said, the FalC 140-141 pipe "is the biggest kimberlite body within the Fort à la Corne area, which is the largest kimberlite province in the world."
