very scary, page-10

re: the arguement for MAKE SURE YOU READ THIS CAREFULLY. IT SAYS IT ALL.
(I didn't write it. It came of shareholder.co.nz) The guy who wrote it should be a lawyer, probably is.

Rupe, I can see the point in some of your enviro arguments - but then Mt Gee is in the same part of the world as Olympic Dam and it can't be any more special than Kakadu. There's gotta be some price for clean energy.

But Rupe, I think you're being a bit silly - and a bit scare-mongering - with your Goldstream-type conspiracy. You seem to be saying that MTN have 'cooked the books' in regard to the Mt Gee exploration history - that Exoil came up with a 30m tonne discovery but that MTN have 'rewritten' that as 2m tonnes. Your evidence for this is a newspaper column (Pierpont) - which as most of us know was written for entertainment - a good story - rather than a faithful representation of the facts. So Pierpont says "after its extensive drilling program, Exoil decided the Mt Gee deposit was the most promising in the area, with potential for 30 million tonnes at 1.8lb per tonne". Alas, this remained only 'potential' - a bit of Exoil ramping perhaps; a misquote by Pierpont. The fact is, they found only 2m tonnes at Mt Gee (as correctly reported by MTN).

Here's what the Australian Government (Geoscience Australia) had to say about Exoil and others activities and findings (in its 2001 publication,Australia’s URANIUM -resources, geology and development of deposits) :

MOUNT PAINTER FIELD
Small high-grade veins of secondary uranium mineralisation (mainly torbernite and autunite) at Radium Ridge were mined intermittently between 1910 and 1932. The ore concentrate was treated to extract
radium for medical use.

From 1944 to 1950, exploration by the South Australian Department of Mines outlined several million tonnes of low-grade uranium;rare earth elements mineralisation at the East Painter deposit, 2 km east of Mount Painter (Dickinson, Wade & Webb, 1954).

Between 1968 and 1971, the Exoil-Transoil partnership completed a major exploration and drilling program over a large area of the Mount Painter Inlier. This work outlined several small uranium deposits.

From 1990 to 1994, CRA Exploration Pty Ltd carried out detailed aeromagnetic and radiometric surveys, stream sediment sampling and diamond drilling in the Mount Gee-Mount Painter area to explore for uranium. Drilling outlined a large body of low-grade uranium mineralisation at the Mount Gee East prospect (Louwrens, 1992).

In the Mount Gee area, an extensive sheet of hematite breccia and hematite-rich granitic breccia containswidespread low-grade uranium#150;rare earth elements-copper mineralisation. Drilling by Exoil-Transoil in the late 1960s defined a small near-surface uranium deposit (2 721 600 t ore at 0.1% U3O8, containing
2722 t U3O8).

Drilling carried out by CRA Exploration Pty Ltd (from 1990 to 1994) and later by Goldstream Mining NL (from 1999 onwards) outlined a large body of low-grade uranium mineralisation which appears to be a down-faulted extension of the near-surface zone. This new zone, which CRA referred to as the Mount Gee East prospect (Louwrens, 1992) is approximately 120 m below surface.

Recent drilling together with results from re-assaying of core from old holes drilled by Exoil has shown that the zone of uranium mineralisation extends over a strike length of more than 250 m and is open along strike in both directions. Mineralisation assaying more than 0.1% U3O8 occurs over widths of 25-100 m and the zone is from 10 to 50 m thick (Goldstream, 1999, 2000). The zone also contains approximately 0.5% rare earth elements (Ce, La), 0.1% Cu and 1 g/t Ag. Re-assaying of the old drill core has identified many zones of mineralisation which had not been assayed by Exoil-Transoil because these companies used scintillometers to identify the mineralised zones in drill core (Goldstream, 2000).

A number of other small uranium-rare earth deposits occur in hematitic breccias in an area of 30 km2 surrounding Mount Painter and Mount Gee. Uraninite mineralisation is associated with hematite and chlorite, plus minor fluorite, barite and manganese oxides. The main deposits are Radium Ridge, Armchair-Streitberg, Hodgkinson, Gunsight and Shamrock (Fig. 26). The Hodgkinson deposit is hosted
by granitic breccia. Hematite and chlorite are absent. These are considered to be breccia-complex-type deposits because of similarities in breccia occurrence and mineralisation between the Radium Ridge Breccias and the much older Olympic Dam deposit (Youles, 1984, 1986; Drexel & Major, 1987) which is Mesoproterozoic in age.

In 1970, the Exoil-Transoil partnership announced the following ore reserves, using a cut-off grade of 0.05% U3O8:
• Radium Ridge - 3 628 800 t ore at 0.06% U3O8, containing 2177 t U3O8;
• Armchair-Streitberg - 1 814 400 t ore at 0.1% U3O8, containing 1814 t U3O8;
• Hodgkinson - 226 800 t ore at 0.25% U3O8, containing 567 t U3O8.

Don't know about you Rupe, but I'd rather go with this official factual account rather than Pierpont (and anyway, we all know not to believe what you read in newspapers).

Interesting also to note the political-economic environment of Exoil's and, later, Goldstream's activities. To quote the Geoscience Report again:

The increases in uranium exploration from 1966 onwards were due mainly to the very strong perception that the use of nuclear power for the generation of electricity would escalate sharply. The
Commonwealth Government relaxed the existing export policy for uranium in 1967 to encourage exploration, and as a result uranium exploration expenditure increased rapidly during 1967-72 (Fig. 2).
Worldwide, there was increased uranium exploration associated with the first oil shock in 1973 when the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), operating as a cartel, reduced supply, causing sharp increases in crude oil prices. In response, many countries began developing nuclear power programs as an alternative to oil for electricity generation.

In Australia, however, uranium exploration expenditure diminished during the period 1972 to 1975 because the policies of the then Labor Government actively discouraged uranium exploration by private
companies. During the latter part of this period Government-funded exploration for uranium was carried out by the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, and the Government purchased a major equity in the
Ranger deposit and the Mary Kathleen mine. The period from 1972 to 1975 was also a period of declining exploration for all minerals in Australia after the mining boom of the late 1960s.

As well the price of U declined during the 1970's. So with the Whitlam Government's anti-U policies and a falling price - not to mention inferior exploration models and technology - its not surprising that Exoil (and CRA and Goldstream) walked away from what MTN has now found to be a 'magnificent deposit' (for the first time Rupe, not the second!).

For those interested, here is the full article (Pierpont) that has provided Rupert with his 'facts' about MTN's supposed fraud:

Goldstream's 003 licensed to thrill

Last Monday, Goldstream announced a ``major platinum discovery'' with world-class potential on its Mibango project in Tanzania. They said a soil geochemical survey over 16 square kilometres had located highly anomalous platinum/palladium values in excess of 0.2 grams per tonne.

Bottle the geologist and Pierpont were onto their third Delamaine after a Croesus Club lunch when Bottle raised the issue of the day. He declared: ``I may have finally proved that the average investor has a higher IQ than a fish.''

This was a bad moment for Pierpont, because your correspondent could not decide whether his hearing had just failed or whether Bottle's brain - which for decades has been floating on a sea of alcohol - had finally sunk without trace.

``A fish has no memory,'' Bottle explained. ``By the time it has swum along the wall of a two-foot tank, it has forgotten what the other end looks like, so it swims back again. Therefore, fishes never get bored.''

Pierpont, seeing there was no point in staying sober for this conversation, ordered the steward to bring a whole bottle of Delamaine. A good move, because on draining a triple measure, your correspondent suddenly saw the thrust of Bottle's argument.

``Of course,'' Pierpont exclaimed. ``Investors have no memory either. Investors in One.Tel had forgotten all about Imagineering, for instance.''

``Correct,'' replied Bottle. ``But there are signs that investors are evolving into a higher species. It's just possible they have remembered about Goldstream.''

Last Monday, Goldstream announced a ``major platinum discovery'' with world-class potential on its Mibango project in Tanzania. They said a soil geochemical survey over 16 square kilometres had located highly anomalous platinum/palladium values in excess of 0.2 grams per tonne.

A soil sample of one part per 5million of combined platinum and palladium doesn't arouse Pierpont, but it had plainly excited the Goldstream chaps. The market was excited briefly, too, with Goldstream shares jumping from 44¢ the previous Friday to 50¢ on Monday. But by mid-week they had slid back to 45¢.

``This excites me anyway,'' said Bottle. ``Because it could indicate that investors can remember as far back as two years. Do you remember the Mt Gee discovery?''

Two years ago Goldstream shares started running. They jumped from 43¢ to 58¢ on Friday, August 5, 1999, so the ASX asked what was happening. A few days later, Goldstream said it had recently completed a drilling program at Mt Gee up on the right-hand edge of South Australia.

On August 11, it announced its assay results. Holes 002 and 003 had struck uranium oxide. The hottest intersection was in 003, which hit 1,578 parts per million of U3O8 between 144 and 198 metres.

Goldstream shares immediately shot to 82¢ and the company announced an option issue. Shareholders would receive one option for every four shares. The options would cost 10¢ and would convert into ordinary shares if the holders paid 20¢ each to Goldstream by October 1, 2001.

Pierpont would have thought the punters should have stampeded this issue, but there were a few laggards because when it closed there was still a shortfall of 3.7 million options. Nevertheless, the issue raised some $1.8 million a handy sum for Goldstream, which had spent $2.4million in the previous year and had just $2.7 million left in the kitty at the end of June 1999.

Punters who took these options have done fairly well. Their final exercise date is in just over a month and at Goldstream's current price around 45¢, they're well in the money.

Goldstream said the cash raised from the options would be spent on its exploration projects in Vanuatu, Tanzania ``and in particular its Mt Gee and Warrina projects in South Australia''.

Well, whatever was spent on the rest, not too much was spent on Mt Gee. Judging by Goldstream's quarterly reports, the company's exploration of Mt Gee over the next six months was conducted in historical records.

They looked up drilling results from Exoil NL on the same prospect back in 1970, which had found half a million tonnes containing low-grade uranium. ``Goldstream's current program has identified what appears to be a down-faulted more robust extension to this resource,'' the company said.

Oddly, Goldstream then lost interest in Mt Gee. For the next nine months, Goldstream did no fieldwork on Mt Gee, which barely rated a line in its quarterly reports. Early this year it did some theoretical modelling of the Mt Gee resource and in the last June quarter it did a gravity survey, but this hardly amounts to hot pursuit of an exciting prospect.

If it helps, Pierpont can offer Goldstream investors a little more insight into drill hole 003. It very nearly intersected two previous drill holes at Mt Gee, drilled years earlier by other companies that had abandoned the prospect.

Back in the early 1970s, Exoil drilled Mt Gee like a Cheshire cheese. It drilled 620 holes totalling 172,390 feet in the general area and, by Pierpont's count, 45 of them were within 300 metres of Goldstream's discovery intersection.

After its extensive drilling program, Exoil decided the Mt Gee deposit was the most promising in the area, with potential for 30 million tonnes at 1.8lb per tonne.

Having done that calculation, Exoil rode off into the sunset, quite possibly because it had become politically impossible to develop new uranium mines in Australia.

One of Exoil's better holes was MG101, which was sunk vertically and intersected its better grades of U3O8 directly beneath the spot where Goldstream's 003 hit its hot intersection. Goldstream's 003 started some 70 metres away from MG101 but was sunk at an inclination and direction that went straight towards it.

Indeed, 003 must have nearly hit the vertical hole left by MG101.

And that's not all. In 1989, CRA arrived at Mt Gee and did a drilling program there. CRA's most exciting hole was GE33, which struck uranium oxide at grades averaging 1,370 parts per million between 220 and 281 metres.

Bottle, using a serviette for paper and a swizzle stick as a straight edge, did a few rapid calculations.

``Not only did Goldstream's 003 go within a whisker of Exoil's MG101, but it must have passed within about 10 metres of CRA's GE33,'' he said.

``And the hot intersections of CRA and Goldstream are in exactly the same place.''

So, Goldstream's uranium deposit at Mt Gee had been comprehensively discovered some 10 years before Goldstream arrived there.

Indeed, if Goldstream had deliberately decided to punch a hole through an area of known mineralisation, it could hardly have sited 003 better. There must be one patch of the uranium deposit that has nearly been drilled hollow.

Pierpont doubts whether many of Goldstream's current punters would have remembered all that, however. Even the most gifted mullet can't remember three decades of drilling results.

Hope this helps set the record a little straighter

hero