Royal Standard Minerals, a Sparks-based
mining company, is near to filing an application
for a state environmental permit on
its Gold Wedge property in Nye County.
If the permit is approved the state has
six months to make a decision Royal
Standard hopes to begin a $1.3 million program
to obtain a 10,000-pound bulk sample
from the property.
Ultimately, the company plans to operate
a shallow underground mine at
Gold Wedge.
Roland Larsen, the company's president
and chief executive officer, said last week
that the company has arranged the capital
to meet the demands of the next phase of
developing the property, but he declined to
discuss the details. In published reports,
Larsen has said he hopes to finance the
project with debt to avoid dilution of the
company's common stock. (The stock
trades on the Canadian Ventures Exchange
and through the over-the-counter bulletin
board system in the United States. Its
recent price of 22 cents a share is near the
middle of its 52-week range.)
Royal Standard owns 100 percent of the
Gold Wedge property.
Assuming the state grants its permission
and the cash is in place, the mine planned
by Royal Standard Minerals would be less
than 1,000 feet deep.
Larsen described the Gold Wedge project
as small and said that befits the small
size of Royal Standard Minerals.
The company reported net income of
$295,648 on operating revenue of
$10,332 in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31.
It was profitable only because it recovered
$476,594 from Sharpe Resources
Corp. That money had been advanced to
Sharpe, which the company describes in
regulatory filings as a related company
because it shares management with Royal
Standard, written off and then repaid.
In the previous fiscal year, the company
lost $2.6 million on revenues of $8,282.
At Gold Wedge, 57 drill holes showed
proven or probable
reserves of
200,000 ounces
of gold on the
property and
another 500,000
ounces of possible gold
ore, Royal Standard
has said.
The company reported, meanwhile,
that a new study by consulting
geologist Lawrence Martin estimates
a current potential resource of
546,000 ounces of gold on the property.
The Gold Wedge property is part of
the Manhattan mining district, which
has produced about 1 million ounces of
gold since 1905.
Recent exploration in the area by major
companies such as Freeport Gold and Echo
Bay Mines has focused on possible open-pit
mines rather than the underground facilities
being studied by Royal Standard.
In the Carlin trend of northeast
Nevada, meanwhile, Royal Standard has
been acquiring claims to expand its
Pinon-Rain project.
Royal Standard said it bought out a 30
percent interest held by Crown
Resources in the project and now holds a
1 0 0
p e r c e n t
i n t e r e s t .
Royal Standard
paid 1 million
shares of its common to
Crown Resources and also agreed to
place its name on reclamation bonds that
were the responsibility of Crown.
With its acquisition of 608 unpatented
claims and 19 patented claims on the
southern end of the Carlin Trend region,
Royal Standard said the project now
encompasses more than 16,000 acres. The
company is evaluating the property for
open-pit mining.
