The Askot deposit is located at Askot village, Uttarakhand state (formerly part of Uttar Pradesh), in the Himalayan foothills of northern India.

The deposit was drilled and tunneled in a series of programs by the United Nations Development Programme and several Indian government agencies in the period 1965-1988. The first independent Technical Report on the Askot project was authored by Qualified Person, Paul M. Boswell, FIMMM, C.Eng., Technical Report (509k), and is reproduced in this web site.

Pebble Creek restarted drilling in mid-2006 and completed the two-stage program in late 2007 verify previous drill holes. Previous work established a strike length of 600m and 180m depth of the steeply dipping deposit, but did not find the northwest, southeast or downward limits of the deposit. All parties drilled a total of 13,900 meters in 74 holes. The fact that nearly all holes stopped in ore is shown in the view of drill hole intersections are shown in the Longitudinal Section (464k).

An independent NI 43-101 indicated mineral resource estimate was made by Qualified Person Dr. J.F. Couture, SRK Consulting, Toronto, and Mr. Souvik Banerjee, SRK Consulting, Kolkata, and announced in a news release: Sedar and on this site Mineral Resource Estimate, August 12, 2008.

The estimate is for an Indicated Resource of 1.86 million tonnes containing 2.62% copper, 5.80% zinc, 3.83% lead, 38 grams of silver per tonne and 0.48 grams of gold per tonne. The cutoff grade is Smelter Payable Metal of US$100 per tonne of ore or 2.7% copper equivalent or 6.5% zinc equivalent.

The equivalencies are a device to rationalise the five metals into one number. They are calculated based on prices of $2/lb copper, $0.90/lb zinc, $0.65/lb lead, $15/oz silver and $900/oz gold, as anticipated conservatively in years 2010-2012. Equivalencies are also based on mill recoveries of 85% copper, 76% zinc, 78% lead, and 60% for each of silver and gold.

The contained metal in this resource is 107 million lbs. of copper; 157 million lbs. of lead and 238 million lbs. of zinc. The resource also contains 2.3 million ounces of silver and 29,000 ounces of gold.

The average equivalent grade is $250 per tonne or 6.6% copper equivalent or 16.3% zinc equivalent.

The full report is posted to Sedar and on this site SRK Consulting's Technical Report, NI 43-101 Indicated Mineral Resource Estimate (3,400kb)

The limits of the Askot deposit have not yet been identified and the Company is planning step-out drilling.

Metals prices have dropped off owing to the credit crisis, however the fundamentals will reassert themselves in due course and the secular bull market will resume where it recently left off. Click here to see current prices of copper, zinc and lead and here for prices of gold and silver.

Askot's economic vitality will be enhanced by India's high demand for metals, low capital and operating costs, business incentives, low trucking costs, and the eagerness of the new state of Uttaranchal to work with industry toward common goals. Under Indian law, profits from mining can be repatriated.

(Updated October 23, 2008)