The Company is currently assembling financing for drilling and a feasibility study.

Drilling will fill in the gaps among the previous 74 holes and seek to extend the known Askot deposit in three directions: northwest, southeast and at depth. This work will be accompanied by engineering and metallurgical studies, process design, cost estimating and marketing studies and culminate with a bankable feasibility study. The timetable is about 15 months from start to finish. During this period the Company will endeavour also to finalise Forest Clearance and execute the 30-year Mining Lease Deed.

Following completion of the bankable feasibility study -- and assuming the world metals markets have returned to a normal state and production financing is available -- the Company proposes to assemble the capital required to start underground development and plant construction. The target date for commercial production is late 2011.

More progress and plans:

• In 2007 both the Indian Ministry of Mines and the state of Uttarakhand approved our Mining Lease application on 386 Hectares (see map below).
  

  
  
  

  Map of the reduced area from the old Prospecting Licence (green rectangular border) of 793 hectares and the Mining Lease application (irregular red border) of 386 hectares. The northern border (the irregular double black line) is the paved highway between Pithoragarh and Dharchula of the Border Roads system. Askot village has several hundred people; the other villages shown are clusters of farm houses, each with a few dozen people at most. The project will not displace anyone involuntarily.
  
  
• The Company has obtained Environmental Clearance in June 2009
• The Company did considerable geologic, geophysical and other technical work.
• It also rebuilt two km of existing road as an all-weather road and it survived the 2004-2008 summer monsoons.
• The government is in process of "de-notifing" the existing Askot Game Sanctuary after objections from local people. The borders of the game sanctuary were poorly thought out from the start. It was originally intended to protect a species of musk deer, but the deer are high altitude animals and never venture as low as the Askot area (700 m to 1,250 m). The proposed new sanctuary boundary is at 8,000 feet elevation (2,400 m), which takes it far from Askot.
• As a policy, the Company has a protocol for hiring local residents as much as possible. We have employed a skilled team of miners, construction workers and administrative staff that varies between 45 and 60 people. Goods and services are also procured locally as much as possible.
• The project to date has put many lakhs of rupees into the local economy.
• The Indian Bureau of Mines has visited the project, advised on aspects of safety and health, and has approved the Askot project.

Mining Engineer Barun Kumar, Gyan Singhai and Miner's Mate Bakunth Prasad underground

• The Company has given full access to the local press, which has visited, interviewed employees, taken photos and written about the project.
• Drilling: 4,600 metres in 17 holes from the surface in 2006 and 2007.
• 100 line-km of tightly spaced magnetic and electromagnetic lines was conducted in 2006.

(Updated June 17, 2009)

For more information on Uttaranchal please click on the following:
www.uttaranchal.ws