Last week's column about the political situation in Venezuela brought responses from several readers (one of whom went so far as to call me a "hack").
Retiree and long-time CRYSTALLEX investor Robert M. Bonger of Evansville, Indiana, said I got the Lo Increible ownership wrong. A further check of Crystallex press releases discovered that Crystallex has bought out its minority shareholder and now owns 100% of the project.
Bonger further wrote: "Also a long article by Gene Arensberg on Resource Investor dated October 3, 2005, probably still available at http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=13332&t=60,
may help you understand what has been going on in the efforts by the short sellers and others with an agenda, to sabotage Crystallex's development."
Stanley Sandner, founder and CEO of CADRE RESOURCES, wrote with an update on his bajo Caroni project. "We are currently in an advanced stage of our bankable feasibility study with very favourable results. Our bajo Caroni project is actually an environment clean-up to remove some 10 million tonnes per year of quartz/granite sand and gravel that is contaminated with mercury. Our removal method includes the use of a 'zero turbidity' Pneuma pump that will be connected to a slurry pipeline transporting the material (and water) some 10 kilometres away from the Caroni to a processing plant site. Nothing is returned to the river! Ninety-nine per cent of the mercury, any gold and diamonds and all the heavy mineral titanium-bearing black sands will be removed, producing a high quality clean quartz/granite sand and gravel aggregate for which we have found a ready market. We are NOT seeking a gold and diamond concession per se! The combined value of the material, ASTM spec aggregate gravels, clean (mostly quartz) sands, added values of any gold, diamonds and the titaniferous heavy mineral 'black sands' indicates a very worthwhile (environmentally friendly) project.
"[Bajo Caroni is] a major project practically at the edge of a major Venezuelan city (population +/- 600,000 people). The city of Puerto Ordaz and San Felix and related heavy industries draw their water from the Caroni. It is a very important project that has local, state, national, environmental and UNIDO Global Mercury Project support. We see NO reason to be concerned with the political, technical, environmental, or any other objection to our project."
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