In 2006, Steve Flechner led Oriental Minerals to acquire the Sangdong tungsten-molybdenum project in South Korea, which was one of the world's largest tungsten and molybdenum mines from 1947 to 1992 with production of 600,000 tonnes per year. The project was closed in 1992 due to low metal prices, presenting an opportunity for Steve to negotiate an agreement to acquire 100% of the project for a combination of cash, stock, and work commitments. He then assisted in raising the first $5M for confirmation drilling of Sangdong's historic drill holes, which led to verification of the historical tungsten-molybdenum resource, expansion of the resource, successful scoping and pre-feasibility studies, and receipt of a mining license. The Sangdong deposit, currently owned by Woulfe Mining, has a total resource of 81 million tonnes at a grade of 0.29% WO3 and 0.05% MoS2, and is undergoing a full feasibility study. During his time at Oriental Minerals, Steve also negotiated acquisitions of the Gasado and Muguk gold mines, the Chongyang molybdenum-tungsten mine, and numerous other projects. Muguk was South Korea's largest historically producing gold mine.
David Smith identified the Rex gold prospect in west-central Arizona as a significant acquisition opportunity as the result of a client's gold project evaluation program he conducted in 2008-2010. This led to the client signing an option agreement for the Rex property in 2010. The project is a detachment fault-related gold target which was drilled in the 1980s by a major gold-producing company. Drill results show potential ore-grade gold values in sulfide-bearing sedimentary host rocks below a detachment fault in all holes drilled within a 1500- by 4000-foot area. These results indicate a large hydrothermal gold system with potential for a major bulk-mineable gold deposit.
Highlands principals provided due-diligence services to evaluate an opportunity to acquire an advanced gold project in west-central Nevada. The project was a sediment-hosted Carlin-type gold deposit mined in the 1980s, with current owners seeking capital to re-open production. Our due diligence included investigating the geology and mineralization, mineral resource and resource estimates, land and title, exploration potential, metallurgy and recovery, permitting, operations, management, financial modeling, and valuation. Project complexities involved multiple owners of the resource, several different permitting scenarios, numerous financial scenarios to accommodate concurrent land negotiations, marginal ore grade, and difficulties with gold recovery. We recommended against the project, preventing the client from making a poor investment.