Tuesday, 02 September 2008 05:18
Sutter Gold Mine Sale Finalized
Last week, the Sutter Gold Mining Company announced that the sale of the company’s controlling shares has been finalized. US Energy Corporation, a mining company based in Riverton Wyoming, retained Sutter’s controlling shares for the past 11 years. 2 years ago, Sutter Gold Mining Company was made into its own entity, and an extensive Exploration Program ensued, which involved core drilling for over 100,000 feet in order to locate and sample major quartz vein structures. After entertaining multiple interested parties, US Energy sold the shares to Rand Merchant Bank Resources, a trustee for the Telluride investment trust. RMB Resources is the resource merchant banking business unit of FirstRand, one of South Africa’s leading financial institutions, and has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Johannesburg, and Denver. Sutter Gold outgoing CEO Hal Herron issued a statement about the deal’s closing. “This announcement is a significant milestone for Sutter shareholders. RMB and their professional staff have spent a great deal of time analyzing Sutter's gold projects and have determined that they warrant continued exploration and/or development. Going forward, the Company will be focused on accelerating development activities at its Lincoln Gold Project in the historic Mother Lode district of Northern California and on continued exploration at its El Alamo gold project in Baja Mexico in a joint venture with Premier Gold.” In a statement issued exclusively to TSPN, an RMB spokesman stated: “with the acquisition complete and funding now having been raised, we are very much looking forward to SGMI commencing the detailed work and evaluation which is required by SGMI to make an informed decision on the development of the project, for the benefit of all stakeholders including shareholders, the community of Sutter Creek and Amador County. We understand the activities under way include augmenting the core team of employees and consultants to provide the expertise required to conduct the evaluation work, including continued permitting and reclamation planning to ensure responsible development and operations, completion of a comprehensive geologic data base for use in detailed underground mine planning and the finalization of metallurgical test work from which a final process design will be generated. We expect that much more information will become available from the Company over the next several months as SGMI completes this work. We look forward to further reports from the company on the progress of this work, in due course.”