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There is nothing about the tailings project in the newspapers I follow in Parral. I've heard nothing in almost a year from my contact in Mexico. I checked the Channeland web site this morning, and there is nothing new there.
This company (LSTG) really should be allowed to die. I thought it had potential early on. Not any more. I don't think Channeland Entertainment has the skills, the capital, or the determination to save it. I don't think they intend to try.
I think Channeland sees LSTG as a way to access the public financial markets, nothing more. I don't believe for an instant that they intend, or ever intended to "monetize the Mexican properties." They don't have the right kind of people, and they don't seem to have access to the capital that would take. They're a very small music production company, not miners.
The kindest thing I can say about LSTG and its management is that the management was incompetent and the company was under capitalized from the beginning. Far worse, I think the company's management deliberately misled investors for over a year about the progress of its business in Mexico. I think it did this in a misguided and desperate attempt to support its stock price to better position it to raise capital in cash for (deeply discounted) equity deals. That doesn't make it OK. I think Mr. Ferris should be held personally accountable for that. He's the guy who signed the false reports.
Ferris resigned all of his positions at LSTG back in December, so yes he can, and has walked away from the company. Townsend and Hepford have not. Townsend is an officer (actually THE officer) of the company, and Hepford is a director. Since these individuals are formally "in charge" it's not possible for someone else to just move in and run things. The board, or the shareholders would have to remove the current officers and directors, and elect new ones. It is unlikely that the board, which consists of Messrs. Hepford and Townsend, will do this. Therefore, if it is to be done, the shareholders will have to do it.
Mr. Ferris remains liable for any criminal or civil misconduct that he may have engaged in while he was an officer of LSTG. He can't walk away from that.
What makes you think this company stock is about to run up? It has no revenue, massive losses since inception, and judging by its last financials, no significant operations. It pinned a lot of its hopes on the Chongqing Grain Group deal, which has so far resulted in zero revenue. It is not clear that the Chinese ever funded their part of the deal at all, much less bought any product. CPOW has not published any recent news about its operations, so that it is not even certain that it is still in business. BTW, this is the month that the pilot-scale plant was to begin operations. If it happened, that would be newsworthy, yet there is not a word about it on the Company web site or anywhere else. The local newspaper (Regina Leader-Post) stopped paying attention to CPOW in 2011. Mike Shenher doesn't even bother to answer inquiries any more. All of that makes me think it's not a serious business venture at all.
The only reason this stock would run up now is a pump and dump campaign. Even that might not move the price much. What am I missing?
One can only hope...
Dan Ferris has moved on. He resigned all of his positions at Virtus Oil & Gas effective 13 May. No word on where he might go next.
I got a reply from one person down there. He says he hasn't heard a thing from Channeland. In early May, the newspapers were reporting that some of the small miners are dissatisfied with the administration of the Government processing plant. There was nothing else connected with the mining industry in the recent news reporting.
qsl, I will do so tonight. No guarantee of any response, but it can't hurt to ask.
Rob seems to have gone dark after the September 2013 update. There's been nothing from the Company, and nothing new on the IPRC web site since then. Disposal fell dramatically in Wise County in October 2013, with reported volumes down 90% compared to the previous month and nearly 90% year over year. I have no insight into why this was so, and the company hasn't provided any information. Rob is not answering my e-mail any more either.
According to the symbology guide on the OTC web site, the 'E' indicates the company is delinquent in its filings. The accompanying explanation says there are "exceptions" to the use of the symbol, but that it is assigned by FINRA and commonly used in this way. Here's the url for the OTC symbology guide:
OTC Symbology Guide
Yes it is!
Nothing happening at VOIL. They let the Beaver County leases go back to the original owner, and are now in possession of some leases in Iron County, near Parwan. They need over $4M to drill on these leases, and they don't have it. There's been nothing new in over two months. The leases are located far from where commercial quantities of oil have been found, so the drill program would be highly speculative to say the least.
I had high hopes for LSTG. If they'd been better capitalized, maybe they could have made it work, who knows? I also wish they'd been honest and forthcoming with the shareholders. Mr Ferris has a long way to go before I ever trust anything he says again.
Ferris resigned in December, so he is out, taking his stock and cash with him. He is now at Virtus Oil and Gas as its CEO.
The termination of the acquisition means there is no relationship between Channeland Entertainment Group and Lone Star Gold. Mr. Mark Townsend is President of Channeland Entertainment Group. Lone Star Gold does not currently have a President/CEO, see below.
The LSTG Board of Directors (Messrs Hepford and Townsend) is negotiating an employment agreement to let Townsend continue as the CEO of LSTG. The Board consists of Mr. Hepford, since Mr. Townsend has recused himself from negotiating on behalf of LSTG due to the obvious difficulties of negotiating with oneself.
The Board want Mr Townsend to give LSTG the right to use the Channeland name, but do not want the associated tangible assets (if indeed there are any). I suspect the difficulty in determining a valuation relates to the valuation of Channeland Entertainment Group, since it was the entity being acquired. The valuation of LSTG would be immaterial in this case, as no one is trying to buy it.
Channeland does not have a "20-year brand history." It was formed in June of 2013. The projects it cites on its "Current Projects" section of its "web site" were, with one exception, completed before, and in some cases years before Channeland was formed. So there are no "current projects." I sent Channeland a note today to ask them to name one or more real current, revenue producing projects.
Now here's the part shareholders need to watch out for: Channeland has an A/S of 100,000,000 shares, but has not registered any shares with the SEC. Lone Star Gold, of course has registered millions of shares of common stock. If LSTG gets the rights to the "Channeland Entity" (basically the name) it can change its name to Channeland Entertainment Group, walk away from the mining properties, and declare itself to be in the music business. Its insiders thereby get instant access to registered equity that they can use to raise capital. Instant public company without all the fuss and bother of an IPO. Not saying that will happen, just that it's one possibility. It this were to happen, whether it's bad or good depends on what the insiders do with whatever capital they are able to raise.
The PR does say the Board of LSTG is waiting for a report on monetizing the LSTG assets in Mexico, and they expect that report in April. Maybe they'll share some information when the report comes in, and it will be clearer what Townsend intends to do.
I also checked out Rhodes Holdings. Turns out that the principal, a Mr. Robert C. Rhodes, is shown on Linkedin as President of American Liberty Petroleum (ALP). On the Rhodes Holdings "web site" he is shown as CEO of Cornwall Resources Corporation in 2010, but ALP is not mentioned. He has signed the latest SEC filings by ALP as its President. American Liberty Petroleum is in dire financial straits right now, at least from the look of its last 10-Q.
Some long-time LSTG shareholders might remember Alvaro Vollmers. He was CEO of Keyser Resources, now LSTG, from November 2010 until Ferris arrived in March, 2011. He was also an officer and director of American Liberty Petroleum until his resignation in January 2014, when he was replaced by Mr Rhodes. So Mr. Vollmers has had significant(IMHO)business relationships with Mr. Ferris and Mr. Rhodes. Don't know what this means yet, but the fact that these people know one another seems like a good piece of information for shareholders to have. Nothing I know of connects Mr. Ferris to Mr. Rhodes directly. I've not discovered how Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Townsend got together. I've not discovered how Mr. Ferris and Mr. Townsend got together either.
The press release talks about a "social media project." There is not much in the background of the people in Channeland to inspire confidence that they can make money with that. They've worked in the music business. There are no people left in Lone Star Gold except the consultants in Mexico, and they're miners.
Not to be too critical, but the existence of these relationships and the current relationship of Mr. Rhodes to Channeland, and the venture into social media do not inspire me to get up off my wallet. Sorry about the length of the post. Hope this is useful.
I've contacted the folks I know down there, and they say they've not heard anything from LSTG since the new management took over. Nothing in the newspapers about the Government plant or the mining industry generally, except a piece on the roads being repaired near La Prieta mine so that GoGold/COANSAMEX can continue developing their project to process tailings from La Prieta.
I got a message from Miguel Jaramillo in early September of 2013 concerning the Tailings Project. I believe I posted it at the time. To summarize, Jaramillo said there were 1.5 million tons of tailings, but that none had been delivered to a processing plant because "... they do not pay the right price."
I got another communication in December of 2013 which said there was a second processing plant, but that it would have charged more than the tailings were worth to process them.
I was able to get a local newspaper reporter to verify that there were no tailings belonging to LSTG, Amiko Kay or to Jaramillo in the Government processing plant in Parral, and that no contracts between Jaramillo, Amiko Kay or LSTG and the plant existed. The reporter got his information in an interview with the plant manager.
I think the tailings exist, and LSTG has some rights to process them. What turns out to be false, according to the information I was able to get, is the story LSTG had been telling everyone about delivering substantial quantities of tailings to the Government processing plant between March and June of 2012, and of having 6000 tons of tailings in the processing plant awaiting processing as of March, 2013 when the plant reopened. The story LSTG told in some of its SEC filings about the Government plant "...operating sporadically since it reopened,..." is refuted by both the operating contractor and the plant manager in separate interviews with the local newspaper El Sol de Parral. The plant manager also refuted the claim made by LSTG that the Government plant had a one-year backlog.
I think the bottom line on LSTG was that the local processing plants were either unavailable or uneconomical, and the company needed to make a capital expenditure of about $1M to build its own plant. It could not raise the cash it needed, so it could not exploit the tailings. That's where I think things sit right now.
I've not seen anything on the Channeland web site that gives me the least bit of encouragement. I do continue to watch this company, although I no longer own shares of it.
I;m out of it, but that doesn't mean I've given up. I just wanted to do something else with the money I had left. I do follow this stock, and if I see a good reason to get back in, I will. I thought it had potential. Too bad the previous management didn't make something good happen.
I have not. I did have an e-mail exchange with one of the LSTG consultants about a month ago. He seemed to be as much in the dark as the shareholders are about the intentions of the new management team. Haven't heard anything more from him since then. Jaramillo hasn't talked to me since last September. He didn't answer the last e-mail I sent to him. To be fair, I'm out of LSTG now, and have not been pressing him or anyone else for information about the Company.
To answer your second question, If someone or a group bought all of the outstanding shares, the monies would go to the owners of those shares. Dan Ferris would get whatever the market value (or the deal price) of his shares is worth, for example, and you or I would get the value (or deal price) for our shares.
Yeah, I think I remember that. :)
I am amazed that anyone is paying attention to this POS. Its new management hasn't provided the first atom of specific information about its plans for LSTG, and LSTG's dismal record over the past two years doesn't exactly make a compelling case for an investment in this company. JMHO.
Alvie, I had not looked at past filings. Thanks for the info, I'll go and read the past filings.
Today's exciting news from Virtus Oil is not really from Virtus Oil at all. I found out from the latest Lone Star Gold 8-K that Dan Ferris had resigned as President/CEO of Lone Star Gold effective 19 December. He is now free to devote his full attention to Virtus Oil & Gas. That should be just lovely. I look forward to watching VOIL deploy its "exciting new technology" under the leadership of its now full-time President, but I'll be keeping my wallet in my pocket.
According to LSTG's latest 8-K, Dan Ferris resigned as president/CEO of LSTG effective 19 December, 2013. A Mr. Mark Townsend has purportedly taken his place. In a neat move to insure perpetual insider control, Mr. Townsend has given himself preferred stock which is structured so that he and the other preferred "Series E" shareholders will always have more than 66% of the voting rights. Common shareholders will be along for the ride, with no real say in how things are run. Mr. Townsend seems to have a background in the entertainment industry. Probably appropriate, since the only value this company has managed to generate for its shareholders in two years is the entertainment value of trying to figure out what was really going on.
Dan is full time in the oil business now, with Virtus Oil (VOIL). I'm sure that exciting things will be happening at Virtus "real soon." Prepare to be entertained.
I've heard absolutely nada from the SEC in two months. Not too hopeful, but I will not let this rest as it is.
SEC 13G filings indicate that Asher Enterprises has taken a 9.99% stake in Lone Star Gold, effective as of today.
I was on the Virtus Oil & Gas web site this morning, and I discovered that Dan Ferris, formerly the CEO of a gold exploration company, is now full-time as President and CEO of Virtus. I sent them a message to find out when he had resigned as CEO of Lone Star Gold.
New Virtus Oil & Gas web site is up, does not need a password. Interestingly enough, it says Dan Ferris is "... now full-time as CEO of Virtus Oil & Gas..." I would say he's left Lone Star Gold behind.
My information is from the Texas Railroad Commission's (TRRC) online query system. You can look it up for yourself. I assume you know how to reach the TRRC web site and use the H-10 query system.
I previously published the well UIC and the operator number that I used to query the TRRC site for the Green Tide H-10. Here it is again:
UIC 000094941
Operator Number 825445 (Strata Operating Company, Inc.)
One can also do a total injection volume query, which I did. I went back five years for the total injection volume in Wise County. The numbers say injection volumes in Wise County peaked in 2011.
So now one of several things may be true: (1) I've got the wrong well. Don't think so, because the lat/long of the well in the GIS database at TRRC and the lat/long in the Google Earth pictures of the Green Tide site under construction seem to match very closely; (2) The TRRC is just clueless about salt water injection volumes in Wise County. Doubt it. (3) all the reports for 2013 are not in. Can't say, but I can say I'm checking the TRRC site daily for updates to the injection volume, and there's not been one yet.
Now, I'd like very much to hear where the data to back up what you say is coming from. All I see is talk, and no hard, verifiable data or data sources to back it up.
BTW, you don't know me, and I don't know you. Let's leave the accusations of "pushing Imperial price" or "bashing Imperial stock" out of the conversation until we get to know one another a little better.
I did an injection volume query for Wise County, and discovered that the total injection volume reported, for October 2013 was about 13% of the injection volume for each of the summer months and about 15% of the volume in September. So it is possible that something is going on in the oil patch that is affecting every disposal operation in Wise County. Reported injection volume for Wise County has been at about 2,000,000 barrels per month for the past two years. In October 2013, it was 277,000 barrels.
The good news is that Imperial has about 9% of that 277,000 barrels. During the Summer, they were getting about 5% of the total business in Wise County.
The H-10 is out and available on the TRRC web site. Here are the numbers:
September 2012, 4770 bbl
October 2012, 35890 bbl
November 2012, 30258 bbl
December 2012, 15423 bbl
January 2013, 49650 bbl
February 2013, 46201 bbl
March 2013, 69701 bbl
April 2013, 62915 bbl
May 2013, 69534 bbl
June 2013, 87602 bbl
July 2013, 80250 bbl
August 2013, 84410 bbl
September 2013, 67355 bbl
October 2013, 25591 bbl
November 2013, NO DATA
December 2013, NO DATA
The Well UIC is 000094941, and the API Number is 42-497-35728. operator ID is Strata Operating, Inc. The Operator Number is 825445.
Haven't looked into the reason for the numbers in October yet, so have no idea why the decline. The October number is lower than October 2012.
I tried again, and got the same result. The site (www.virtusoilandgas.com) has gone secure, and a password and username are required to access it.
I'll bet they are getting ready for something. I'll hold onto my wallet and try to curb my enthusiasm.
I tried to check the Virtus Oil & Gas web site this morning, only to find that it has gone all secure. A username and password are apparently required now to access the site. anyone else been able to gain access to Dan's new company's web site?
Short answer, No. Sr. Jaramillo did not answer my last message. The newspapers, which I last checked about five days ago, have nothing whatsoever about LSTG, Amiko Kay, Jaramillo's company, or the tailings pile. They have nothing about the operation of the processing plant, which makes me think it is operating normally. No Mexican Government official has replied to any of my e-mails. LSTG management and investor relations of course ceased responding a long time ago.
The JV agreement gives LSTG the right to take over the operation if Jaramillo breaches the agreement. For example, if Jaramillo fails to get the tailings processed, which he has done. It should be a no-brainer for Ferris. Indeed, Ferris' actions in this matter are as inexplicable as they are inexcusable.
I don't know of a way to force Jaramillo to deliver the tailings to a processing plant. The JV doesn't have any penalty for breach of the agreement other than the suspension of rights to participate in profit sharing until the breach is cured. The company would have to take over the day-to-day operation itself, or find a local contractor who could do so. Since LSTG is so cash-poor, that could be a challenge, even if Ferris decided to attempt it.
The shareholders who own a majority of the stock could call for a special shareholders' meeting and confront Ferris about the company's situation. They could force Ferris out, for that matter, and name a new set of officers and directors. Ferris himself does not own a majority of the stock, but I have no idea whether the people who do would be interested in doing something like this. Of course, finding qualified officers and directors who would be interested in this "opportunity" might be a considerable challenge. And, once Ferris was out, there would still be the problem of getting the revenue stream going, with no cash in the bank and little or no ability to raise cash.
The tailings were a revenue stream that would give LSTG significant positive cash flow and some credibility as a rising junior mining company. They could have provided cash for a more extensive exploration program in La Candelaria or elsewhere, for example. For these reasons, the tailings were very important, but they were always an enabler, not the big prize.
I am out of this stock. I lost very little money, because I put very little money into it. Its management structure bothered me, because it really had no management structure other than Ferris, and he had no significant experience in mining or running a public company. Its inability or unwillingness to provide pictures of its tailings operation, to work with the local press to publicize what it was doing, or to give straight answers to my questions about its new extraction process also bothered me. Still, I thought the company had a shot at becoming a viable junior mining company, and I am disappointed beyond words that it mismanaged a good opportunity so badly. I am also disappointed that it apparently chose to mislead investors and I am determined to do everything I can to force it and its officers to be accountable for that.
In a message to me on or about 5 September, 2013. Sr. Jaramillo said the JV had not moved any tailings material to the plant because "they do not pay the right price." Jaramillo has not done what he should have done under the JV and LSTG (Ferris) has done nothing about this. Jaramillo has also not found a second source to process LSTG's tailings at a better price. So he's basically waiting until LSTG either raises the $1M to build its own plant, or defaults on its funding obligation under the JV. It appears likely that LSTG will soon default. That would suspend LSTG's right to any of the profits from processing the tailings, and Jaramillo could then make a deal with a processor (if he can find one who will work with him) without having to share the profits with anyone. If LSTG manages to raise the capital to build its own plant, well, bueno. Jaramillo would share the (presumably much larger) profits with LSTG. Even though the provisions of the JV agreement would allow it to do so, LSTG doesn't have the finances to find another Mexican mining contractor and take over the operation of the JV from Jaramillo.
This is just my attempt to make sense of the situation, and I may be off base. As you point out, though, all they have to do is process the tailings, and they will have the money to build the plant several times over. The failure to process the tailings has never made business sense to me until I realized the success of the JV depends to a very large degree on Jaramillo getting the tailings processed, and he has considerable incentive not to do so.
10-Q is out. It's pretty much the same story. The bit about "6000 tons has been transported to a processing plant in Parral...", which I believe (based on what Jaramillo said in an email to me and on local press reporting) is false, is still in there.
In a previous communication, the same lawyer told me that the SEC maintains a central complaint database used by all SEC employees to identify issues for investigation. So many employees will access the database, and many employees will (potentially) review any complaints that are in it. However, if an investigator, or team of investigators is assigned to LSTG, that investigator or team will see all complaints filed against LSTG.
This news is about a month old. The second amendment to the KVM investment agreement was made effective on 21 October. I think this brings the grand total of stock registered for sale to KVM to 23,000,000 shares as registered in the second amendment to the S-1. At 80% discount to today's price, that grand total is worth about $276,000.00. However, the terms of the KVM investment agreement restrict the size of the put to twice the average volume on the ten previous trading days. At present, that limits a put to about 200,000 shares or less. That means the Company can get about $2400.00 every three days or so, unless the terms of the KVM agreement are changed. That will barely keep the lights on. The Company would have to issue over 300 million additional shares to access the full amount of the KVM equity line, and that assumes prices stabilize at $0.015/share. If they put 300,000,000 shares to KVM, it would take about five years, given current market conditions, for them to complete the put transactions (200,000 shares/day every three days). So while it is theoretically true that they can put up to $5M of stock to KVM, that number is not as significant as it might seem. There is no money to build the processing plant to be had from the KVM agreement as it stands. Without a processing plant, the tailings cannot be turned into cash. Without the cash from the tailings, La Candelaria cannot be explored or exploited. So there we are, dead in the water until someone with deep pockets and a serious appetite for risk comes along.
A more current filing is the NT-10Q they filed on November 15. They've been pretty good about filing reports with the SEC, if one doesn't mind a little inaccurate reporting with respect to the company's actual operations. So we can expect a 10-Q probably by the end of November. Maybe it will have a better and more accurate story to tell. Hope springs eternal...GLTA
I have a reply from the SEC concerning adding names to my existing complaint against LSTG. The bottom line is that the SEC lawyer who responded to my request isn't able to help me. His message follows:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Mr. Hodge:
As indicated in our previous response, individuals who would like to report information about a possible violation of the federal securities laws can submit the details via the Commission’s Tip, Complaint or Referral Portal at https://denebleo.sec.gov/TCRExternal/index.xhtml.
Rinell Randolph
Attorney
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of Investor Education and Advocacy
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The "previous response" the lawyer is talking about is the request I made this past week for assistance in figuring out how to add people to an existing complaint. The lawyer is basically saying everyone should make their own complaint, and offering no help in adding people to my existing complaint. I'll keep trying to figure out how to add people, but I have to say it's harder than it should be. I think everyone who is so inclined should just file your own complaint.
BTW, the address of the complaint portal that the SEC lawyer supplied didn't work for me. There's a link that does work on the SEC home page.
I've contacted the SEC to find out exactly what I need to do to add you all to my existing complaint. I've not yet had a reply, but as soon as I do hear from them, I'll post what I need, and an address to send any information they ask for. I'll follow up in about a week if I haven't heard from them by then.
AJAZ31, I can't speak for anyone but myself, but my objective is to bring this Company to the attention of the SEC for filing false and misleading press releases, Annual Reports and Quarterly Reports repeatedly over a two-year period.
My hope is that the SEC will look into my complaint, and will take any action that it deems warranted by what it finds. If my complaint is found to have merit, it is my hope that Mr. Ferris and his accomplices will be held accountable for what they have done.
What I hope to achieve is to get one or more bad actors out of the market, permanently. Pennies are risky enough without the bad actors, wouldn't you agree?
BTW, Dan's revving up Virtus Oil (VOIL) (ex Curry Gold). Maybe he'll do better as an oil company CEO. He's got some financing from a Marshall Islands company, bought some leases in Utah, and has generated a great big stock split for the "Founders". The a/s has doubled, too. I'd say he's moved on from LSTG. Probably explains why he doesn't return calls or e-mail to LSTG Headquarters. Check it out. Gives me a sense of deja vu.
Alvie, that's also what the SEC lawyer who responded to my last complaint told me. Howeve4r, I'm certainly willing to do the relatively easy work to file if a group want to file a group complaint. I think the SEC will look at that as one complaint, though. It would be better if many complaints showed up, and that means file individually, not as a group.
OK. Anyone who is interested in filing a joint complaint against LSTG, make a public reply to this post. Eventually, I will need contact information for each person who will sign onto the joint complaint, but for now I just want to get an idea of how many are interested in pursuing this.