In the spirit of full disclosure the report Mr. Snaper did on Royal Minings fly ash project was the SECOND report done on the process. The first (appendix C of the document linked to) came to this conclusion:
Conclusion: When the fly ash samples were subjected to the proprietary hydrometallurgical chemical treatment furnished by Royal Mines, measurable gold assays were reported in the solid residue (cake)
by SGS laboratories, an accredited analytical lab, using conventional fire assay procedures. The Royal Mines treatment appears to make available to the fire assay previously undetectable gold values from
the starting solids. The report was done by:
Andrew Neale is a mining industry executive with over 20 years experience in all facets of production, including operations, engineering management, environmental management and government relations. He was previously Vice President- Technical-Services for Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold in both Indonesia and New Orleans. Andrew has a BSc and MSc in Mineral" Processing Engineering from the
University of Alberta, and is a registered professional engineer in the province of British Columbia. Ish has over 19 years experience in the field of extractive metallurgy, mineral processing and research
and development. He obtained his BASe and MASc degrees in Metals and Materials Engineering from The University of British Columbia, and is a registered professional engineer in the province of British
Columbia.
Both Andrew Neale and Ish Grewal are independent consultants to Royal Mines, hold no formal position with Royal Mines, and have no financial interests in the outcome of these studies except in regards to
the cash compensation they will receive for completing this work. There are no circumstances that could, in the opinion of a reasonable person aware of all relevant facts, interfere with the judgment of either individual regarding the preparation of this memo.
So Mr. Snaper validated what they already determined. I think most would agree that there is Gold in Arizona. Argue diamonds all day long but Gold is pretty conclusive. I am not sure why anyone would think it impossible to find new and better methodology to extract it. Whether or not it can be done profitably by Royal Mines is a completely different question. But I don't think we should act like Mr. Snaper is a nut case because he was contracted by a firm to verify their process using scientific processes and analysis. Especially considering he came to the same conclusions that the prior highly qualified consultants came to. I am just not sure where the relevance is to CTDT.
