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WestHawk Development:
Finding A New Way To Mine Coal
by Glenn Wilkins - AllPennyStocks.com News Reporter
May 10, 2006 (AllPennyStocks.com Media, Inc.) - Time was when
coal truly was king, and not just in nursery rhymes. Entire
communities were mined and laid waste to in previous
centuries, before alternative sources of heat and light were
found that could surpass coal's properties. Not that coal has
ever gone away as a serious fuel source; just that its
importance has been de-emphasized in recent years as consumers
and producers have focused on the rise and fall of the price
of petroleum.
But with the peaks we have seen in oil prices, and the need
for cleaner-burning fuels, intrepid mining companies have been
hammering away at research and development of coal mining
operations in recent years, and seen their fortunes rise as a
result. Among them is Vancouver-based West Hawk Development
(TSX Venture:WHD), which is building shareholder value by
focusing on the development and commercialization of its
extensive coal assets in western Canada. The company's
technical team has demonstrated extensive regional knowledge
which has enabled it to identify, advance and develop these
assets.
Through West Hawk's newly-formed subsidiary, Northern Clean
Fuels, the company aims to pioneer employing Coal
Gasification/Liquefaction technology to produce ultra-clean
transport fuels and electric power for its native British
Columbia. It has also recently opened doors to more private
and institutional investors in Europe through a listing on the
Frankfurt Stock Exchange. It currently lists on the TSX
Venture Exchange under the symbol WHD.
West Hawk has looked upward by looking outward, beyond its
shores, developing an impressive portfolio in Mexico and
north-central Chile with a mandate to generate near term
cash-flow while advancing the status of its flagship assets.
The Company boasts a management team with extensive geological
and operational expertise to implement the most economically
sound and environmentally friendly approach to building its
business. At the same time, the Company is exploring gold and
copper prospects in Latin America. West Hawk has received the
go-ahead from the Fox government in Mexico for a renegotiation
of pricing for its wholly-owned project in Guadalupana, in the
southwestern part of that country. The property had been
mostly in government hands since the early 1960s.
Executive Chairman, Michael Townsend claims over a decade
in public company management and corporate communications,
experience which has allowed him to raise more than $10
million in capital for exploration projects (all figures in
Canadian dollars unless specified otherwise) in just the last
two years. He has also served as director for a number of
junior public companies. CEO Christopher Verrico comes with 25
years of construction and mine development and operations
expertise within B.C., the Yukon, Alaska and Nunavut. Verrico
has also been involved in scoping studies as well as
exploration financing for numerous projects in Peru and
Bolivia, which helps explain his familiarity with South
American terrain and its opportunities.
To date, the Company's flagship project is the large
Groundhog anthracite coal deposit, anthracite being the
highest-grade and therefore most profitable types of coal. But
with profit comes risk (which should come as no surprise to
any small cap stockholder) and the risks implicit in finding
this kind of coal include grade risk, recovery risk, finance
risk and cost overruns, particularly in light of the
inflationary market for labour caused by the mining and energy
boom in Western Canada. The latest on Groundhog is that a
980-million-tonne speculative and 48-million-tonne inferred
anthracite coal resource has been identified, thus, a
$1.5-million, 20-hole drilling program is being initiated,
authorized and financed through a strategic partnership with
neighbouring coal license holders in the region, in order to
cut some of that risk. Drilling is expected to be launched
sometime in March.
The stock price eased off a 52-week peak of 87 cents last
October, after a trough of only 13 cents in the early spring
of 2005. The price is now starting to climb back toward the
80-cent level. With its aggressive strategy of exploration,
and with the management expertise at the Company's fingertips,
West Hawk is likely on the verge of substantial growth in the
coming months, and urges those who know their mining stocks to
explore along with them.
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