On Tuesday Commerce Resources issued a statement clarifying and correcting news releases and corporate presentations it had made regarding its mineral exploration properties near Blue River and its Ashram property in northern Quebec.
The statement came a result of a review by the British Columbia Securities Commission.
According to the statement, in company news releases and corporate presentations, they referred to the Preliminary Economic Assessments (PEA) on their Blue River property (effective date of September 29, 2011), and their Ashram Property (filed on July 5, 2012), as well as two technical reports on resource updates for the Blue River property (filed July 9, 2012 and July 17, 2013).
The statement noted that news releases and corporate presentations did not prominently disclose that the preliminary economic assessment is preliminary in nature, that it includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized.
“All news releases issued by the company since September 2013 that referred to a PEA of the company's projects should be read to include the cautionary language above. The company intends to include such language in all future news releases which are based on a PEA.,” the statement read.
Lastly, in a corporate presentation formerly on its website, the company erroneously disclosed an increase in the net present value of the Blue River project from the base case reported in the technical report on its PEA, citing improved metallurgy. Commerce Resources unequivocally retracts that erroneous information, confirms that the technical report filed July 17, 2013 is current and has removed the erroneous information from its website. The company has not received an updated PEA with better results.
Commerce Resources' Blue River property is a tantalum and niobium deposit about 25 km north of Blue River.
Tantalum is a rare metal that is mostly used to make capacitors in mobile phones and other electronic devices.
Niobium is also a rare metal. Its main uses include making alloys used in gas pipelines and in superconductors.