Why Soltera???This was posted today on the SLTA iHub board and it really says it all...
For me originally it wasFabio Montanari and Penoles' past drill results in the 90's. Plus thearea play: El Torno is in the Argentinian side of the same Andeangeo-zone as the 'elephant country' of Chile's and Peru's biggest goldfinds. The only difference between Chile/Peru and Argentina isArgentina still remains 75% unexplored by modern techniques.
The geochem work done by Fabio in 2008 indicated two gold-rich anomaliesover 2km wide which could be large open-pit mine potentials. That's ontop of the 14km fully-mineralized gold vein system and the surface goldright underfoot which was being processed by the titleholder right upuntil 3 years ago when he had to stop due to health condition. There ismore gold in El Torno than the world has found in a long time. That ishow I see it anyway.
But then 2008 happened and there wasabsolutely no exploration funding available anywhere. Soltera had noway to move forward on these impressive gold targets. Ran out of moneyto the point they couldn't even afford to make SEC filings (not cheap).This left them at 5 cents for over a year and down on the bottom of thePinksheets with Caveat Emptor status. But throughout this time ofattrition Fabio kept his gem, El Torno. He also came up with a plan tosurvive and thrive...
Fabio managed to negotiate gaining thesurface mining rights and ownership of the gold gravity concentrationplant away from the titleholder in exchange for 10% of gold productionon the elluvial deposit. That negotiation took over 8 months toachieve. But as anyone knows, getting mining rights normally takeslonger when you have to go through all the government hoops. Soltera andits shareholders could see the light at the end of the global financialcrisis tunnel. The plan was to get the plant into full gold productionby the end of 2010. But then something even better happened...GOLDLAKE.
Goldlake, owned by family that is Italy's 3rdlargest cement company with over $1B in annual business, has a $10M'ethical gold' supply deal with Cartier Jewelers. They contacted Fabioto see if they could finance not just the elluvial production at ElTorno but also the first $5M needed to prove up the vein system and thenew open-pit targets. Why? Because it just so happens that the gold atEl Torno is 'free gold' ideal for ethical gold production since itneeds no mercury nor cyanide to extract it. Goldlake has so farinvested $500,000 at 10cents and if the testwork (now completed andawaiting lab results) proves successful then they will be exercisingwarrants at 15cents to place an additional $5.5M into Soltera.
So one of the best geologists (read about him) with one of the richestgold projects, after two years of dropping in stock value, now has aBillion Dollar backer and the test results to seal the deal are due byChristmas.
Who could ask for a better situation than this one? I rest my case Your Honor. lol