Will Purcell Stockwatch Article “Adriaan Bakker's Vanadiumcorp Resource Inc. (VRB), unchanged at five cents on 73,000 shares Thursday, had a close encounter of the worrying kind with the regulators late last week. Late Thursday, the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) issued a cease trade order against the company, stating that it had failed to file its audited annual financial report on time. It appears that the order and Vanadiumcorp's report crossed paths en route to their destinations; accordingly, the BCSC revoked the cease trade order late Friday, but the stock remains halted today.
While Vanadiumcorp's financials do not tell an encouraging story -- the company reported a working capital deficiency of over $150,000 at the end of October -- better news lay just a few days ahead. Mr. Bakker and his crew closed a final tranche of a fall placement in mid-November, selling 5.7 million shares at five cents, adding $285,000 to the company's coffers. The following month it sold 1.99 million regular shares at five cents and 12.31 million flow-through shares at 6.5 cents, raising nearly $900,000 of the $1.3-million that Mr. Bakker had been seeking in the placement.
The money is primarily for the company's Lac Dore vanadium and iron deposit, southeast of Chibougamau in north-central Quebec, as was the cash the company raised last summer. That money went to a drill program that ended in mid-October. The work was designed to allow Vanadiumcorp to deliver a compliant resource estimate, its previous attempt in 2015 having belatedly been ruled non-compliant. (The now not-to-be-relied-upon, non-compliant resource estimate, one that survived regulatory scrutiny for a few years at least, had listed 99.1 million tonnes at 0.43 per cent vanadium oxide.)
Armed with that calculation, Vanadiumcorp prepared a preliminary economic assessment late in 2017, but it was quickly pooh-poohed by the BCSC. Not only was the company unable to fix the dream sheet, its attempt to do so called the resource estimate into question. Suddenly, Vanadiumcorp was back where it was in 2014. Last year's drilling offered a chance to fix that, but unfortunately, there has not been a peep about assays since. Investors are hoping that the new cash will allow the company to complete a new resource estimate, and then a proper preliminary economic assessment.”