Speech of Alan R. Hill, CEO of Gabriel Thu Sep 8, 2005
INFORMATION RELEASE - Speech of Alan R. Hill, CEO of Gabriel Resources Ltd. and Rosia Montana Gold Corporation
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Bucharest, Romania, September 8, 2005
Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning and welcome.
It is the first time the Company has put both positions together, which was our way to ensure the companies are run harmoniously. And this is also the first time that Gabriel has someone in the CEO slot who's actually managed permitting and development of large mines on four continents for one of the gold industry's leading companies.
I want to thank all of you for taking the time to be here this morning. I'm joined by Richard Young, our CFO, Yani Roditis, our VP Projects, Gary O'Connor, our VP Exploration, as well as senior RMGC team. All of us are here to answer your questions about Rosia Montana and its benefits to Romania.
I've only been on board since May, but I've spent a lot of time in Romania, both at Rosia Montana and here in Bucharest as well. I don't read Romanian -- but I have become a follower of the Romanian media as regards our project. And to put it gently, I sometimes see things in the press that bear no resemblance to who we are or what we're doing at Rosia Montana.
So if you came here this morning with preconceptions about what Gabriel is -- and who's running it now -- I ask you to set them aside this morning. We are a new Gabriel -- a new team with a new and responsible way of looking at what this project means to a community, and we want to get our story out.
We've taken the "For Sale" sign off of this company: This is a new day, a new opportunity to make the Project work...
...An opportunity to bring in a new source of revenue for the Romanian Government.
...An opportunity to bring new jobs to Rosia Montana and elsewhere in Romania.
...An opportunity to clean up 2000 years of environmental damage that the people of Rosia Montana have had to live with.
It is of real concern to me that some stories blame Gabriel for pollution from mining that's been done at Rosia Montana. That's wrong --our Company has yet to mine a single gram of gold at Rosia. The pollution at Rosia Montana is a result of mining practices with disregard to the environment that go back to Roman times and continued throughout centuries with a devastating effect, especially during the decades of communist style mining.
The best modern mining practices we propose are able to improve the environment in Rosia Montana. We're just now in the process of preparing our Environmental Impact Assessment -- a milestone in developing our Project -- which will include the best of modern mining practices, and make Rosia Montana's rivers cleaner than they are today.
Also, I want to clean up and put to rest a story that's all fiction and no fact. Hardly a week goes by when I don't read a news story that says Frank Timis exerts "absolute control" over Gabriel. That is false: Timis was removed from the Gabriel board 2 ½ years ago -- regardless of what you're being told, he is no longer involved with our Company as a director, officer or consultant and he has sold his shares. Frank Timis has no connection to us. Period. I can't be any clearer or more categorical than that.
For the most part, though, the reports I read treat Rosia Montana like it's a football game. On one side, you've got the Company, which wants to build the mine -- versus those who oppose the Project, including some NGOs, who want to stop it, and leave the situation as it deplorably is now.
The Project opponents say they stand for the best interests of the community and the environment.
Those are noble goals -- a greater good we should all support.
But the question is: How do we improve the environment and strengthen the community of Rosia Montana?
A week or so ago, the Project's opponents organized a concert up in Rosia Montana -- to support their effort to stop the mine. The banners they put up said they were at Rosia to "Celebrate Life."
That's where all of us at Gabriel can agree with those who are against the Project.
But where I STRONGLY disagree with the opposition groups is how to help the community and the environment at Rosia Montana. They have not helped the community to date and have shown no indication that they want to in the future.
The way I see it, you can't say you want to help a people Celebrate Life -- and then work to end the only viable economic opportunity that sustains their livelihoods.
You can't say you Celebrate Life -- and then deprive a village of the only chance it has to have clean water and a healthy environment.
You can't say you Celebrate Life -- and consign a community where unemployment is 50% to watch it rise to 90% when the operating mine shuts down.
We've seen the anti-development groups in action before. We have a word for it in English -- we call it carpetbagging: the name for outsiders who come into a community with all their belongings in a single carpetbag. If they manage to stop the mine at Rosia, they'll pack their bags and move on -- to the next town in the next country and the next battle in the war against global development.
But what about the people who are left behind?
What about the people of Rosia Montana?
Once they've been spared from a project that would have given them work --
How will they live?
Where will they go?
What will they do?
Don't ask the carpetbaggers. They'll be gone.
Well, we're not afraid to answer.
Because our project will preserve a rich heritage of mining culture in Rosia Montana.
It will provide jobs -- steady work, in a region where work of any sort is scarce.
As for the environment -- some opposition groups love to talk about the pristine beauty of Rosia Montana, and how a new mine would ruin it. Well, 2000 years of mining has left Rosia Montana discharging water with:
110 times the legal limit of zinc
70 times the legal limit of cadmium
64 times the legal limit of iron
and 3 and a half times the legal limit of arsenic.
The Romanian Government doesn't have the funds to clean that up. There are simply too many minesites that have already been shut down across the country. Rosia Montana would just have to stand at the back of a very long line.
The only way to fully resolve the environmental problems around Rosia is for a new mine with modern mining practices, best practices that meet and exceed not just Romanian but European Union environmental standards -- current and proposed.
I've build a lot of mines. But there's one kind of mine I've NEVER built... And never want to:
That's a mine that does not benefit the community around it.
I'll put it as simply as I can: We're going to do it right.
Finally, I want to comment on the economic benefits of our project.
I've seen press reports that claim Rosia Montana will channel profits away from Romania, to the detriment of the Romanian people.
Again, I'll say it simply: That couldn't be more wrong.
We're looking at a total capital cost of bringing the Rosia Montana mine into production of at least half a billion dollars or more -- before we produce the first gram of gold. That represents an enormous initial investment by our Company, an investment that will create 1,200 jobs during the construction phase of the mine, more than 500 jobs during the operational period, with the creation of 10 times as many related jobs across Romania, as has been well documented in mining projects of this scale and scope.
As for revenues that will benefit the Romanian people, we anticipate that more than half a billion USD in local and national tax revenues will flow to the Romanian Government over the life of the project -- and a total economic benefit to Romania exceeding $1.6 billion USD.
I think you'll agree that those numbers show Rosia Montana is a world-class asset: precisely the kind of positive economic development project that will signal Romania's readiness to take its place in the European Union.
Rosia Montana will be a model mining project...
It will clean up existing pollution in the environment...
It will bring high-skilled, high-paying jobs to a village where unemployment today exceeds 50%...
And it will provide a steady stream of tax revenues to the Romanian government.
That's the real story of the Rosia Montana investment. I'm here this morning to work with all of you to get that story out -- and answer any questions you believe will help the readers you serve understand our project and its importance for Romania.
Thank you.
Alan R. Hill
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