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Eurasian Minerals Has Leveraged It’s
In-Region Knowledge Base To Build An Impressive Portfolio Of Mineral Assets
Exploration
Metal/Mining
(Toronto Venture Exchange - EMX)
(The Pink Sheets – ESMNF)
Eurasian Minerals Inc.
Suite 900 570 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC V6C 3P1 CAN
Phone: 1-604-688-6390
David M. Cole
President and CEO
Interview conducted by:
Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor
CEOCFOinterviews.com
Published – February 22, 2008
BIO:
David M. Cole
Position: President, CEO and Director
Mr. Cole has
over nineteen years of industry experience, coming to Eurasian Minerals from
Newmont Mining Corporation. At Newmont, he held a number of management and
senior geologic positions, gaining extensive global experience as a project,
mine, and generative exploration geologist in Nevada, Southeast Asia, South
America, Europe, and Central Asia. Mr. Cole's success as part of Newmont's
exploration team includes contributions at the world class Carlin Trend,
Yanacocha, and Minihasa mines. Subsequently, he established and managed
Newmont's exploration programs in Turkey while also identifying early stage
acquisition targets in Eastern Europe. Mr. Cole specializes in developing
new exploration ideas and opportunities, based upon solid technical
expertise coupled with a keen business sense. Mr. Cole is also a successful
private investor with an avid interest in the financial markets. He studied
under Dr. Tommy Thompson at Colorado State University, earning an M.S. in
Geology.
Company Profile:
EMX is building shareholder value
with precious and base metals exploration programs in some of the world's
most promising, yet under-explored frontier regions. Eurasian is
aggressively adding high quality properties to its portfolios in Turkey,
Eastern Europe, the Kyrgyz Republic and Haiti. The company is well funded
and strategically positioned to fully participate in the current favorable
investment climate.
CEOCFO: Mr. Cole, what is your vision for
the company?
Mr. Cole: “Our vision is to build value
for our shareholders via discovery and we are doing this in some of the most
promising mineral belts in the world.”
CEOCFO; How
do you decide where to look for properties?
Mr. Cole: We like to hunt in gold and
copper elephant country. Places where the chances of discovering a world
class mineral deposit or “elephant” is relatively high. We believe this
gives our shareholders the very best chance to enjoy an increase in value
via the discovery process.”
CEOCFO:
Please tell us about the current projects because you are in a lot of
different areas of the world.
Mr. Cole: “We have diverse property
holdings, and one of the areas we are focused on is the Tethyan metallagenic
belt of Eastern Europe and Turkey. We are also working in the Tien Shan
metallagenic belt, one of world’s most prolific metal and mineral belts,
specifically in the country of Kyrgyzstan. We are also quite pleased with
the results coming out of Haiti. This country lies in the Hispaniola mineral
belt. This belt transects through the island of Hispaniola, which is
comprised of two countries, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. On the
Dominican side of the mineral belt is the Pueblo Viejo deposit, the second
largest gold deposit in the western hemisphere. This is currently under
development by Barrick Gold. The mineral belt continues across the border in
to Haiti, and has reveled excellent mineral potential. We are very pleased
with the exploration results we are getting on the ground in Haiti. These
results are directly attributable to Keith Laskowski, our Country Manager
there. Keith was the former country manager of Haiti for Newmont. We are
very impressed by his passion, not to mention his geologic talent."
CEOCFO:
Would you tell us about your in-country expertise?
Mr. Cole: "Each of our in-country
managers has a strong grasp of not only the geology of the country, but of
the language, the politics, the culture, the intricacies of the business
environs and the people. All of these are key to operating effectively in a
given country and are a vital element in our success. This in-country
expertise is a direct reflection of the depth of our intellectual talent.
This intellectual talent is the most powerful and important property we
have. We have leveraged that in-region knowledge base to build an impressive
portfolio of mineral assets.
In Eastern Europe, our regional manager is Dr. Duncan Large. Dr. Large was
the chief geologist for the United Nations Resource Assessment Team. That
team evaluated resource opportunities in the Balkans following the regional
wars. The UN was there looking for ways to help kick-start those economies,
and lend some investment and political stability to that war torn region.
Dr. Large’s depth of experience in the region has been leveraged to
Eurasian’s benefit by executing our business model in Eastern Europe.
Likewise, in Turkey, leveraging his expertise is our country manager Dr.
Mesut Soylu. Dr. Soylu is a very astute geologist, prospector and
businessman, with a strong history of geologic work performed in Turkey. He
was the country manager in Turkey for BHP Billiton, which is the world’s
largest mining company. We are very pleased to have him spearheading our
efforts there today.
Dr. Pavel Reichl is our country manager in
Kyrgyzstan. Dr. Reichl was the country manager of Kyrgyzstan for Newmont
Mining Corporation prior to joining Eurasian Minerals. I am humbled by the
quality of business experience and geological expertise that we have in our
country managers and that is how we provide value for our shareholders. It
is leveraging their knowledge base and abilities in these very prospective
regions of the world that has enabled us to build a solid portfolio of
prospective mineral real estate.”
CEOCFO: Do
you own your properties 100%?
Mr. Cole: “Yes, all of the properties
that Eurasian Minerals owns are currently owned 100%. That is an important
part of our business model.”
CEOCFO: Are
you continuing to look for new properties?
Mr. Cole: “Yes, we are always
prospecting and evaluating new geologic terranes. We go into the frontier
regions of the world, utilizing our geological skills to acquire promising
mineral assets, then add value by doing quality geology and prospect
definition. We are always looking at new terranes to bring increased value
to our shareholders. We also utilize our industry network and our strong
geological analysis to make good early stage seed investment in other
prospect generation companies. That investment model has worked out well for
us by yielding some very solid returns. This is one of the reasons we have
such a strong treasury.”
CEOCFO:
What is ahead two or three years down the line?
Mr. Cole: “Two or three years down the
line we will continue to work our portfolio of prospects and advance our
discoveries. It is a bit tough to say which projects we will be most engaged
in, as we are always coming up with interesting new projects. Although at
this point in time, our flagship opportunities are in Turkey and Haiti. Our
discovery in Haiti has district scale potential with quality results coming
out of our Savane La Place Prospect within our La Meil license. In Turkey,
we have the Sisorta Project under joint venture with Chesser Resources. We
are advancing our discovery there. We are also quite pleased with that
relationship and their investment in our property. Then, on our 100% owned
Akarca system in western Turkey, we have just announced 5 drill holes, all
of which came back from assay yielding strong mineralization. This one
really took us by surprise. Initially we believed this was nothing more than
a modest high-grade vein play. We now have found it to be a much larger vein
play with low-grade bulk tonnage targets located in between. This is a very
exciting discovery with substantial potential. I am pleased to have those
results in hand and looking forward to the next round of drilling. This is a
pretty exciting project.”
CEOCFO: How
favorable are the governments in the places where you are active and is that
a factor for you in where you choose to be?
Mr. Cole: “That is a common question
that I get because we are in geographically diverse regions of the world.
First, we are driven by geologic prospectivity. We utilize our unique and
considerable knowledge of geology and the political and business
environments to understand the correct path to follow. That includes
understanding the geological and the political risk. Specifically, Turkey is
a country that is very dependent on natural resource development and gold
mining is very important there. The Turkish government has been very
supportive of foreign investment in the mineral sector. There is no Value
Added Tax (VAT) on precious metals exploration in the country. That shows
the government’s desire to have our and our competitors’ money in the
country. That has resulted in a number of discoveries, which truly build an
economic foundation for the country. Haiti is a place with a bad political
past. We came in following the last election with the understanding there
could be a paradigm shift in the political situation, and thus far, we have
been right. We have found Haiti to be quite an amenable venue to invest in
to date. I cannot guarantee it will stay that way, but we believe that there
has been a paradigm shift in the Haitian political scene. There has
been a demonstrable impact on the country with the presence of the United
Nations in conjunction with the leadership afforded by the new president,
Rene Preval.
We believe Haiti is on a positive path heading
into the future. We have found that the Ministry of Mines and Energy is
quite pleased to have us there, and that we have seen nothing but support
for our company in the country of Haiti so far.”
CEOCFO: In
closing, is the investment community paying attention?
Mr. Cole: “We have a growing number of
astute investors that have been accumulating our stock and recognize the
potential in our asset base. Our asset base includes a substantial treasury
with over $10 million in the bank, a portfolio of tradable securities worth
$1.5 million, as well as our mineral properties and royalty interests. Our
growing royalty portfolio has been built solely from properties that we have
sold. That portfolio holds substantial background value in addition to our
100%-owned exploration assets. I think there is a lot of unlocked value in
our stock and I think the number of people realizing that continues to grow.
There is still a lot of upside potential.”
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