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| | January, 2008
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| | Dear Shareholders,
On behalf of the Board of Directors and your dedicated Management Team, I am proud to present East Asia Minerals Corporation's 2007 Annual Report.
During 2007 East Asia Minerals Corporation positioned itself exceptionally well for strong and continued growth. Amongst our many accomplishments for this year we were delighted to make a cash distribution of $1.30 per common share to our shareholders. This distribution followed the $83 million cash sale of East Asia Minerals Energy LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of ours, to the French nuclear giant Areva. This deal was, at the time of its completion, the largest ever cash sale for exploration stage properties to be concluded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The majority of the sale properties were acquired less than 12 months prior to their sale and your Company had spent less than $2 million on their acquisition and exploration. The transaction therefore provided both an immediate return of tangible value to our shareholders and the capital required to continue the Company's aggressive exploration, acquisition and growth strategy.
2007 also saw your Company begin to truly demonstrate, with surface exploration and drilling, the world class potential of our gold-copper portfolio in Indonesia. At the Bawone-Binebase gold project on Sangihe Island we have, since September, consistently delivered drilling and trenching assays which are a tremendous validation of the economic potential of that project. Our drill intercepts at Bawone include 95 metres at 2.15g/t gold (with 50 metres at 3.32g/t gold) and 125 metres at 1.67g/t gold (with 44 metres of 2.29g/t gold), and mean that we have a true width of mineralization of approximately 80 metres on some drilling sections. This has been further confirmed by results from Binebase, along strike and 1.2 kilometres away. In view of our early exploration success at Bawone-Binebase, we are accelerating our program on this project. Due diligence conducted in the mid-1990's by a major mining company at Bawone-Binebase found potential for approximately 2 million ounces of open pit extractable gold. East Asia Minerals is very excited about proving this potential, and aims to produce a NI43-101 compliant resource for this area by the end of 2008.
Additionally in Indonesia, we commenced drilling in December of this year in Aceh Province, where we now control a huge land package. Aceh is the least explored part of the Indonesian archipelago and has proven world-class copper and gold endowment. Our numerous advanced projects, previously explored by senior and mid-tier mining companies, comprise partially drilled porphyry and epithermal copper-gold targets with demonstrable multi-million ounce gold potential, as well as a large partially drilled porphyry copper-molybdenum deposit with a significant near surface SXEW extractable copper resource (non 43-101 compliant). Previous work on these projects was stopped for non-technical reasons during the 1990's. As the earliest entrants back into Aceh Province and with our intimate knowledge of the potential of this area, East Asia Minerals is now reaping the rewards of its management's foresight.
At the Abong project, where we have an epithermal gold mineralized system covering an area of 3 kilometres by 1.5 kilometres, drilling has commenced to test the very encouraging surface gold grades that East Asia Minerals has recently reported. The results reported by your Company are again an absolute validation of previous work by two major mining companies which estimated, on the basis of their drilling, surface sampling, mapping and geophysical modeling, a near surface multi-million ounce gold resource. East Asia Minerals Corporation aims to deliver NI43-101 compliant resources on this project by the end of 2008.
In addition to its Abong project work, the Company intends to advance several of its highly prospective porphyry projects and the balance of its epithermal gold projects to drill testing stage during the coming year. Each of these projects has demonstrable multi-million ounce gold potential.
In Mongolia, East Asia Minerals retained the most advanced projects of its uranium portfolio. Included in the uranium portfolio are the Ingiin Nars and Ulaan Nuur properties that contain non-NI43-101 compliant, Soviet-era prognostic resources of approximately 25 million pounds of uranium in an environment potentially amenable to in-situ-leach (ISL) extraction. That these prime uranium assets were acquired in a very tight and competitive market for minimal outlay (see May 3 and July 3, 2007 news releases) is a further example of the strength and unique ability that the management team brings to the Company. We view the exploration potential of these projects highly and our very successful drilling campaign in the fall of 2007 generally demonstrated the veracity of the Soviet-era data. We will continue to explore these projects with an aim to bringing the resources into a NI43-101 compliant category, whilst to create further value for our shareholders we continue to aggressively target additional uranium assets for acquisition in Mongolia.
In both Indonesia and Mongolia, your Management Team continues to work hard and pro-actively in its dealing with the various levels of bureaucracy and Government. We continue to receive strong support from Governments, Statutory Organizations and other stakeholders in the jurisdictions within which we work.
I believe therefore that there is much for the Company to be proud of. Over the past 12 months East Asia Minerals Corporation has made good progress toward our goal of becoming a premier Asian-based mineral exploration and development Company. I am grateful to all of our team for their contributions and for the shareholder support we have received.
East Asia Minerals Corporation remains committed to growth through well-conceived and well-executed exploration programs and acquisition strategies. The progress we have made is however just the beginning. We are now well placed to enter an exciting next stage of Company growth. I hope that our shareholders see the value in the Company's assets and management and that they stay with us to share with us further significant rewards.
I look forward to reporting to you on a regular basis, and encourage you to watch our web site as we continue to deliver results from our gold, copper and uranium projects.
Michael Hawkins
President and CEO |
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Archive
January, 2008:
Dear Shareholders,
On behalf of the Board of Directors and your dedicated Management Team, I am proud to present East Asia Minerals Corporation's 2007 Annual Report.
During 2007 East Asia Minerals Corporation positioned itself exceptionally well fo (more...)
October, 2007:
Dear Shareholders,
It is now just over 6 months since I last wrote to you. During that time East Asia Minerals Corporation has continued to position itself exceptionally well for strong and continued growth.
Your dedicated Management Team, with th (more...)
April, 2007:
During 2006, East Asia Minerals Corporation positioned itself exceptionally well for strong growth. The dedicated Management Team, with the support of the Board of Directors, demonstrated its unique experience and strength by building a strong asset base (more...)
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