J. Spencer Lanthier
Chair, Finance and Audit Committee
Toronto Stock Exchange
P.O. Box 450
3rd floor, 130 King Street W.
Toronto, ON M5X 1J2
Dear Mr. Lanthier and Committee members:
I am writing to ask what you have done to resolve the apparent anomalies in the information provided by Ascendant Holdings Ltd. regarding the Junín copper-molybdenum deposit in Ecuador in its efforts to finance development of this project. Ascendant claims to be seeking a listing on the TSX venture exchange.
In its July 1, 2004, press release, the company describes this as “one of the largest undeveloped copper-molybdenum deposits in the world”. Ascendant has calculated an inferred resource of 1.36 billion tons (supposedly following NI 43-101 standards) based on its own re-evaluation of 1997 exploration results from Mitsubishi Metals Corporation subsidiary Metal Mining Agency Japan (MMAJ). MMAJ estimated reserves at 318 million tons* but Ascendant does not provide any justification for the over-four-fold increase. Changing market conditions and a consequent revaluation of economically recoverable ore would not seem to be able to account for this large an increase.
Please inform me as to what measures you have undertaken to verify the accuracy of Ascendant’s public statements regarding the Junín deposit.
Sincerely,
Jamie Kneen
Latin America Program Coordinator
MiningWatch Canada
* See page 103, Section II, chapter 2, Final Report on the Mineral Exploration by the Technical Cooperation in the Imbaoeste Area, Republic of Ecuador, published by the Metal Mining Agency of Japan, March 1998.