Ann: Exploration Update, page-69

The only similarities are that there are some unknowns/unexplained nature of the gold mineralization. Now we know (post event) that Bre-X was some definately some sort of deliberate sample salting/contamination. With BBX currently its a different thing, with incomplete information and unknown geological and metallurgical/recovery questions.

Its sort of interesting to note that post-BreX - we haven't seen any majors rush in to JV or even make enquiries and drill check-holes and run check assays yet. I think the reasons may be twofold:

1. firstly the BBX story is pretty early days and the majors seem happy to let BBX contunie to try to find some answers while in suspension, it all hinges on the timing - if there is definative confimartion of an extraordinarily high grade deposit before suspension is lifted then that will light the fuse for a SP explosion once/if suspension is lifted, if BBX shares start trading again before confirmation that there is or isn't confirmation of a high grade economic orebody then that opens up trading opportunities for us, and a dilemma for the large gold guys.

2. the Bre-X experience must have had a major effect on the management of the gold majors, they all remember it and maybe they culturally just aren't in the agressive "risk taking" space that some have been in the past. Plus their corporate culture is very established that they only want to invest in ore bodies that can be easily measured and modeled by traditional exploration techniques (e.g. drill, assay, resource block modelled)

I think these two reasons can also explain why we haven't seen any of the gold majors rush out and look or invest in the other gold story of the year with the Pilbara conglomerate hosted story...