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HOUSTON LAKE MINING INC. (HLM-CDNX)
PRESS RELEASE
$151,000 First Closing for the Pakeagama Lake Tantalum Project
April 3, 2001: Sudbury, Ontario - Houston Lake Mining Inc. (CDNX:HLM, "Houston Lake") is pleased to announce that the Company has completed a $151,000 first closing of the $300,000 non-brokered private placement financing. Proceeds will be used for exploration on the 512 hectare (1267 acre) Pakeagama Lake Tantalum Project located in the Red Lake Mining District of northwestern Ontario. Initial exploration programs involving line-cutting, geophysics and geological mapping will commence after Spring break up. A 1000 metre drilling program is recommended to follow up on initial programs and is contingent on the completion of the $300,000 financing. Houston Lake will issue, subject to regulatory approval, a total of 302,000 shares and 50,333 warrants under the first closing of the private placement financing. Houston Lake is offering a maximum of 200,000 units at a price of $1.50 per unit for maximum gross proceeds of $300,000. Each unit consists of two flow through common shares and one common share with a half purchase warrant attached to the non-flow through common share. Each full warrant is exercisable at a price of $0.60 for a period of one year. The private placement has a hold period of one year in Alberta and eighteen months in Ontario. The financing includes recently announced Canadian and Ontario government flow-through tax incentives yielding an additional 20 percent of tax credits for investors. Proceeds will be used for working capital purposes to advance exploration to include drilling on the Pakeagama Lake Tantalum Property. The Pakeagama Lake Property covers all known surface exposures of the Pakeagama Lake pegmatite which is the host to the rare metals (tantalum, rubidium, cesium, lithium, beryllium, tin, thallium, gallium and germanium) mineralization. The Pakeagama Lake pegmatite is a recent discovery by Dr. Denver Stone and Dr. Fred Breaks of the Ontario Geological Survey ("OGS"), a provincial government agency. Since 1998, field-based and laboratory data amassed from the Pakeagama Lake pegmatite by the OGS and The Open University in the United Kingdom, include approximately 3700 electron microprobe analyses, 50 bulk chemical analyses, 350 analyses of potassium feldspar and 700 analyses of Ta-bearing minerals (columbite-tantalite group, wodginite, ferrotapiolite, stibiotantalite, stibiomicrolite, microlite, cassiterite). These thorough studies depict a large, complex-type, petalite subtype pegmatite with a high concentration of rare metals. Channel sampling of the 13 metre wide Northern Wall Zone of the Pakeagama Lake pegmatite returned 344 g/t tantalum oxide, 0.90 percent rubidium oxide, 1776 g/t cesium oxide, 68.9 g/t tin, 131.9 g/t niobium oxide, 1.34 percent lithium oxide, 25.9 g/t thallium, and 42.2 g/t gallium over 11 metres. The Pakeagama Lake Wall Zone channel sample results compare favourably to Sons of Gwalia Limited’s Wodgina mine which is located in Western Australia. The Wodgina mine is a world-class tantalum-only producer containing 35 million tonnes averaging 402 g/t tantalum oxide. The planned exploration programs will seek to add to the 260 metre (853 foot) strike length of the Pakeagama Lake pegmatite. Channel sampling will test the Southern Wall and Stacked Aplite Zones for additional rare metals mineralization. Houston Lake management believes that the high concentration of rare metals combined with a large pegmatite mineralizing system makes Pakeagama Lake one of the foremost tantalum exploration projects in the world. To date over 100 sq. km. (39 sq. mi.) has recently been staked by land speculators along the trend containing the Pakeagama Lake tantalum-bearing pegmatite. Tantalum markets are currently experiencing shortages of tantalum powder used in capacitors in various electronic equipment and cell phones. Tantalum scrap prices have remained above $230 per pound since last fall due to shortages in supply. Recent mine expansions in Australia moderated by a decline in secondary tantalum supply from tin production are not keeping pace with demand. This shortfall is expected to intensify due to new applications such as sputtering (a coating method used in fiberoptic cables to increase transmission quality). Sputtering is expected to increase from its current annual needs of 90,000 lbs of tantalum to 400,000 lbs over the next few years. Tantalum supply shortages have been made up by sales from the United States strategic stockpiles which have been drawn down to cover this excess demand. The Pakeagama Lake pegmatite has the potential to become a significant tantalum supplier to the North American electronics industry and to the strategic stockpiles of the United States Government. Houston Lake is actively exploring for rare metals, platinum group metals and gold in northwestern Ontario. The common shares of Houston Lake Mining Inc. trade through the facilities of the Canadian Venture Exchange under the symbol HLM. Houston Lake Mining Inc. has a total of 13,410,557 common shares issued and outstanding inclusive of the first closing. For further information on all of the Company's projects, we invite you to visit us at www.houstonlakemining.com. For more information, please contact: E.
Grayme Anthony B.Sc., P. Geo., F.G.A.C.,
M. B. A. The Canadian Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved of the information contained herein. |