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HOUSTON LAKE MINING INC. (HLM-CDNX)
PRESS RELEASE
Final Closing of Financing, Crews Dispatched to Pakeagama Lake Tantalum Project, Shares for Debt Financing, Termination of Investor Relations Agreement
June 1, 2001: Sudbury, Ontario - Houston Lake Mining Inc. (CDNX:HLM, "Houston Lake") is pleased to announce that the Company has closed a total of $179,500 of the $300,000 non-brokered private placement financing subject to regulatory approval. 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. Line-cutting and geophysical teams are currently on the property. This work is expected to complete all requirements for Houston Lake’s 100 percent earn in on the Pakeagama Lake property by June 30, 2001. Houston Lake will then have a 100 percent ownership of both the Pakeagama Lake Tantalum Property and the Tib Lake Palladium Property as well as an ownership interest in several gold properties in the Kenora Mining District of Ontario. Houston Lake will issue, subject to regulatory approval, a total of 359,000 shares and 59,833 warrants under the final closing of the private placement financing. The offering consisted of a maximum of 200,000 units at a price of $1.50 per unit for maximum gross proceeds of $300,000. Each unit is composed 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. Houston Lake has completed the total required payments of $150,000 and issued 200,000 common shares required under the Pakeagama Lake option. Houston Lake has until March 22, 2002 to complete an additional $25,000 of property expenditures to finalize the 100 percent earn in. Line-cutting and geophysical surveys have commenced today on the property and will exceed the required expenditures before June 30, 2001. 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. 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 Northern 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 27 million tonnes averaging 420 g/t tantalum oxide. The planned exploration programs include line-cutting, geophysics, prospecting and geological mapping, stripping and channel sampling. These programs will seek to add to the known 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. A shares for debt financing of up to $400,000 of debt conversion was approved by disinterested shareholders at the Company’s Annual and Special Meeting of February 28, 2001. An offer of $0.38 per share which represents a 19.5 percent discount to the closing market price of $0.47 on April 30, 2001 (and 15.6 percent to yesterday’s close of $0.45) was tabled to major creditors of the Corporation and closed yesterday at 5:00PM Sudbury time. The Company is pleased to report that a total of $362,384.30 has been converted into 953,638 common shares subject to regulatory approval. Management ownership of the Company would increase from 16.6 percent to approximately 20 percent after giving effect to the shares for debt placement. Royal Gold Evergreen has terminated its investor relations contract with Houston Lake effective May 31, 2001 and will cease investor relations activities effective immediately. 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 14,628,695 common
shares issued and outstanding inclusive of the financings.
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. |