MINING MARKETS & INVESTMENT NEWS — QUERY — Aurlot transformed into Black Pearl

As a long-time subscriber to The Northern Miner, I know that in the past you answered questions on mining companies that are seemingly defunct. I would very much like to know what has happened to Cadillac Explorations and Aurlot Mining.

.BB.M. Griffiths

Cadillac Explorations was put into bankruptcy in September 1984 in British Columbia. The trustee in bankruptcy offered Cadillac’s 60% interest in the Prairie Creek zinc-lead-silver deposit in the Northwest Territories for sale to satisfy some of Cadillac’s debts, and the asset ultimately passed into the hands of San Andreas Resources (SAO-T).

On Aurlot, we, like the guy in several old jokes, have got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Aurlot Explorations is now Black Pearl Minerals (BLKP-C); the bad news is that the shares are exchangeable at a fifty-to-one ratio.

Aurlot started operations in 1988, and held properties in the U.S. and in northeastern Ontario. Entries in the Canadian Mines Handbook show that its working capital slowly evaporated, and the company ultimately was reorganized as U.S.A. Tough in a reverse takeover, with one new share exchangeable for every ten old ones. It got out of the mining business, and a year later changed its name to First Sports International.

But what goes around comes around, and that applies to company shells, too.

On July 21, 1995, First Sports and a numbered company, 1131069 Ontario, amalgamated to form Black Pearl Minerals (BLKP-C). Before the amalgamation, First Sports’ shares were consolidated, with one new share exchanged for five old. So by the time of the 1995 amalgamation, a shareholder of Aurlot could trade fifty Aurlot shares for one share of Black Pearl.

Black Pearl started out in the Voisey’s Bay land rush, and retains minority interests in three Labrador land packages.

The company’s main effort, though, is concentrated in the Timmins area of northeastern Ontario, where it drilled the Nickel Offsets property in Tully Twp., about 20 km north of the Hoyle Pond gold mine.

The four holes drilled at Nickel Offsets intersected multiple gold zones with grades in the 3- to 5-gram-per-tonne range. Three of the holes intersected one mineralized zone over core lengths of 0.9 to 1.8 metres, but the fourth cut five separate zones, including 10 metres grading 5.4 grams per tonne.

Black Pearl is among the most adept practitioners of “close-ology” in the industry, with ground adjacent to Band-Ore Resources in Thorneloe Twp., west of Timmins; and in Langmuir Twp., southwest of Cross Lake Minerals’ discovery near Night Hawk Lake. The company is also active on two properties in the Dryden area of northwestern Ontario, Boyer Lake and Thunder Lake.

Black Pearl’s transfer agent, Equity Transfer Services (120 Adelaide Street W., Suite 420, Toronto, Ont., M5H 4C3) can redeem old Aurlot shares.