What I find intriguing is the TIMING of Neil Novak's announcement. Why?

Old Joe has posted some interesting comments on the Freewest board.

"Seems with this additional cash on hand SPQ will be able to more than meet ALL their commitments and participate in an Expanded Drill Program in their JV's with both FWR/KWG and UC/KWG. All that SPQ needs is for UC in particular to get their Cash Flow started in Mexico and kick in a much larger Drill Program at the RoF JV Properties."

To my mind, Old Joe has hit the proverbial chromite nail on the head. Expanded drill program. It's all "fine and dandy", the 43-101 and everything, but with no drilling, there's no news. And no discoveries. And with no discoveries, investors get bored.

Neil is good at discoveries. Obviously, he smells something and needs to get back into the middle of the action. Maybe it has something to with Cliffs. I need to chat with him.

Old Joe mentions UC Resources. When I chatted with Jim Voisin at the recent Vancouver conference, he was looking forward to getting revenues from the UC Resources play in Mexico, and taking that money and drilling for chromite in the northwest corner of his JV with SPQ-KWG.

Jim has also mentioned to me in a very recent email - "I believe that the Ring of Fire is about to explode in the next three months although I can not share why. But it's happening I can assure you!" These are his exact words!

I'm reserving judgement on this SPQ announcement until I talk with Neil personally. It certainly is dilutive. But he (and the same goes for Jim Voisin) know that they can get $5 million at any time from IBK, who have stood by these guys from "git go". Clearly Neil has pitched a expanded drilling program to IBK, and they have bought it.

One large strike of nickel, and the 78 million extra shares will mean diddley-squat in my opinion. And the nickel is there someplace. And the copper. And the PGEs. You can bank on it.

By the way, here's a little bit on the term "safe harbor".

The Safe Harbor provisions of the Securities Litigation Reform Act afford substantial protection for: (i) "forward-looking statements"; that are

(ii) made by a person eligible for safe harbor protection; are (iii) identified and accompanied by certain information; and (iv) do not pertain to a matter excluded by the Act. This outline summarizes the structure and mechanics of the statute's actual text. For a discussion of recent judicial interpretations of the Safe Harbor, see the accompanying article Securities Litigation: Lower Courts Begin to Open the Safe Harbor.

Snug