2002 EXPLORATION FOCUS ISSUE

摘要

This week we turn our focus to exploration, and are presenting some interesting articles about some promising activity, despite the fact that most of the action these days is taking place outside of the US, Australia and Canada. In fact exploration budgets for those countries actually decreased in 2001, largely because of price doldrums. It's hard to justify big investments in exploration when the current and anticipated market prices don't figure to provide a suitable reward fro the effort.The exception has been PGE exploration and diamonds, especially in Canada. We are pleased to note that Minnesota, long considered a state that discourages exploration, appears to be loosening up a bit. In fact, with the cloudy future that many see for the iron mining industry, the state has been more overtly encouraging exploration in other minerals and has pledged to work cooperatively with explorers. The rigorous environmental requirements are still enforced, but the state seems more inclined these days to help explorers and developers to meet them.