Jungle Hideaway For Salting Operation
But it did not take long after the Toronto-based consultancy began its independent audit of Bre-Xs drill results in March for them to realise they had uncovered a simple although highly organised salting operation in the depths of the Borneo jungle.
According to Strathconas initial report, published Tuesday, Those involved ... had a very good understanding of the geology of the Busang property and have the knowledge required to determine the very small amounts of gold required [for] sample assays . . . compatible with the geologic interpretation.
David Walsh, Bre-X chairman, hired Strathcona after New Orleans-based Freeport McMo-Ran Copper & Gold disputed Bre-Xs claim that the property contained the biggest gold discovery this century.
According to the report, the salting process was relatively simple, as was its discovery. Samples from Busang contained unusual quantities of coarse gold which required little grinding to be liberated from the ore.
Repeated assays on the same sample produced poor results. Furthermore, the gold found in the samples was not consistent with Busangs geology.
Jim Bob Moffett, Freeport chairman, said this week that the gold grains didnt look like volcanic gold. Its very difficult to put non-volcanic gold in a volcano.
The unusual coarseness of the grains was more than a red flag. A total of 25,000-30,000 samples were taken from Busangs supposedly rich south-east zone from the time Bre-X first became involved in the property in October 1993.
What has been difficult, Strathcona added, has been the acceptance of the evidence that the tampering has occurred for so long, on such a scale, and with such accuracy as to give the assay values and the subsequent interpretation of those values, the appearance of being plausible.
Among the practices at Busang that aroused suspicion was the separation of cores into mineralised and in-fill samples. Contrary to normal mining practice, the samples were treated at different facilities. In about 4,000 cases, the same sample number was assigned to two different samples. One number was assigned to the in-fill samples and the other to the mineralised material.
The in-fill material remained at Busang and, in Strathconas words, invariably resulted in low gold values. The mineralised samples were removed from the site in heavy plastic bags, which in turn were placed in large glass fibre bags. These were taken by barge from Busang along the Mahakam River to Samarinda, a one-and-a-half-day journey. They were stored in or near Samarinda for several weeks before being taken to an assay laboratory in Balikpapan, a port city south of Samarinda.
Two Bre-X workers at Busang told Strathcona that all the sample bags were checked at Samarinda to ensure they had not broken or deteriorated in the sunlight.