Madeleine seeking to file new applications for mine permits

Officials of Madeleine Mines (TSE) will meet in mid-January in Thunder Bay, Ont., with representatives of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment to allow the company to file new applications for the permits it needs to operate the Lac des Iles palladium-platinum project.

Madeleine President Dale McDoulett said at the company’s 1991 annual meeting in late December that the environment ministry remains concerned with the handling of tailings from the mill and that, in the long term, Madeleine will have to build a larger tailings impoundment.

Former company president Patrick Sheridan was charged last year by the provincial ministry with operating the project without permission. The current plan is to have Lac des Iles in limited operation by mid-to-late April, barring such obstacles as snowstorms, and in full production by July or August.

“We think the mine is still marginally profitable at current prices,” said McDoulett, who is with Kaiser-Francis Oil Co. and based in Tulsa, Okla. Kaiser-Francis owns 32% of Madeleine’s outstanding common shares. McDoulett hopes the company will be in the black a year from now, but that a big wild card overhanging the palladium-platinum market still seems to be “the Russian situation.”

McDoulett said Madeleine is holding discussions with such potential customers as Canadian and foreign mining companies with their own smelting facilities. He said Madeleine is also in a good position to benefit from plans by Europeans to go with platinum-based catalytic convertors in automobiles. McDoulett also announced that Madeleine has switched its charter from that of a Quebec mining company to a federally chartered company.

Reasons for the change include that Quebec law does not allow mergers with non-Quebec-based mining companies. Madeleine has a 50% interest in the Lac des Iles project, while The Sheridan Platinum Group owns the other half. Madeleine is looking at the possibility of merging with, or buying out, the Sheridan group.

The change in incorporation will also allow the company to hold meetings outside of Quebec. Most of the company’s shareholders are from outside the province, McDoulett said. Future annual meetings will likely be held in April or May in Toronto where the company already has its offices. McDoulett said the various companies controlled by Sheridan own 8% or 9% of Madeleine stock, but that Sheridan is not exercising any control over Madeleine.