What's new as at October 7 2010

It’s full steam ahead on the Chatham Rise project with project leader Chris Castle coordinating technical advisers who are expanding the knowledge base while he raises the profile of the project both in New Zealand and overseas and continues talking with stakeholders.

Project status: Chris and the project’s principal scientist Dr Robin Falconer are visiting a number of companies in Europe during the first half of October to explore potential extraction techniques and meet with representatives of the German organisations involved in the research undertaken in the early 1980s. Meanwhile the team of experts - technical, environmental, scientific and financial – are all progressing various streams of the project.

Profile raising: Chris is one of more than 30 international speakers, including five from New Zealand at a conference on undersea mining in Russia from 4 to 7 October. Click here to download the presentation he gave. Chris also attended the national oil industry conference in Auckland on 20 September and made contact with a number of industry players.

The six page fold-out marketing brochure we’ve produced can be downloaded here.  We’ve also produced some business cards using the photograph from our website, which is receiving a great reaction because it is something a bit different.  Click here to see a mock-up of the card.

Options issued: The Widespread Energy board has agreed to issue 50c options to the project’s principal scientist Dr Robin Falconer, a marine geophysicist, who worked on an exploration programme of the central Chatham Rise in the early 1980s and who has agreed to provide consultancy services. As an incentive, and to align Dr Falconer’s interests with shareholders, Widespread has allotted 500,000 unlisted 50c options to him. The exercise price is a substantial premium to the prevailing share price, but reflects the significant value of the Chatham Rise resource as demonstrated in the Rockpoint Corporate Finance project valuation, announced to the market in May.

Backgrounder: For an interesting article on the phenomenon known as “peak phosphorus” read: "Landmark: Peak Phosphorus"