On August 1, Lexam began trading on the TSX-Venture Exchange under the ticker symbol LEX. Lexam's reactivation was part of its oversubscribed $4.4 million financing. Lexam issued 8.8 million units at $0.50 per unit. Each unit consisted of one common share and one-half share purchase warrant exercisable at $0.70 per share over a period of two years. Rob McEwen, chairman and CEO of Lexam, personally purchased 4 million units, or $2.0 million of the offering.

As part of Lexam's listing on the TSX-Venture, the company eliminated all of its outstanding debt. Rob McEwen forgave debt totaling $402,720, which was owed to a company he controls. Concurrent with the offering, Lexam issued 189,852 common shares to insiders of Lexam at a price of $0.50 per common share and cash considerations totaling approximately $132,024 to related and non-related parties.

ANDREW RACZ:   Ian, Lexam is an oil exploration company. But there is something much different in the picture. Could you elaborate on it?

A:   If you look at it, most of your typical energy companies, oil and gas companies, are looking for small tracks of land to generate a small amount of cash flow, and there's really not a whole lot of up side there. However, it is a more stable type of environment. Whereas with Lexam, we're looking at a completely different model where you're trying to acquire big tracks of land looking for big targets, whether it be oil and gas or the uranium side. And you're looking for significant up side should you make a discovery. So there's definitely a risk/reward ratio there that we're focusing on and we're trying to get traction in the market by being a different story. If a discovery is made, you have the platform to really build a substantial company off of.

Lexam on the Hunt for Colorado Oil and Gas

McEwen Capital has big plans for a little company he acquired a majority interest in during his tenure with Goldcorp, one of the best known gold success stories of the past decade. Those plans for Lexam Explorations include high-risk-high-reward wildcat exploration for oil and gas in the San Luis Basin in Colorado this year and a new 50% buy-in into Golden Valley Mine's Otish Basin uranium plays in Quebec.

"The company," said corporate development VP Ian Ball, "is focused on creating value by making discoveries in energy." That is as opposed to just trying to build an an energy company with "small money" cash flows. "So it's a quite different philosophy than what you normally see in the oil patch," he said in a recent interview. In other words, McEwen, also CEO and Chairman of U.S. Gold, has his sights on turning an obscure and recently resurrected exploration company into something larger, again, something investors following the Toronto-based gold company titan knew he has a history of doing.

3-D Seismic Underway Shortly, Then Two New Oil/Gas Wells

Lexam has accumulated an extensive body of 2-D seismic in the intervening years and a new 3-D seismic shoot is set for the next few weeks to supplement and better define the signature that 2-D data provides. According to the company's website, "The new 2-D seismic data provided the first strong evidence for the presence of a widespread package of cretaceous rocks in the Crestone sub-basin. The character of the seismic data is remarkably similar to the equivalent Pierre-Dakota-Morrison section located to the east in the Raton basis and the Mancos-Dakota-Morrison section located to the west in the San Juan Sag."
High-Risk/High-Reward Funding

In order to fund the $1.8 million new 3-D seismic, geological studies, well permitting and put the company back onto a solid financial footing, Lexam completed a C. $4.4 million private placement in August and also announced the same month a deal with HudBay Minerals to sell its Jason property located in the Yukon for C. $1 million. Rob McEwen reportedly took over half of the private placement through an entity he controls and also forgave about $500,000 in debt owed by Lexam to another company he controls.

Q:   In other words, you are picturing yourselves as overall an exploration company.

A:   That's correct.

Q:   The definition in today's environment, the year 2007, is that you find either tracks of land or those tracks owned by companies which don't have the money for actual exploration programs, and you step in as a partner.

A:   Yes. But first and foremost, you need money.

Private Placement Oversubscribed Lexam to raise $4.4 million

Lexam announced that the company's private placement of $3 million has been oversubscribed and will be increased by up to $1.4 million for total proceeds to Lexam of $4.4 million. Each unit will be sold at a price of $0.50 and will consist of one common share and one-half share purchase warrant, which is exercisable at $0.70 over a two-year period. Proceeds from the private placement will be used to advance the 100,000 acre Baca Grant oil and gas project in south central Colorado, where Lexam is currently permitting the project for a 3-D seismic survey that will allow Lexam to better define the targets that have been identified and two deep natural gas wells that will reach depths equaling 14,000 ft. (4,265m).

Lexam Signs Option with HudBay Minerals designed to boost treasury and
sharpen focus

Lexam is pleased to announce that its 62% owned subsidiary, MacPass Resources, has entered into an agreement with HudBay Minerals for the sale of the Jason property located in the Yukon for a total consideration of $1,000,000.

Q:   That applies to what kind of commodities?

A:   I guess you're seeing it across the board. You're seeing it in the gold industry, you're seeing in the oil and gas sector definitely. You're seeing it now in the uranium side. So it's probably going across all commodities where the junior explorers are bringing in a partner because of the lack of funding, the lack of personnel. But you run into difficulties when you do that because usually the bigger company doesn't move that quickly. You can't control the pace and the exploration program. They take away the up side if there is a discovery. So you really are losing control of your project and you have to look at that and say is that what we want? And if not, you're going to have to work harder to remain independent and be able to drive the exploration program.

Q:   All these ideas or activities happen because of the tremendous rise in commodities.

A:   Yes.

Q:   And the belief that these high commodity prices would stay around the current level. Therefore, there is a guarantee to all parties that over a period of time, you discover something and you can sell it at a profit, and if you are lucky and commodity prices stay high, you make a very big profit. That's the concept?

A:   That's exactly right. You're seeing high commodity prices now because really a lack of investment over the past twenty years in exploration has pretty much gone silent. If you look at the commodity changes, really the whole picture has changed from ten years ago where you're really seeing supply going down, demands going up. You're having India, you're having China, you're having Brazil, all coming on stream with massive amounts of people which have never experienced that type of population boom before, moving up to the middle class. And a lot of people are having a hard time adjusting to the higher prices, but in reality we're dealing with a whole different game now.

Golden Valley Mines Ltd. Announces Uranium JV in Quebec with Lexam

Golden Valley Mines announces the principal terms of a letter of intent with Lexam Explorations Inc., allowing Lexam to earn a 50% interest in the company's uranium properties located in the Otish area, in the Province of Quebec, provided that Lexam incurs over a three-year period of exploration expenditures in the aggregate amount of $3 million. Golden Valley shall be the operator.

About the uranium prospects: The Golden Valley properties are deemed as highly prospective for primary uranium deposit discoveries and were staked on the bases of numerous uranium occurrences outlined from work conducted over the period 1976 to 1983 and the general geological setting inferred as favorable for unconformity-related uranium deposits. Since the last reported fieldwork results, little if any follow-up exploration was conducted on the properties or other prospective uranium occurrences in the area. The Golden Valley-Lexam properties are associated with an unconformity between Archean rocks and overlying Lower Proterozoic unmetamorphosed sedimentary rocks geologically analogous to the Athabasca Basin area in northern Saskatchewan, where its uranium deposits presently produce 28% of the world's annual mine production. Recent competitor activity in the area by Strateco and Cameco highlights the potential for uranium mineralization in this environment, in particular with the application of modern exploration technology and experience gained from the Athabasca Basin environment in Saskatchewan. The resurgence in exploration activity in this area has been spurred both by the strong results reported by Strateco from their Matoush property and extremely bullish uranium market fundamentals moving forward.

About Golden Valley Mines: The company typically tests initial grassroots targets while owning a 100% interest in its properties and then seeks partners to continue exploration funding. This allows the company to continue its generative programs and systematic exploration efforts at other majority owned grassroots projects. As at the date hereof, the company holds majority property interests in 131 projects consisting of 3,666 mining titles (203,865 hectares) in Ontario, Que., and Saskatchewan.

Q:   What you're really saying, and it has been expressed in literature, is we have three billion new capitalists. They bring up the price level, and in Australia, Canada, South America, exploration programs in everything, in most commodities -zinc, nickel, oil - are taking place and the financing of such programs is going in various phases. One guy gets the land and has some assumptions, goes to I presume a banker like you. You put up the money for exploration, get a certain percentage of the profit, of the total holdings, and the benefit is that you deliver the commodity in a certain period of time. That's the picture?

A:   If you look at it, that's ultimately the end game. You want to be able to make a discovery. You want to be able to build the infrastructure and then deliver to the market. But if you're looking at it from a shareholder's standpoint and you're looking at it in terms of a share price performance, where you really get the performance is on the discovery side. Once you start to build your infrastructure, there's a lack of news coming out of the company and there's usually dilution coming into the market from financing needs, so the share price typically goes down.

Q:   In other words, you're saying that the stock price appreciation is the sharpest before and during the discovery phase and the explicit explanation of what you have discovered.

A:   Yes. And I you look at the gold industry as an example, you look at Barrick Gold when it was a real growth company, and it was during the mid-eighties to the early nineties. It was off of a major discovery in Nevada. Since then they've gone and acquired a number of companies and the share price has gone flat for the past ten years. If you look at Goldcorp, it's a very similar situation. All their growth, or most of their share price appreciation, came off of a significant discovery in northern Ontario. If you look at Dimondfield at Voice Bay, the same thing. That's really where the wealth is generated. Historically, if you look at the Guggenheims, it was a very similar situation. All their wealth was coming off major discoveries.

Q:   Don't forget Bernard Baruch. Bernard Baruch took all the credit.

A:   I guess right now what we're outlining in Colorado is more...the two targets that we've outlined in the center of the basin we believe are gas, based on the work we've done on the geological side in looking at the basin and depth that it is currently. We believe that the depth of our targets is about 12,000 feet below the surface. Based on that, we believe it's gas. However, there is the oil target on the property but it's difficult to image on the 2D and it's not a sufficient size for us to attract attention at this point. So we're focusing on these gas targets.

Q:   The leverage is what?

A:   It's hard to say. You really don't know until you make a discovery. But if you look at the basins around Lexam, you have some of the most significant discoveries in the United States. You have the San Juan Basin, which produces more gas annually than any other field in the United States. It's probably one of the world's most significant discoveries. If you look to the east of us, you have currently the sixteenth largest producing basin in the U.S. If you look at the past reserves in production, it would rank as the eleventh in the U.S.

To the north of us, you have the Denver Basin with over a billion barrels of oil discovered, and then to the northwest of us you have the [Pions] Basin, which is dominated by Canada, one of the largest companies in Canada. It's really had its growth profile over the last ten years. While in most of the states in the U.S., gas production is going down, over the past fifteen years Colorado's has gone up like 325%. There's not another state in the U.S. that is over a trillion cubic feet a year that can say that.

Q:   In Colorado, you have various angles and various hopes of certain discoveries and the territory is large enough that a multiple of possibilities exist. Correct?

A:   What we're looking for is a significant discovery. And if we were able to make that, that would have a tremendous impact.

Q:   What would you consider in size a very big discovery?

A:   I think a big discovery you're looking at half a trillion to a trillion cubic feet of gas would be a bid discovery, for a small company.

Q:   You went into business with Golden Valley to drill for uranium. They claim 131 territories, and over a period of time you committed $3 million to finding uranium. Do you have any idea what you're looking for? In uranium.

A:   If you look at the geology of this basin, back where Golden Valley was, it's very similar to the [Basket] Basic in Saskatchewan. That's really almost the Saudi Arabia of uranium.

Q:   28 percent of Canada's uranium comes from there.

A:   Yes. And by all means the most significant deposits are there in terms of grade. There's super high grade from 19 percent to others in the area over 20 percent uranium. So it's definitely a very unique situation. Or if you look at Australia or other parts of the world, they're below one percent uranium. It's a super high grade there and the geology is very similar to Quebec's Otish Basin. Here in Golden Valley it had acquired its projects in that basin before the competitive activity surged, but the company never really had any money to explore the property. So that's always been the problem there, that the properties we think look good but there hasn't been the money spent on them. If you look at some of the properties that join Golden Valleys, which we optioned, they've hit pretty significant high-grade uranium there.

Q:   How much time do you allocate to identifying uranium?

A:   Versus gas?

Q:   No. If in two or three years you don't find anything, do you give up? Or if you find some small amount, would you accelerate?

A:   It would really depend upon what you're finding. Sometimes it's more than just the uranium itself, but right now we're committed to three years. I think what you're going to see is a pretty significant exploration program unfold during that time frame. So after that it's hard to say, but you've have to review your data at that point to determine if you were going to move forward.

Q:  Uranium is the most volatile and the most wanted commodity today. The price went from $20 to $72. But the big issue with uranium is that there are so many power stations built that they need forward contracts. You don't build a uranium plant for a billion dollars and then pick up the telephone and say, well, let's call up Golden Valley, maybe they have some uranium for the next three months. You need ten-year contracts.

So the price of $72 may go to $120 in a few years. It depends on how many plants are completed. Therefore, you can probably drill lower because of the bigger price incentive, and people don't discover uranium, as I read it, worth let's say $50 million. If you discover uranium, it's several hundred million dollars. It's big quantities. For a small company like yours, it means that if you are successful, a company with 54 million fully diluted shares will have a major impact. That's fair?

A:   Yes.

Q:   There are no $20 million uranium discoveries. In other words, if you discover something and the price is even higher, you will be more extensive and the overall business or the uranium quantity, which one can define, is getting bigger and more valuable. That's the picture?

A:   Yes.

Q:   May I ask you, do you go deeper into uranium with other people? Uranium exploration with other companies.

A:   I'm not following the question.

Q:   There are 250 publicly-owned small uranium companies in Canada who have a little money and nothing else. Do you consider taking advantage of the situation and go into some sort of a contract with other companies besides Golden Valley?

A:   We're looking, yes. We're looking at the landscape right now and seeing what's available. You have to keep your eyes open and I think there is opportunity out there. You just have to find the right one.

Q:   Let me turn for a minute to the current money situation. How much money does the company have?

A:   We have approximately $4 million.

Q:   So it's about $.80 a share.

A:   The share price of the company?

Q:   No. The share price of the company is around $.60.

A:   Yes.

Q:   If you have four million dollars divided by 54, that's about 8 cents a share.

A:   Correct.

Q:   You have the warrant exercises. How much would they bring in?

A:   I guess right now the share price, the warrants exercise at $.70 and the share price at $.60. So they're currently out of the money. But if we were fortunate enough to have a share price higher than the exercise, that would bring in approximately another $3 million.

Q:   So that's another 6 cents a share. You have a gold property in Nevada. How much do you think you can sell it for, on a very conservative basis?

A:   It's tough to say. We're in negotiations now with various parties that have shown an interest. But it's very early stage, talking with people. So I'd hate to put a figure on it.

Q:   Just for the sake of illustration, $10 million would be almost 20 cents a share.

A:   How much was that?

Q:   $10 million.

A:   Yes, it would be 20 cents a share.

Q:   So now we have 8 plus 6 is 14, or 34 cents. So about half of the price is backed by potential cash.

A:   If we were to get $10 million for the property, theoretically yes, that's correct.

Q:   So the following things would happen to the company. Number one, you can go into new uranium or other commodity ventures, correct?

A:   Yes.

Q:   Which would commit money over a period of time, but make the company more interesting with more possibilities.

A:   Correct.

Q:   Second, you can acquire let's say any of the 250 uranium companies. In other words, create some reserves of your own.

A:   It's a possibility but we're by no means looking at anything in particular, but it's open to the company, yes.

Q:   Well, out of 250 there's always one which is cheap.

A:   Usually if you look hard enough.

Q:   The other possibility is that you hit something, so far uranium or oil or another commodity later, but you discover let's say natural gas in Colorado. The discounted value of such a discovery would then come as an extra value to the 60 cents per share, of which 30 cents has already been accounted for.

A:   Yes.

Q:   Or, and even more interesting, if there is a discovery of natural gas let's say in Colorado, you take the whole oil property and sell it for cash to another company like Chevron. Okay?

A:   You're basically looking at whatever is going to get shareholders the highest share price, so you'd have to look at it at that time. But that would be an option at that point.

Q:   Let's say in the uranium field, is there a possibility that in the next three to six months you will come up with some answers, positive answers?

A:   I wouldn't say in the three months, because you really have to do a geophysical survey over the property, starting to do some field work and then proceed to follow up on your target areas with expiration drilling. So all that does take time, and at this point you're probably looking at, before you could begin to drill, somewhere in the neighborhood of nine to twelve months.

Q:   My conclusion then is that we have a company, 60 cents a share. It's part of a mineral exploration empire with interested other companies. In other words, the management is tuned in for explorations. It has already achieved in one year a potential 30 cents cash, which is the cash reserves in the company, with existing programs, and at that time the most logical conclusion of a securities analyst is that Lexam is probably looking for additional ventures because the current programs are structured and created a stable company.

A:   Yes.

Q: So if we finalize it, the managerial team has had many years of experience in the field of minerals, mineral exploration and financial management of companies. It's not one of the 250 uranium companies. Such issues doesn't exist. The company has money, access to money, has basically two interesting projects, and anything that comes either from discovery or further ventures will highlight the whole future of Lexam. Correct?

A:   That would be correct.

   Andrew Racz

(Article 47 - posted February 11, 2007)

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