Gold miner faces tough times.
In what might be part of an unfortunate trend within the junior mining sector as companies struggle to raise money in today’s harsh credit climate, Pacific Rim Mining (TSX: T.PMU, Stock Forum) today announced that the Vancouver-based company has made additional cuts to its overhead by significantly reducing staffing levels in the Vancouver office. People on the way out include Peter Neilans, COO, and April Hashimoto, CFO.
Cuts have come, stated the company, as a response to difficult market conditions and ongoing delays in obtaining environmental and mining permits for the El Dorado project in El Salvador, the company’s flagship gold project.
Tom Shrake, president and CEO of Pacific Rim, commented, “We must preserve capital.”
Back in March, Stockhouse investor chiefcollig made some observations about what he or she believed was going on at Pacific Rim:
Is it me or does it strike others that PMU is just biding time until it gets bought and has no real interest in becoming a gold producer. Consider: -feasibility study on hold for almost another year while further drilling takes place -no effort to raise serious money for mining operations pending permit approvals i.e. making sure everything is ready to go Why does there not seem to be any sense of urgency in getting the money out of the ground?
And now the sense of urgency is being directed at preserving capital.
