ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Dec. 5, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- Pinnacle Resources, Inc. (OTCBB:PNRR) announced that it had entered into a joint venture agreement with Ocean Options, a South African mining contractor. Ocean Options presently has mining contracts on three concessions on the prolific offshore diamond field along South Africa's southwest coast. Ocean Options also owns a patent on mining technology that will enable it to exploit previously inaccessible diamond-bearing gravel deposits on its concessions.
Under terms of the joint venture agreement, Pinnacle and Ocean Options will each own 50 percent of a newly formed company that will own equipment, patented technology and mining rights to three concessions contributed by Ocean Options and US$300,000 contributed by Pinnacle. The capital provided by Pinnacle will be applied to building the patented mining platform, "Ocean Walker," and to operating costs. The Ocean Walker is a mobile (walking) adaptation of proven offshore oil field platform technology.
Marine diamond operations fall into three categories: beach operations conducted by land earthmoving equipment; shallow-water depth exploitation; and deep-water operations. Divers, lowered to the ocean floor from boats, operate suction dredges in the shallow and deep-water zones. The Ocean Walker will be deployed from the beach into the surf zone in water depths of up to 30 feet and will support remote controlled mining heads that will clean and recover the diamondiferous gravels. This surf zone is a transitional strip of water lying between the beach and shallow water mining environments and previously has not been accessible to conventional diver-based mining operations. The turbulence of the surf zone hinders and disorients the diver's senses and renders them ineffective.
"Pinnacle expects to have the Ocean Walker in Operation by January 2003," said Dutch Hildebrand, Pinnacle's chief mining engineer, and he added that, "the probability of finding commercial grade diamonds is very high as excellent diamond values have been recovered from the beach and shallow water zones that straddle the surf zone."