Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

NNSL (Mar 01/99) - Peter Tapatai, president of Baker Lake-based Peter's Expediting Ltd., has sold 35 per cent of the company to Braden Burry Expediting Ltd.

Braden Burry Expediting, a Yellowknife-based expediting company, recently went public.

Tapatai's company is a small expediting and logistics firm with a history of serving exploration and mining companies in the Baker Lake area.

Peter's Expediting's largest client is Cumberland Resources Ltd. which operates a gold exploration program at the Meadowbank site 70 kilometres north of Baker Lake.

The partnership -- terms were not disclosed -- will help Peter's Expediting expand its services.

"It's a win-win situation for both companies," Tapatai, Peter's Expediting Services' major shareholder, said.

"We will receive the benefit of sophisticated systems BBE has developed for the expediting industry and BBE can expand into the Nunavut market with a majority, Inuit-owned company," he said.

For Braden Burry Expediting, the partnership represents a significant strategic move on what could become an operating mine.

Last November, Cumberland advanced its 100 per cent-owned Meadowbank gold project to the pre-feasibility stage. Meadowbank's three deposits are estimated to hold 1.5 million ounces of gold.

"We've been in the expediting business for many years and we look forward to sharing our expertise with Peter's expediting," Braden Burry Expediting president Gordon Stewart said.

The partnership becomes official after regulatory approval by the Alberta Stock Exchange.