Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 20/99) - The sale of Giant mine may be just around the corner, with a potential four companies interested in the purchase of the mine according to Royal Oak's receiver, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

In a recent meeting with mine officials and representatives from labour, PwC said they should have good news by the end of the month, according to vice- president of the Federation of Labour, Steve Peterson.

"They've indicated that something will be coming down the tube by the end of the month," Peterson said, noting there are four companies vying for ownership of the mine.

"What they are saying is that one of these four companies will be taking over the mine," he said.

Along with the purchase of the mine, came strict guidelines regarding the handling of the byproduct arsenic trioxide stored in stopes underground.

"DIAND gave these four companies a document stating the criteria they had to follow in order to cleanup the arsenic and from what I understand, none of the companies had any concerns about that," Peterson said.

Although the sale of the mine could be a long ways off, Peterson says the news is good for the miners who can now see a light at the end of the tunnel.

"I think there is a reason for certain guarded optimism here anyway," he said.

"There are still a lot of uncertainties, but that will all be hammered out later on."

"It shows that despite what is going on with the gold price and everything else, that there are still people out there that think that we are somewhat viable anyway."

PricewaterhouseCoopers is still not returning phone calls.