Bre-X soars on RI mine

Bre-X soars on RI mine

CALGARY (Reuter): Shares of Bre-X Minerals Ltd skyrocketed in frantic trading Wednesday after the Alberta Stock Exchange-listed company released drill results suggesting it may have found one of the world's largest gold mines.

Bre-X was trading up C$9-1/2 to C$38-3/4 on volume of 930,380 shares. As recently as March Bre-X stock was at C$2.00 a share.

Bre-X vice-president Steve McAnulty told Reuters he is comfortable with estimates that the company's Busang gold project in East Kalimantan, Indonesia could contain over 30 million ounces of gold.

"This may be the largest deposit in the world," McAnulty said. "It's too early to categorically state that, however it's got all the earmarks."

He said the company has been confident of a major strike since it began doing work on the property in early 1993, but tried to avoid major hype until it had updated reserve calculations.