Missing Canadian Mint gold--- thrown out as slag
tincup
Posts: 5,206 ✭✭✭✭✭
It appears that up to 20 million dollars of gold has been found to be missing at the Canadian Mint. According to the article, 7 million dollars worth may have been discarded as slag... but officials will not disclose how or where this was disposed of. (check out the neat photo of the buckets of gold in the article!) If this is true, I would think Canadian citizens would be a little upset. But I suspect the story is just a cover for what really happened to the gold; I'm sure the officials would rather come up with a lame excuse and hope the story goes away.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/million+gold+lost+slag+guide+tells+mint+tour/1702747/story.html
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/million+gold+lost+slag+guide+tells+mint+tour/1702747/story.html
----- kj
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Proud recipient of two "You Suck" awards
but the web address has been edited and the address should now work when pasted into the address bar. (looks like the newpaper site no longer has the neat picture of the buckets of gold though
"Page Not Found
We’re sorry, the page you requested is not available.
If you typed in a URL, please check the address and spelling."
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/million+gold+lost+slag+guide+tells+mint+tour/1702747/story.html
but if that still doesn't work, here is the article:
http://a123.g.akamai.net/f/123/12465/1d/www.ottawacitizen.com/million+gold+lost+slag+guide+tells+mint+tour/1702747/1704715.bin?size=620x400
Buckets of gold await the furnace at the Royal Canadian Mint.
Photograph by: Rod MacIvor, The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA - An estimated $7 million worth of Royal Canadian Mint gold was disposed of in refinery slag, leaving as much $13 million in precious metals still unaccounted for, a mint employee told a group of visitors Tuesday.
During a public tour of the historic Sussex Drive plant, a mint tour guide volunteered to the group, which included a reporter, that an internal investigation has determined an estimated $7 million in gold was not captured in its refining process last year.
Senior mint officials later would not confirm or deny the young guide’s remarks or say what happened to the resulting slag, including whether it may have ended up as garbage or was sold to recyclers.
But last week, mint chairman James Love said a huge demand for mint gold last year meant it didn’t have time to re-refine, as it usually does, an estimated 90 tonnes of slag for residual gold.
“An estimate was made at the year end as to what the value of the gold in this slag would be, and it was thought that this could explain a significant portion of this reconciliation difference.”
“The amount of gold that was determined to be in that slag was significantly higher than the estimate that was originally used,” Love said in a media report.
The mint guide said each “batch” of slag is now thought to have contained about five ounces of gold, not the original estimate of about two ounces. The mint will not define what constitutes a “batch.”
The federal government last week ordered the mint to call for an RCMP criminal probe, after a four-month external audit was unable to reconcile the unaccounted-for gold and other precious metals at the mint’s Sussex Drive headquarters. Mint insiders tell the Citizen it could amount to as much as $20 million.
The RCMP continues to review the request for an investigation. The audit findings are expected to be made public soon, a mint spokeswoman said Tuesday.
The mint refines gold in five major stages, explained on its website.
Doré bars in purities ranging from five per cent to 95 per cent are melted in a furnace. Dip samples are taken from the molten gold to determine its purity.
Chlorine gas is then injected into the molten metal mix. All impurities and metals but gold float to the surface to form a slag of molten chloride. The resulting .995 fine gold (99.5 per cent pure) is poured into an anode mould.
Next, in a step that was not done with the 90 tonnes of slag in question, soda ash is added to the molten chloride slag recovered from chlorination. The reaction causes gold particles to collect in a silver-gold alloy “button” that settles at the bottom of the crucible.
The gold anode is placed in a bath containing a solution of hydrochloric acid and gold chloride. The anode is then subjected to an electric current. The anode dissolves, and the dissolved gold plates onto a titanium cathode. Impurities (mostly silver) fall to the bottom of the cell or form soluble chlorides. This process brings gold to .9999 purity. It is then cast into bars of various sizes or turned into granulation gold.
imacleod@thecitizen.canwest.com
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
........ (Canadian government must be trying to suppress the knowledge.... lol)
Now it's at $15.3 million. I'm betting it will top the $20 mil as others suspect.
<< <i>It appears that up to 20 million dollars of gold has been found to be missing at the Canadian Mint. According to the article, 7 million dollars worth may have been discarded as slag... but officials will not disclose how or where this was disposed of. (check out the neat photo of the buckets of gold in the article!) If this is true, I would think Canadian citizens would be a little upset. But I suspect the story is just a cover for what really happened to the gold; I'm sure the officials would rather come up with a lame excuse and hope the story goes away.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/million+gold+lost+slag+guide+tells+mint+tour/1702747/story.html >>
I am cynically skeptical of this explanation. I can see them saying "We do not have the time or capacity to re-refine this slag right now. Let's save it and do it later, or ship it to a private refiner." You don't throw it out.
MOO
TD
Calling your organization incompetent
or
Calling your organization criminal
Nice spin on it. 'Has been found to be missing' is a phrase that makes my head hurt.
Proud recipient of two "You Suck" awards
Auditors Deloitte-Touche (sp?) have been pouring over the books. So far it's not an accounting error.
roadrunner
<< <i>Wonder if that gold really went to some numbered safety deposit box in Zurich? >>
It's probably still in Winnipeg. My guess is someones basement til they know it won't cost them more than six months of probation.
<< <i>gold has been found to be missing at the Canadian Mint
Nice spin on it. 'Has been found to be missing' is a phrase that makes my head hurt. >>
It makes perfect sense if you're from Manitoba.