Watchdog Jim Woodward of PowertechExposed.com reports that wishful Canadian uranium mining company Powertech has skirted bankruptcy by getting strategic investors to throw them $1.5 million. (Given Powertech's rock-bottom stock price, that gets you 15 million shares). According to data posted on PowertechExposed.com, Powertech has burned up $9 million over the last two years without producing an ounce of uranium. At that rate of non-production, $1.5 million will keep the companies lobbyists and lawyers lunching for another four months.

Woodward notes that strategic investors differ from normal financial investors in that they are usually seeking to control and perhaps acquire the companies in which they invest. Since Powertech is seeking permits to drill and contaminate the southern Black Hills in its quest for uranium, South Dakotans and regulators might want to know who's going to be running the company. But Powertech is keeping its investors' identities secret.

Woodward also notes a change in Powertech's press-release boilerplate:

After repeated challenges on this website to provide supporting evidence, Powertech has removed the following statement from its news releases:

"The Company's key personnel have over 200 years of experience in the uranium industry throughout the United States, and have permitted more than a dozen in-situ operations for production."

The February 12 news release includes the new language:

'The Company's key personnel have in-situ uranium experience throughout the United States and worldwide" [links mine; Jim Woodward, "Powertech to Raise $1.5 Million from Secret 'Strategic' Investors," PowertechExposed.com, 2013.02.18].

That change seems to more reasonably reflect the summaries posted on Powertech's own website, which includes mention of in-situ mining experience on two of its twelve management team member profiles (and not on the bio of its project manager in South Dakota, Mark Hollenbeck).