October 31, 2010 – Republic of Mining

The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame was conceived by the late Maurice R. Brown, former editor and publisher of The Northern Miner, as a way to recognize and honour the legendary mine finders and builders of a great Canadian industry. The Hall was established in 1988. For more information about the extraordinary individuals who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, please go to their home website: http://mininghalloffame.ca/

It was not for nothing that The Northern Miner, the weekly journal of Canada’s mining industry, in 1977 chose Stephen B. Roman as its first Mining Man of the Year.

He received the title, the newspaper said at the time, “because Stephen Roman has graphically shown that Canadian money and expertise can compete very successfully with anyone in the world.”
At that time, he had engineered, through his already big and fast-growing company, Denison Mines, the largest-ever uranium sales by a uranium producer.

A Slovakian immigrant who began his working life in Canada as a tomato picker. Roman subsequently took control of a penny mining stock in 1953, and from this built Denison into one of the country’s largest mining and resource empires, rising from the foundation of the company’s sprawling uranium mines at Elliot Lake, Ontario.

That globe-spanning empire now includes, in addition to its uranium interests, coal mining in British Columbia, potash mining in New Brunswick, and oil and gas production in Greece, Egypt, Spain, Italy and Western Canada.

Lisa Wright is a business reporter with the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion. This article was originally published October 31, 2010.

His father [Stephen Roman] was a well-known [Denison Mines’ uranium operations at Elliot Lake] mining icon, but Stephen Roman is digging up his own success

Stephen Roman has endured various viruses and parasites and all manner of poisonous spiders and snakes – even a few on Bay St.—while prospecting for oil and metals around the world over the last 30 years.

The 57-year-old mining entrepreneur nearly died from cerebral malaria three years ago, when he lapsed into a coma after being bitten by mosquitoes at night in the Sahara Desert in uranium-rich Niger.

And his original exploration firm Exall Resources Ltd. suffered through an industry downturn so deep during the dot-com craze 10 years ago that he was forced to sell off his furniture and artwork to keep it afloat as metals prices tanked.

“That’s the hazard of the business,” the affable financier says in an interview. “People may think it’s all glamorous but there are a lot of risks. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it all adds to the fun.”

On top of all that, Stephen G. Roman – son of the late mining magnate Stephen B. Roman – has carried on the family name, and despite all the weight that carries has managed to stake out his own Roman empire.
Just a week before the market plummeted in 2008, the junior Roman sold Gold Eagle Mines and its coveted asset in Red Lake for $1.5 billion to giant Goldcorp Inc. – one of the highest prices ever paid to a non-operating junior whose discovery was not yet a proven resource.

And with some promising drilling up in northern Ontario, he and his Harte Gold investors bet they may be sitting on the next big gold find in the storied Hemlo gold camp, which was the centre of a Klondike-style gold rush in the early 1980s and is now run by Barrick Gold Corp. about 350 km east of Thunder Bay.

Stephen B. Roman (1921 – 1988) – 1989 Candian Mining Hall of Fame Inductee

Stephen Roman Digging Up His Own Success – by Toronto Star Business Reporter Lisa Wright