Mr. Cunningham: Tri-Valley Corp. has been in business for about 50 years, going public in 1972. For most of our history, we have conducted petroleum exploration and provided drilling services. We are now maturing into a company with growing and sustainable production. We have two principal business segments currently. The first and central one in terms of revenue is oil and gas exploration and production concentrated in California. The second segment, which is important in terms of valuation, is our Alaskan minerals business that is focused on gold exploration and our high-quality calcium carbonate quarry. In terms of oil and gas, we have operations around the Bakersfield, Calif., area, where we are currently operating near the Belridge Field on the west side of the San Joaquin Basin. Then on the eastern side, we have a new project, which we call the Claflin project, where we just recently started production, and where we expect to be drilling up to 20 additional wells this year. In addition, we have an oil sands project in Oxnard, Calif. We've been operating there since 2007 and have successfully drilled horizontally and produced from the Vaca Tar. We expect to move to a steam-assisted gravity drainage, or SAGD, development later this year.
On the minerals side, we have two gold and mineral properties. One is the Shorty Creek Project, which is north of Fairbanks, Alaska. It is an exploration-stage project. A third party has just completed a 43-101 report for us. The 43-101 standard report is a Canadian instrument that is used in the mining sector for evaluating mineral resources in a consistent manner that allows companies to move to secure financing through the sale of securities or from other sources. We will utilize the new 43-101 report on Shorty Creek to seek additional financing that will help us take the next steps to define the property's value through further exploration. Our second key project in Alaska on the gold side is the Richardson project, which is south of Fairbanks. We are also moving forward to get a 43-101 report on this project. Apart from these developments on the mineral side, the milestones to watch for in our immediate future include the strategic development of the Claflin project and getting steam-assisted gravity drainage production established in the Oxnard field. The combination of these two near-term milestones is important to cementing our new focus on exploration and production for sustainable profitability.
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