PROFILE — Howe stays ahead of crowd in diamond hunt

Years before the diamond fever flared up in the Northwest Territories, Peter Howe acquired a diamond property in central Africa for Ateba Mines. Recently, TSE-listed United Reef Petroleums farmed in for a 40% interest in the project and its stock value immediately took off, soaring to 42 cents from 2 cents. “It is partly our luck and partly our strategy that we always seem to be in the right place ahead of the crowd,” said Howe, president of the consulting firm A.C.A. Howe International, which identified the property, and of Ateba and a director of United Reef.

The partners plan to send a crew to delineate the eluvial deposit’s size and tonnage. As nature has already done the crushing and grinding, the diamonds can be easily mined. “We have 80-90% gemstones compared with Dia Met’s 25%,” says Howe, 63.

Also ahead of the crowd, Howe’s namesake firm was involved in uranium discoveries in Australia in 1969 when others were looking for nickel, and had located a copper deposit in Mexico four years before the country relaxed its property ownership laws. Currently, A.C.A. Howe International continues its study of Russia’s timber and mineral potential, which started two years prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Howe was born in Indonesia, where his father was an English tea merchant. The youth’s interest in mining was prompted by his Australian grandfather, a sailor-turned-miner. At 16, Peter Howe started his studies at the University of London’s Royal School of Mines and earned a B.Sc. in engineering in 1949. His mining career took him to Rhodesia and Saudi Arabia before he settled in Canada in 1955. He worked for Ascot Metals at Sherbrooke, Que., and North American Rare Metals. He married a French-Canadian, Jovette, and they have two sons.

At 32, he founded his own company which later became A.C.A. Howe and Associates in 1964 and A.C.A. Howe International two years later. The firm opened offices in Australia (1969), South Africa (1973), Britain (1976), Indonesia (1980) and the U.S. (1986). Howe became executive president of Tantalum Mining Corp. of Canada in 1972 and was responsible for the discovery and development of the world’s largest tantalum mine in Manitoba. Asked if he plans to involve United Reef and Ateba in diamond exploration in the Territories, Howe says, “I would rather stay with where we were the first to explore and discover diamonds. I always want to stay ahead of the crowd.”