A DOZEN shareholders in Celtic Resources Holdings found themselves, metaphorically speaking, wading knee deep in frozen snow yesterday at the company's annual general meeting, transported to a remote but beautiful area, some 6,500 kilometres east of Moscow, courtesy of a company information video.

The video explained Celtic's latest investment, a joint venture formed to develop a gold deposit at Nezhdaninskoye, Yakutia in the Russia Federation.

Celtic managing director, Mr Sean Finlay, gave shareholders a whirlwind tour of the prospect.

The nearest village is five hours away, because the roads are very poor and the deep snow lasts from October to April. Conditions are primitive, to say the least and there are no inhabitants for 350 kilometres.

"This video shows that it really is a dark satanic mill," said Mr Finlay, adding that the state owned mine had been starved of investment for the past six years.

Although the video seemed to concentrate more on the breath taking scenery, which included some awesome looking stalactites and stalagmites, it did provide an insight into what the investment entails.

According to Celtic chairman, Mr Oliver Waldron, the orebody is the largest known in Russia. Its indicated resources are almost 11 million ounces of gold. "That's 55 years of mining," he said.

The company is also exploring the surrounding area for further deposits.

But what the company hopes to bring to the operation is management and technical expertise. Mr Finlay believes that by investing in improved production and processing facilities they will be able to increase production to 35,000 ounces per year.

At present the gold recovery rate is 65 per cent. They hope to get it to 90 per cent very quickly.

Another feasibility study will be done to see if large scale production of over 200,000 ounces of gold per year can be achieved.

To fund its investment, Celtic is issuing 3,500,000 shares at 27p which will raise $1.5 million before expenses. The investment will require $5 million.

A further fund raising issue, of $3 million $4 million, will take place in the future but the company won't be trying to raise the cash in Ireland.

After the meeting and a few refreshments, the shareholders filed out of the Dublin hotel, to find that the weather had turned even worse. Temperature wise at least, it was beginning to resemble Yakutia.