By Cheryl Norrad
Alberta-based Windsor Energy Corp wasn't the only company headed by Khalid Amin that applied for and received a license to explore for shale gas in New Brunswick under the Graham government. Ittihad Capital Corporation had already been granted rights on a parcel of land near Sussex in November 2008.
Windsor Energy Corp was a company supposedly only a few months old when it applied for a license to explore for shale gas in the spring of 2009. The land it intended to explore lay adjacent to that of the Ittihad ground.
The two companies were separate at the time of their applications to the province. The plan for Amin was to fold Ittihad into Windsor Energy Corp and explore as one entity, but the merger hadn't legally taken place before each company was granted a license.
Ittihad was an investment firm when it was used by Amin to get the first exploration license from the province in 2008, leaving an impression no connection with oil and gas existed until the creation of Windsor Energy Corp the following year. However, there is no evidence online that Windsor Energy Corp from 1996 was disbanded in 2009, when it was removed from trading by the SEC.(This publication is still investigating whether oil and gas company Windsor Energy Corp, which began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange in November 1996, and had it's securities revoked by the SEC in 2009, see article, is the same one now in the province, but just a re-constituted version).
According to its online profile, the founding values of Ittihad Captial Corporation are trust, integrity and value. It claims to, "...provide cost-effective ethical financial and business solutions...promote social development, environmental protection, corporate accountability, and respect for religion..." It has a staff of two, the President being Suhail Ahmed. However, there are no pictures of corporate employees on the website, nor is the telephone number in working order. When this publication attempted to contact ICC, it received the following recording: "The number you have dialed cannot be reached at this time." The same was experienced when attempts were made recently to contact Windsor Energy Corp.
In his December 10, 2008 blog post from his site, It's the Economy, Stupid, respected New Brunswick economist David Campbell quibbled with Amin's claims that the oil and gas potential for the province was significant, making New Brunswick a 'have' province like Newfoundland. Campbell said the statements by the Ittihad Capital Corporation head, "smell a bit fishy" and parsed the numbers which showed Amin's claims to be questionable.
As of its so-called launch in 2009, Amin is the only employee of Windsor Energy Corp.
Today, Natural Resources Minister Bruce Northrup released results of an investigation by the department, finding Windsor Energy Corp violated the Oil and Gas Act by completing seismic testing in Sussex without town permission. Northrup is demanding the company make an apology to the public.
As of this writing, there was no response from Windsor Energy Corp.
