Outer Ring Excavations, or ORE, is the largest independent mining corporation around. ORE was originally a fledgling Gallentean company, but struck gold when they found extremely rich Nocxium asteroid belts in the Outer Ring region.
When the Gallente Federation tried to force ORE to reveal the location of the asteroid fields the company left Gallentean space and set up base in the Outer Ring region. They used their massive wealth to buy protection for their bases and keep their operation secret. Several pirate factions have tried to muscle in on the ORE territories, but with little success.
Outer Ring Excavations
Outer Ring Excavations was formed in the Gallente Federation by an entrepreneur named Yani Sar Arteu. Colloquially known as simply ORE, it has since grown to become the single largest and most influential mining conglomerate in the cluster.
For the first five years of the corporation’s existence, business was very difficult. In its fourth year ORE almost declared bankruptcy, finding it a challenge to stand out among the many competing mining corporations in Verge Vendor. Fortunes changed for the company almost overnight in YC 96, however, when a massive obsidian ocher asteroid containing a huge amount of nocxium was discovered during a routine survey deployment. The asteroid was reportedly the largest single deposit of nocxium ever discovered in New Eden, with some sources claiming that it was closer in size to a dwarf planet or a small moon.
This discovery prompted the Gallente government to issue a demand for its location, believing that the value of the asteroid was too high for a single small corporation. The federation offered a below-market price for the mineral value, leaving Arteu with a decision to either sell the asteroid’s location to the federation for a safe but reduced profit or rebuke their offers and attempt to have ORE work by itself through all aspects of the asteroid’s harvesting.
Arteu ultimately decided to keep the whereabouts of the asteroid to himself and his small inner circle. Along with a highly trusted group of technicians, he began work on breaking down the asteroid, keeping its location secret all the while. Rather than strip mine the location, the corporation decided to carefully extract the ore and slowly release it to the market, in an effort to avoid crashing the price of nocxium. Operations were further hampered as the Gallente government repeatedly placed economic restrictions on the corporation in an effort to force it to release the location of the deposits.
After growing pressure was placed on the corporation by the federal administration, and a number of sabotage and espionage attempts were made on the corporation by competitors, Arteu relocated ORE’s operations to Outer Ring, removing the ability of the Gallente Federation to place pressure on corporate operations. From this point on, the organization flourished and began to grow rapidly into the powerhouse it has become today.
While Outer Ring Excavations remains a wholly independent corporation, it maintains strong ties with highvolume manufacturing corporations across the cluster, as well as most of the major commercial shipyards in New Eden.
Corporations
Outer Ring Excavations
A filthy rich corporation that disassociated itself from the Federation when it tried to encroach on the companies riches. ORE operates mainly in the Outer Ring and Cloud Ring regions, where they have mining installations scattered around in hidden locations, grinding out the most valuable minerals on the market.
Outer Ring Development
ORE’s research efforts in fields as diverse as moon mining and space colonization have brought the mining conglomerate many innovations over the years since it broke with the Gallente Federation. In its efforts to become ever more independent, ORE has assembled its most far-thinking, radical and slightly eccentric minds in a new division incorporated as Outer Ring Development. Persistent rumors of a program to create a genetically-modified Fedo capable of digesting Dark Ochre and excreting pure Nocxium have neither been confirmed nor denied.
Outer Ring Prospecting
Originating as a branch dedicated to exploring deep space and laying claim to anything valuable found therein, Outer Ring Prospecting was eventually spun into a separate company in the ORE family. It is rumored to be staffed with hungry-looking people who tend to feel uncomfortable in crowds and spend a lot of time glancing out the windows of their ships, as if searching for something important just out of sight.
ORE Technologies
The increasing involvement of ORE in the development of technology and businesses beyond its mining operations origins led the conglomerate to set up ORE Technologies as an umbrella corporation to co-ordinate and control its various research and product development subsidiaries.
Frostline Laboratories
ORE began to market ice-mining related products under its Frostline brand at the end of YC117. The success of the brand's flagship Endurance class expedition frigate encouraged ORE to set up a subsidiary corporation to manage research and development of new products for the ice-mining industry.
