Berkeley Mineral Resources

Wednesday, 27 July, 2011 16:23 Written by Paul 0 Comments

Anyone looking at the three month chart below (courtesy of SharePrice.co.uk) could be forgiven for assuming that June contained a profit warning or the like for Berkeley Mineral Resources. But not so! Just another month in the life of an AIM-listed minerals share.

In fact, since June of this year, in this amateur’s humble opinion, there’s been pretty much nothing but good news coming out of Berkeley Mineral Resources.

Let’s take a closer look.

Below is the nuts and bolts of the past couple of months worth of BMR’s news releases in a timeline. For the full releases that these (italicised) snippets are taken from, head on over to BMR at Interactive Investor or visit the Berkeley Mineral Resources website.

10th June 2011

Berkeley Mineral Resources…announces that due diligence on BMR’s proposed purchase of all the remaining stockpiles of tailings not presently owned by it at the Kabwe mine in Zambia has been completed satisfactorily and the vendors have been notified of this. Accordingly, the parties are now proceeding towards formal Completion of the acquisition agreement which is expected shortly.

Good news? Masoud Alikhani, Chairman of BMR obviously thought so:

“Completion of the Kabwe acquisition will mark a further significant milestone in the development of BMR into a major producer of zinc and lead. Directly thereafter, we intend to finalise the design and sourcing of the processing plant, which is fully funded, to enable us to rapidly exploit the very substantial resources acquired at Kabwe.

“We are also progressing the acquisition of the tailings dumps at Luanshya and reviewing other opportunities to expand the business”.

Personally I like the term, “fully funded”.

Then as promised, June 22 saw the formal completion of the acquisition agreement.

22nd June 2011

Further to the announcements made on 28 March 2011 and 10 June 2011, Berkeley Mineral Resources Plc, which is primarily engaged in processing mining tailings, announces that the Company has completed the purchase of the remaining stockpiles of tailings not presently owned by it at the Kabwe mine in Zambia.

The deal:

BMR is paying US$2.5 million in cash on completion. In addition, the vendor has the right to receive further consideration of either £4.8 million in cash or 80 million new shares in BMR or a combination of both. BMR has agreed that the vendor must make its election regarding the nature of the consideration within the next 14 days.

and some options:

BMR has also obtained an exclusive option, valid until 15 July 2011, for it to acquire certain further Stands at Kabwe upon which are located an existing partially constructed crushing, screening and flotation plant, an office block and associated infrastructure. This area is scheduled to be used as the site for the beneficiation plant for the tailings.

A further exclusive option has been procured, valid until the same date, to acquire an existing licence to all the residual partly mined or unmined underground ore bodies remaining at the former Kabwe mine, together with shafts and other infrastructure; in all, these ore bodies are historically estimated to contain in excess of 22 million tons comprising some 1.2 million tons of zinc, lead, silver, cadmium and other valuable minerals.

There was a placing announced too, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs:

Pursuant to the terms of the Underwriting Agreement announced on 11th May 2011, the Placing Shares have now been subscribed for in full. As a result the Company will issue 145,000,000 new ordinary shares at a price of 4p per share. In addition to the Placing Shares, the Company will issue one warrant for every two Placing Shares subscribed, exercisable at 6p per warrant at any time up to three years from issue. Through this placing the Company has raised a total of £5.8 million before expenses. The monies will provide additional working capital.

Nice! Masoud Alikhani, commented:

“BMR first obtained mining rights in Zambia in July 2008, recognising it as an excellent mining jurisdiction. As evidenced by the current proposed acquisition of Metorex Plc, the former owners of the Kabwe dumps, by Brazilian multinational Vale, Zambia is rapidly becoming a favoured international mining destination. We are pleased to have now completed our latest and most important acquisition in the country and look forward to BMR achieving a swift transformation into a substantial minerals producing company”.

Good news? Well for the most part you would have thought so, but the market didn’t agree forcing the following news out of BMR in late June reiterating that the company was fully funded (that term again) for all existing projects.

27th June 2011

Berkeley Mineral Resources…announces that it is aware of no reason for the recent movement in the share price. The Company is fully funded for all existing projects.

Good news? Well, not bad news, if anything, no news. It’s seemed to stem the flow though.

Then following some late-month UBS notifications of major interest we got a Luanshya update.

1st July 2011

Berkeley Mineral Resources…announces that, having carried out due diligence, it intends to enter into a Shareholders’ Agreement with Ng’wena Mining Resources Ltd to acquire a majority holding in the Luanshya copper tailings, as per the Memorandum of Understanding announced on 4th May 2011.

Total consideration for the 76% interest to be acquired is US$6 million, of which US$1.75m is payable on completion with the balance of US$4.25m payable in 2012.

A report completed in 2008 by RSG Global concluded that the three tailings Dams contained SAMREC – and JORC- Indicated resources of 162Mt of tailings material at a copper grade of 0.24%, in total containing 380,700 tons of copper metal.

Then on 14th July we got a JORC date for the entire tailings resource at Kabwe and an update on the options alluded to in the RNS of 22nd June 2011.

14th July 2011

The Company can confirm that a JORC compliant resource definition for the entire tailings resource at Kabwe is on schedule to be published by the Mineral Corporation prior to 31 July 2011.

and:

In order to secure and optimise the long-term future of its tailings treatment business, BMR has now exercised the options it has with two Zambian-registered companies, Silverlining Ventures Limited (“Silverlining”) and Alberg Mining Limited (“Alberg”).

Silverlining owns stands 5203, 5209 and the remainder of stand 5203 in the Industrial Township of Kabwe. These stands are located opposite BMR’s stockpiles site (stand 5187) and contain an historic crushing, screening and flotation plant, including refurbished thickener dams, new flotation cells, a power sub-station, water supply, railway sidings and an extensive furnished and IT-connected office block. This infrastructure is capable of being overhauled to provide the site beneficiation plant necessary to process the Kabwe stockpiles. The precise process is currently being evaluated by Metanza.

Alberg owns the mining rights to 703 hectares at Kabwe which contain all the residual partly mined or un-mined underground ore bodies remaining at the former Kabwe mine, together with existing shafts and other infrastructure.

Sorry, lots to take in in a single post.

Now I don’t claim to be a minerals expert (just an amateur investor who fluffs as many as he nails) but even to the layman, Berkeley seems to be doing some good business down there in Zambia and appears to have laid some fairly solid foundations.

So, I put my money where my mouth is and topped up and topped up again.

First up on June 23 taking up 35,865 shares at 4.4 pence a share and then again on June 30 buying an additional 57,913 shares at 4.08 pence.

We’re now holding 157,913 shares averaged in at 4.94 pence a share. We’ve got a BMR top-heavy portfolio awaiting a little JORC-related news before the end of the month and I couldn’t be happier.

Please don’t take my word for it, never invest money you can’t afford to lose and always do a ton of homework, gathering data from a wide range of sources. Thanks again for dropping by.

A Little Look at Alecto

Monday, 30 May, 2011 16:20 Written by Paul 0 Comments

We bought a bunch of Alecto Energy back in November 2010, our reasons then were speculative but simple:

“Alecto has been awarded three gold and copper mining and two uranium mining licenses in the Mauritanide mobile belt of Mauritania and there’s the possibility of more good news on the horizon.”

Since we jumped on board, trading in Alecto has been within a range of between three and four-and-a-half pence a share. Volumes are probably slightly down on where they were six months ago but without doing too much homework on the matter, I reckon that’s probably true across the board for AIM shares for the period.

In fact, looking back with a little hindsight at the beginning of 2011 purely from a price perspective, Alecto has fared pretty well, managing to hang on to most of the big gains of October 2010 and being – in my humble opinion – in a good position to add to those gains again later this year.

We’ve had a couple of spikes on good news but profit takers have bailed out quickly and more than once on a good news day, Alecto has closed lower than it started out.

Following on from Alecto’s final results announced in April (which we spoke about at the time), Alecto has kept the information flow to investors coming with two positive exploration updates from Mauritania, an acquisition of 80% of a 191 square kilometre gold exploration licence in the highly prospective Ashanti Gold Belt in Ghana and most recently, the acquisition of 100% of the issued share capital of Nubian Gold Exploration Limited, which holds a 1,953 square kilometre gold exploration licence in the highly prospective Aysid-Metekel region of north western Ethiopia.

And there’s nothing like a name change (Alecto Energy to Alecto Minerals) to thow a little investor attention your way.

Cash in the bank as reported in their 2010 results was a healthy £2.37M – although obviously this will have dwindled since.

And then there’s Alecto’s 9.73% shareholding in AIM listed resource investment company Charles Street Capital plc which should (the company says) “provide Alecto with exposure to a diverse range of potential resource projects” going forward.

So Alecto’s African assets now include highly prospective projects in recognised highly prospective mineral districts in Mauritania, Ghana and now Ethiopia. They’re not shy when it comes to updating investors and lately there’s been more than enough coming from Alecto to make this a handy hold for this small-time investor who’s expecting some nice gains in the coming 12 months.

As always, please do a ton of your own homework and never invest any money you can’t afford to lose. I’m an amateur investor with a penchant for a speculative punt who’s possibly lost more than he’s won over the journey, so please double check anything I say before considering it fact.

Thanks again for dropping by, may your portfolios swim in a sea of upward pointing arrows.

Alecto Energy Gains Following Final Results

Wednesday, 20 April, 2011 05:07 Written by Paul 0 Comments

Following the announcement of their 2010 results, Alecto Energy added a healthy glow to our portfolio on Tuesday, finishing 24% up on the day.

We bought into Alecto back in November last year at 3.75 pence a share on the back of their three gold and copper mining and two uranium mining licenses in the Mauritanide mobile belt of Mauritania and the possibility of more licences to come. I like a company that has its irons scattered in a few fires.

In yesterday’s results Malcolm James – in his Chairman’s report – had this to say:

This has been an important year for Alecto, during which we have successfully been granted three gold and base metal and two uranium development licences covering circa 3,500 sq km in the highly prospective Mauritanide mobile belt in Mauritania. With a defined work programme currently underway at a number of these licences, a strong cash position to fund our forthcoming activities and an experienced management team in place, we are now centred on building value both on the ground and through the acquisition of complementary resource projects, primarily in Africa.

Mauritania provides the Company with an opportunity for discovery, having already yielded some significant mining projects including Red Back Mining Inc’s Tasiast Gold Mine with a resource of 6.5 Moz (but remains open along strike). Production at the Guelb Moghrein deposit, owned by First Quantum Minerals, has also resumed with both copper and gold being targeted.

Our licences were granted by the Mauritanian Ministry of Industry and Mines in October 2010, following extensive fieldwork and analysis of historic data conducted by our consulting partner, O’Connor International Ltd (‘O’Connor’), together with leading consultants SRK Exploration Services (‘SRK ES’).

The three gold and base metal licences are located at Chegar (756 sq km), Wad Armour (613 sq km) and Zreibya (459 sq km) and SRK ES has commenced work on our defined exploration programme to identify key areas of interest for further development and drilling. This is primarily taking place at Wad Amour and Zreibya which are both considered highly prospective and have good accessibility. The first phase of the work programme includes detailed soil sampling and regional reconnaissance work, which commenced in February 2011, and reinterpretation and analysis of historic data is being carried out in tandem with this. Once the results from these studies are received, additional soil sampling and geophysical surveys will be undertaken and this is expected to commence by the end of April 2011. Exploration at these licences is still at an early stage but to date, progress has been encouraging and we are optimistic about the Company’s ability to advance these projects to the next stages of development.

Having previously seen geochemical sampling results in May 2010 which demonstrated the existence of uranium values at the sites, SRK ES is also carrying out initial exploratory and data analysis at our Mreiti (888 sq km) and Wad Mourkba (704 sq km) uranium licences to support our existing knowledge of the licences. The licences span an internal WSW-ESE contact within the Achaean shield and close to its edge with the younger rocks of the Taoudenu Sedimentary Basin. We look forward to results from these studies and will update shareholders accordingly.

You can read the full release over at Interactive Investor.

Cash in the bank is healthy (£2.37M) following on from two placings in 2010 and there’s the added exposure to additional resource projects through investments in Bulgarian Mining Corporation Ltd (20% holding) and AIM listed Charles Street Capital plc (9.73% holding).

There’s a name change in the offing to Alecto Minerals which can only lead to more press and with results from sampling surveys due in the coming months hopefully it’s onwards and upwards for Alecto.

As always, don’t take my word for it before parting with your hard-earned, always do tons of homework and gather information from a number of sources. The Alecto Energy web site is a good place to start.

Thanks again for dropping by.

Purchase – Herencia Resources

Monday, 24 January, 2011 13:04 Written by Paul 4 Comments

Our last purchase for 2010 was Herencia Resources – a mineral exploration and development company with a primary focus on developing its Paguanta zinc-silver-lead-gold Project in northern Chile.

Herencia’s Paguanta Project is made up of 14 licenses covering a 39 square kilometre area located in the northern section of the main Chilean porphyry copper belt. The area is home to a number of the world’s largest open-cut copper mines.

Herencia’s Paguanta Project comprises:

The JORC-compliant ‘Patricia’ zinc-silver-lead-gold Mineral Resource
The ‘Doris’ high grade copper-silver Prospect
The ‘La Rosa’ porphyry-copper Prospect

For a good overview of the history and potential of the Paguanta Project check out the projects page of their website.

Good news emerged from its maiden diamond drill program back in December ’06 and it just seems to get better and better with upgraded Mineral Resource Estimates, the granting of ‘all 14 exploitation tenements’, the raising of additional capital and then the signing of leading global zinc smelting group, Nyrstar International BV, who took a 10.4% stake in the Company back in April of last year. Though not mentioned on their projects page, UK investment group Anglo Pacific, in addition to some well known London institutional groups are also on board.

It’s a very positive read (but then again you’re not going to stumble across too many negatives on a company website, we’ll leave that to the bulletin boards).

And moving forward some more recent upgrades. This from Hererncia’s RNS from 7th October 2010, in which Managing Director Michael Bohm stated:

“To see such a positive uplift in both tonnage and grade, augers well for our goal of achieving an initial stage one mine life of 5 years at an anticipated 400,000 tpa ore throughput….

….the tonnage has increased by 33% and significantly the in-situ metal inventory has increased by 54% for zinc, 49% for lead and 102% for silver. These increases have been achieved in 2010 with only 5,728m of additional drilling.”

These increases were based on a scoping study carried out in 2008. For more information check out the RNS or for an overview, take a look at this article from Proactive Investor from October last year.

And most recently, in a Paguanta Project Update from Herencia on 23rd December 2010, this:

Herencia is pleased to announce that the Company’s 70% owned Joint Venture Company (“Compania Minera Paguanta” or “CMP”) has accepted a proposal from Major Drilling to undertake a diamond drilling program of up to 15,000m at CMP’s flagship Paguanta Project (the “Project”) located in northern Chile.

The planned program will involve drilling of the ‘Doris’ prospect (targeting the high copper and silver grades seen on surface), the ‘La Rosa’ prospect (where the porphyry-copper potential will be the target) and ‘in-fill’ drilling of the ‘Patricia’ Mineral Resource with the aim of upgrading the Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate and collecting metallurgical and geotechnical core samples.

A diamond drilling rig is currently scheduled to mobilise to site during the 4th week of February 2011 with drilling work set to commence at Doris by the end that month. Once operation of the first rig has been established, it is planned to mobilised a second drill rig to site, possibly in April 2011.

Major Drilling are very familiar with the Paguanta Project having previously carried out the majority of drilling activity for the project.

In relation to the Feasibility Study, the Company is pleased to advise that Golder Associates (“Golder”) will commence their Study work during 1Q2011, with selected study components kicking off in the new year.

Managing Director Michael Bohm stated “as seen in early 2010, our goal is to again hit the ground running at Paguanta. The Feasibility Study at Patricia and the Drilling Program, initially commencing at Doris, will mark a new chapter for the Project. Subject to meeting our planned mobilisation timetable we would anticipate first drill assay results from Doris sometime in April 2011.

That’s a jam-packed 2011, whatever way you cut it and with a busy program comes news and with news comes price movement.

Herencia was one of our 17 potential (speculative) investments for 2011, a company that first attracted our attention back in September and October 2010 following decent gains on the back of their significant upgrade to their underground mining inventory.

Here’s the chart for the past 12 months (courtesy of SharePrice.co.uk). Notice the spike in price and volume in September last year. And since then, there’s nothing wrong with that trajectory. Following Herencia’s most recent update on their ambitious plans for 2011, I’m hoping for a lot more of the same.

So based on the above we bought 22,679 shares at 3.75 pence a share for a total spend before costs of £850.46 on 30th December 2010. As I type shares are trading at 3.96 pence, a slight appreciation but we’re here for the long term with a company that are making all the right noises.

Remember, this should not be consider investment advice, I’m an amateur investor. What I don’t know about mining could fill a tome, so please do a ton of your own research and seek a number of opinions before departing with your hard earned.

If you’ve made a quid or two out of investing recently, why not give a leg up to a third world entrepreneur via a Kiva micro-loan – $25 will get you up and running.

Thanks again for dropping by.

Purchase – MeDaVinci

Tuesday, 11 January, 2011 12:59 Written by Paul 0 Comments

Although it sounds like a back-street peddler of pharmaceutical art, MeDaVinci – after a change in direction – is nowadays firmly in the mineral exploration game.

The change in strategy and resultant restructuring (MeDaVinci was originally a Medical tech investor) came about following a review of their investment portfolio in mid 2009. In the period since, MeDaVinci has been looking at it’s options.

This from the Final Results for the year ended 31 March 2010:

Since the year end the company has re-focused the investment strategy of the company to one focused on companies involved in mineral exploration and production in Europe. As part of this re-focus the company has successfully raised £842,042 and made an investment in Orogen Gold Limited in return for a 49% shareholding.

Orogen Gold

So MeDaVinci now has a 49% stake in Orogen Gold Limited which it purchased for £370,000 with a 12 month option to acquire the 51% balance.

Here’s a little about Orogen Gold taken from Money AM website:

Orogen Gold is an Irish company incorporated in April 2010 for the purpose of holding investments in companies involved in mineral exploration and related activities. Its initial focus will be on the Deli Jovan Gold Project, a 69 sq km permit area in eastern Serbia covering two shallow underground gold mines that were last in production pre World War II. Under an Earn-in Agreement with TSX (Toronto Stock Exchange) listed Reservoir Capital Corporation, Orogen Gold has the right to an initial 55% interest in the Deli Jovan Gold Project, if it spends a minimum of approximately US$1.5 million on exploration by June 2012, and a further interest of 20% will be obtained upon an additional spend of approximately US$2 million by December 2013, giving Orogen Gold an aggregate interest in 75% of the Deli Jovan Gold Project.

Moving forward, this from Adam Reynolds, the Chairman of MeDeVinci (taken from the Interims for the six months until 30th September 2010):

It is my view that we have secured the future for MedaVinci and it is our intention early in the New Year to invite John Barry, Ed Slowey and Alan Mooney (“Proposed Directors”), all currently directors of Orogen Gold Limited, onto the Board of the Company at which point a further announcement will be made; all three have substantial experience and are very well respected within the mining and exploration industry.

And some post-period highlights from the same set of Interims:

New exploration licence re-issued by the Serbian Ministry of Mining and Energy to Deli Jovan Exploration d.o.o. in which MedaVinci plc is earning an interest through its holding in Orogen Gold Limited
The appointment of XCAP Securities as joint brokers alongside Zeus Capital Limited
The successful fund raising of £1.5m through the issue of 375m new ordinary shares
Exploration programme now initiated and plans being submitted to the Serbian Mining Ministry for the re-opening of the two former mines at Deli Jovan to facilitate detailed underground structural mapping and close-spaced channel sampling

So with a change in strategy now firmly in place, a new board of directors being ushered in, a name change (which in itself will probably attract a few sniffers) and some sampling results expected soon, MeDaVinci (Orogen Gold) seemed worth a punt.

We jumped in on 30th December picking up 97,605 shares at 0.86 pence a share (currently trading at 1.165 pence as I type) for a total outlay before dealer costs of £839.40.

Here’s a one year chart for MeDaVinci below courtesy of SharePrice.co.uk. Notice the spike in volume since results were released in September.

Remember always do a ton of your own homework before investing. Here’s a little further MeDaVinci info to get you started:

The MeDaVinci website (now his could really use an overhaul as a bit of a priority – at least lose the Doc, drop me an email, I’ll do it, gratis)
A to Z of Mining
Proactive Investors

Thanks again for dropping by.

Posts Tagged ‘Mining Sector’

A Little Look at Alecto

Alecto Energy Gains Following Final Results

The Day in Numbers

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Investor Trader Categories

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Posts Tagged ‘Mining Sector’

Berkeley Mineral Resources

A Little Look at Alecto

Alecto Energy Gains Following Final Results

Purchase – Herencia Resources

Purchase – MeDaVinci

Orogen Gold

The Day in Numbers

Our Charismatic Benefactors

Our Friends at Kiva

What We Rant About

Investor Trader Categories

Investor Trader Archives

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