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Pastimes : Crazy Fools Chasing Stocks w/5-letter Symbols Ending in F -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ms.smartest.person who wrote (276)	9/27/2002 4:07:43 PM
From: ms.smartest.person	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 307

(HDR.AX, HMNRF) BUSINESS AND INVESTING > THE SPECULATOR SPECULATOR: OIL ABOARD May 15, 2002 Hardman Resources boosted estimates of recoverable oil reserves by 50% to more than 100 million barrels last week from its discovery with Woodside Petroleum in the Atlantic Ocean, offshore the west African republic of Mauritania, last year. Yet the company's shares closed static over the week at 67¢. Moreover, the Woodside-Hardman joint venture also announced the signing of a contract with the drill ship Deep Water Discovery for two to four wells to be sunk in the third quarter of calendar 2002. This gives added certainty to progress on this emerging world-class project in which Hardman and associates hold exploration rights over an area as large as the North West Shelf of Western Australia. Woodside Petroleum as operator brought in the Chinguetti 1 discovery well a year ago with a reported minimum gross oil column of 90 metres. In January, Woodside announced an estimate of 65 million barrels of recoverable reserves. Last week, in an open briefing with analysts, Hardman managing director Ted Ellyard said his company's estimate of recoverable reserves was more than 100 million barrels as a "most likely" estimate based on 3D seismic data available plus the first well's result (with an updated gross oil column of 120m). He explained that the Woodside figure was a "risked reserves" estimate based on the fact that parts of the field had not yet been evaluated by drilling. Under the forthcoming drilling program, two appraisal wells will be put down to test the northern and eastern flanks of the field and to prove the total thickness of the oil column. The drill ship is contracted to arrive off Mauritania within a two-month window of August-September this year following completion of the rig's program off west Africa. Ellyard indicated that following the drilling of the two appraisal wells, the consortium should be able to immediately start development, most likely with a floating production storage platform or ship. That could take a year to build, with the hope of first production within two years of drilling the appraisal wells. It might be recalled that, following the Chinguetti discovery last year, Woodside took a placement of 11% of Hardman shares at $1.10 last July, thus adding $36.3m to the junior's cash funds, which then totalled $65m. A modest few millions have since been invested on Hardman buying into the Woodada gas field and other prospective acreage north of Perth. Ellyard estimates that Hardman's net cost for the current year's Mauritania program (including 8300km of 3D seismic mapping) to be $40m. Hardman retains a 21.6% interest in the discovery block, where Woodside is committed to drill one appraisal well with a contingent commitment to another. Woodside is also committed to drill an exploration well on another block (Hardman's equity, 35.5%) to test a Cretaceous sand channel system. Shell, without the benefit of modern 3D seismic, found sub-economic oil on an outer flank of this system in the 1970s. A second exploration well may be drilled on one of two structures within 25km of the discovery well, where a new strike could be linked to the planned production platform. Ellyard confirmed Hardman "is in discussions with some large oil companies" to farm out its cost in one exploration well (reducing its equity from 35.5% to 23%). Such a successful move would slash Hardman's net cost in the Mauritania program from $40m to $30m. Hardman, with 388 million shares on issue, is capitalised by the market at $403m and has identified as many as 50 prospects off Mauritania yet to be tested. In the meantime, Advantage Telecommunications – our punt on the wholesale trader in voicecall time between Asia and Europe – has been assessed by broker Terrain Securities as trading on a lowly price-earnings multiple of 3.3 times EBITDA to be achieved in the first quarter of the forthcoming 2002-03 year. AdvanTel revealed two weeks ago that its March-quarter revenues totalled $770,000 (with only 16 of its so far signed-up 51 telco clients contributing). Last week, it projected revenues for the current quarter to June 30 would be "in the vicinity of" $2m with another five to 10 telcos participating. By November, it projects that most, if not all, of its interconnect clients will be operating, by which time it expects voice traffic across its network of 16 million to 20 million minutes a month. The company, with a staff of just 24, claims an average 40% gross margin on its revenue. Nice call, if you can get it. bulletin.ninemsn.com.au

To: ms.smartest.person who wrote (276)	7/30/2003 1:31:01 PM
From: ms.smartest.person	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 307

SOME DAYS ARE DIAMONDS BUSINESS AND INVESTING > THE SPECULATOR A bullish assessment of Tawana Resources and more bonanza-grade gold hits from Strategic Minerals Corporation caught my eye last week. London stockbroker W.H. Ireland claims in a research report to clients that diamond prospector Tawana is worth at least $4.30 a share ? nearly FIVE times its present price. Readers will note we added Tawana (ASX code: TAW) to the Speculator's portfolio in mid-May at 65¢, on the strength of the company's joint venture with BHP Billiton on calcrete-covered diamond prospects in South Africa's Kimberley region (B, May 20). Then, in late June, Tawana reported a widely spaced drilling program had discovered kimberlitic garnets in a paleo-channel within an area 9km long by 2km wide below De Beers' rich Finsch diamond mine. Since the recovered garnets show a lack of abrasion, Tawana managing-director Wolfgang Marx believes the find indicates they have been derived from a nearby kimberlite resource. The Finsch pipe is located just 6km north of the find. The discovery has earned Tawana a 30% equity in the prospect. It also pushed Tawana's share price to a year's peak in early July of $1.13. Last week they had eased back to 90¢. Tawana will now spend about $200,000 to extract a 500-tonne bulk sample of alluvial gravels overlying the dolerite bedrock and covered with an average 20m of calcrete overburden. That will earn Tawana a 40% equity in the prospect, known as the Daniel Alluvials Project (DAP), with first results due in September. The London broker asserts DAP's close proximity to Finsch indicates a high probability of diamonds: the Finsch area is about 135 million years old and erosion is believed to have removed as much as 1400m from the surface, precipitating some 2 billion tonnes or $US48bn ($73bn) of diamonds in total into the surrounding area. Those that fed into the Daniel channel are likely to be trapped in the ancient river gravels. As a guide to its potential, W.H. Ireland compares the Bow River alluvials field below the Argyle diamond mine in the West Australian Kimberley. Argyle's grade was about 400 carats/100 tonnes (cpht) with an average carat value of $US10. Bow River, 26km downstream from Argyle, produced 30cpht with an average carat value of $US30 over seven years (yielding seven million carats in total). So Bow River's grade was well below Argyle's but the average carat value was three times higher (since more diamonds of gemstone quality survive transportation). Given that DAP is considerably closer to the Finsch mine (6km) than Bow River was to Argyle (26km), the broker assumes a higher-grade relationship between the DAP and Finsch (50cpht). The analyst assumes 5cpht for DAP and an average carat value of $US150, somewhat below Finsch's recent value. From that and a reserve of 280m tonnes, a grade of 5cpht gives 14m carats at $US150/carat or $US2bn of diamonds in situ (of which $US800m would be due to Tawana). That huge reserve of alluvials would give a 20-year mine life. With a projected yield of $US7/tonne and working costs of $US2.50/tonne, Tawana's gross margin would be $US400m. The broker computes a "rough" net present value of $US140m for Tawana's net share, equivalent to a net present value of $4.30 for each Tawana share fully diluted through the exercise of 15 million options at 50¢ due on June 30. That exercise would have taken Tawana's issued capital to 50 million shares. At the time of writing, the company was yet to confirm the results of the exercise but certainly more than 10 million of the options were closed out, raising $5m in cash. The company now has $7m cash and no debt. Shareholders registered by July 22 will be eligible for a one-for-two free issue of options exercisable at 75¢ in 2005. W.H. Ireland's final word: "The shares are very cheap and should be bought." Meanwhile, Strategic Minerals Corporation reported two new rich-grade gold finds within its Woolgar epithermal gold project, covering 716 sq km of mining titles 400km west of Townsville, Queensland. The two new areas are separate from the Explorer Main vein discovery (B, May 6), which last October rocketed SMC shares from a low of 4¢ to a high of 39¢. The new Explorer South prospect yielded a 9m intersection below 45m of 21.66 gpt (including 2m of 84.31gpt). The newly drilled Finn North prospect, 2km west of the main vein, has been traced along surface for 400m. Of two initial holes, one returned 1m of 54.9gpt below 26m and the other 2m of 5.4gpt below 19m, followed by 2m below 31m of 17.74gpt. SMC holds 100% of the ground to a depth of 100m, with Barrick Gold farmed into spending up to $8m or more to earn 80% of the deeper ground. bulletin.ninemsn.com.au No foreign symbol for Tawana (TAW.AX) or Strategic Minerals