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Gold/Mining/Energy : SOUTHERNERA (t.SUF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Letmebe Frank who wrote (7098)	7/14/2003 8:40:28 AM
From: Letmebe Frank	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7235

Juniors step up platinum hunt By: Nicole Mordant Posted: 2003/07/11 Fri 16:38 PDT \| © Mineweb 1997-2003 VANCOUVER – While South Africa’s mining industry lobbies government to re-think its latest piece of legislation on mineral royalties, a bunch of Canadian platinum juniors are grabbing opportunities offered by the mosaic of new laws and progressing their activities on the world’s richest platinum system. At least three Vancouver-based juniors have drills turning on projects in the famed Bushveld complex and are on the look-out for new properties and joint ventures. Anooraq’s [TSX-V: ARQ] CEO Ron Thiessen is currently down in South Africa, looking at, among other things, new early and later stage opportunities, which might include deepening its relationship with Anglo Platinum [JSE: AMS]. The junior already has joint venture agreements with the world’s platinum leader on 12 PGM projects on the Bushveld’s Northern Limb, five of which currently have drill programmes running. Anooraq, which is part of the Hunter Dickinson stable, plans to get rigs going this year on its Rietfontein and North block properties, which form part of its 37,000 hectares of interests up on the Platreef. Platinum Group Metals [TSX-V: PTM], another and newer Vancouver junior, has been active in South Africa for the past year or so. Encouraged by a “crunch” he sees coming in the PGM markets as growing auto and industrial sector demand cannot be met from limited supply sources, president Mike Jones has targeted four properties to begin with on the Northern and Western Limbs. PTM is looking to release late next month its first resource assessment from a drill programme on its Elandsfontein property, a small piece of land tacked onto the northwest corner of Anglo Platinum’s Bafokeng-Rasimone mine on the Bushveld’s Western Limb. Analysts are more interested in a larger, neighbouring property to the northwest, Onderstepoort, if PTM succeeds in getting the drill permit it applied for several months ago and, like on Elandsfontein, hits the reef. PTM has also applied for a prospecting permit on a property on the Northern Limb and is in the midst of a court case on another. Jones say PTM is looking to expand its property portfolio. The additional activity in South Africa has led to the recent appointment of a full-time country manager. Junior opportunities As the South African government pushes ahead with the transfer of mineral wealth from white to black hands, exploration opportunities have opened up. The state’s “use it or lose it” philosophy has forced platinum majors and private holders to dust off long-held mineral title, turn it to effect, or risk losing it. It is here that the Vancouver juniors, backed by a decades-old network of capital comfortable with high-risk projects, believe they can play a role. “Twenty-six percent-plus of the mineral rights of South Africa are going to effectively pop up into the capital markets and say ‘fund me’ through empowerment,” says PTM’s Jones. “If we can be innovative in creating partnerships and alliances where we use our experience in the capital markets with strong empowerment partners, there could be a lot of good business that could get done,” he told Mineweb. The market doesn’t appear to be convinced, even through February when platinum broke through $700 an ounce on President George Bush’s punt for research on fuel cells, a potentially major user of platinum in the future. Anooraq’s share price is down 30% in the past year; PTM’s 45%. Jones blames the slump on market jitters about South Africa’s still-evolving mining legislation, the unhappy price of palladium – a metal being mined in increasing quantities in South Africa alongside platinum – and a general unfamiliarity in North America about the geology of platinum reefs. 15 minutes of fame Both PTM and Anooraq will not be sorry to get a possible free ride on the coattails of a rumoured listing this fall of African Minerals, the third Canadian junior active on the Platreef and the brainchild of stock promotion and mining maestro Robert Friedland. Talk is that African Minerals has found, up on the Northern Limb, a mega-sized, low-grade platinum deposit with very attractive nickel credits, potentially able to sustain a one million tonne per month open pit mine. If African Minerals does come to market, the expectation is that it won’t be a low-key affair, not least because the name Friedland -- eternally linked to Voisey’s Bay discovery fame -- will attract attention. Some of this might rub off on Friedland’s junior platinum neighbours in South Africa, while also educating the public about the ins and outs of platinum reef geology and mining.