52nd Minesite Mining Forum - 20th May 2008

52nd Minesite Mining Forum
Tues 20th May 2008

Bishopsgate and Chancery Room
Andaz Hotel, Liverpool Street EC1
(Formerly Great Eastern Hotel)

Registration - 9am
Presentations beginning at 9.30am

Guest Speaker - James Turk
James Turk, founder and chairman of GoldMoney, will be kicking off this Forum with a talk entitled "The Key Factors Behind the Bull Market in Precious Metals". GoldMoney provides a convenient and economical way to buy and sell gold and silver online based on the digital gold currency for which he was awarded four US patents. GoldMoney is presently storing about $350 million of gold and silver owned by its customers. James intends to provide an overview of the key factors driving the precious metals higher, and why these factors suggest that this bull market has much further to go. He has been bullish about the metals for several years, and is on record as forcasting that gold will end this year around $1100-$1200 and silver will touch $28 sometime during the course of the year. Attendeees will be particularly interested in his views on the apparent disconnection between gold and the share prices of gold producers when gold went through the $1,000 mark after Christmas.

Companies presenting include:
Zambezi Resources has a dual listing on AIM and the ASX and is focused on discovering and developing multiple copper/gold projects in Zambia. The company has a large tenement portfolio covering an area exceeding 17,000 sq kms and runs one of Africa’s most active exploration teams. In 2008, the company aims to drill over 100,000 metres to define major copper resources at its Cheowa and Kangaluwi projects, while developing drill targets at its Mulofwe and Mpande Dome projects. Zambezi will also continue to form strategic alliances, as it has done at Cheowa and Chalimbana where Glencore is earning interests. Last month Zambezi started major regional VTEM surveys at Kangaluwi and at Mulofwe. These surveys have the potential to delineate mineralised copper sulphide conductors and will assist in drill targeting for the forthcoming season.

Belvedere Resources is a Canadian listed company based in Finland and primarily focused on nickel and gold. It has two operating nickel mines producing around 2,500 tonnes of nickel a year and a large portfolio of advanced exploration projects. Belvedere acquired the Hitura mine as a producing operation from Outokumpu last summer and it is now aiming to develop further resources and reserves at the middle and south orebodies. Ore from the Särkiniemi open pit mine is trucked to Hitura for treatment and an underground ‘crown pillar’operation is now contributing higher grade ore. Engineering studies are underway to assess maintenance and investment required to re-commission the Luikonlahti mill and expand the existing capacity of around 800 tonnes per day up to a 1600-2000 tonne per day capacity.

Patagonia Gold is intended to be a re-run of the highly successful Brancote Holdings which discovered the Esquel gold deposit in Argentina and was then taken over. It has already carrying out exploration on a number of properties and last year acquired the complete portfolio of Barrick Gold's properties in Santa Cruz. Drilling and exploration on the Santa Cruz properties during 2007 and early 2008 have produced excellent results. It should be noted that the viability of potential gold production at the Lomada de Leiva Project is currently being assessed by consultants.In addition the exceptional drilling results at the Cap-Oeste Project could determine that this project moves rapidly to feasibility stage.

Amur Minerals is focused on base metal projects located in the far east of Russia. It has three properties in the region with its principal asset being the Kun-Manie sulphide nickel, copper project located in Amur Oblast. With a JORC compliant resource of over a quarter of a million tons of contained nickel, Kun-Manie is one of the five largest new nickel sulphide discoveries since Voisey’s Bay. The Russian State Committee on Reserves has approved the first of a series of filings which will lead to a mining permit for areas containing drilled reserves. At the end of last year Amur completed a Russian pre-feasibility report on Kun-Manie which sets the cutoff grade for future reserve submissions and mine permitting at 0.2% nickel. It can now submit a reserve estimate for C1 and C2 reserves on the Maly Krumkon, Vodorazdelny and Ikenskoe deposits within the Kun-Manie exploration licence.

Globex Mining Enterprises is a Canadian listed exploration company with a large North American portfolio of advanced properties with gold, copper, zinc, silver, uranium, platinum, palladium, magnesium and talc potential. To conserve finance it either options or joint ventures them, sometimes selling projects outright as in the case of the deal with First Metals. In addition to a share payment Globex has a royalty agreement with First Metals which has just brought the Fabie Bay copper-silver mine in Quebec into production with ore trucked to the Xstrata Horne mill and smelter facilities. Globex has 2 royalties on all mineral production from the property and looks forward to commercial production at the larger Magusi River, copper-zinc-gold-silver deposit to the west on which Globex has done a similar deal.

Altona Resources Plc is a fascinating company and it is time investors appreciated its potential. Its Arckaringa project in the northern portion of the Permian Arckaringa Basin of South Australia simply seems too big for a small company. It plans to use the Arckaringa coal fields in South Australia as feedstock for an integrated Coal –to- Liquid plant to produce 10 million barrels of petroleum products, as well as 900MW of electrical generating capacity for the domestic market, every year for the next 75 or more years starting in 2013. The company recently agreed to raise £11.6 million by a placement with Tongjiang International Energy of Hong Kong to fund the final stage of its bankable feasibility study. Tongjiang has business interests in both China and abroad, primarily in energy and resources.

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