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Company Information for Kalahari Minerals Plc
Company stock charts - 12 Month chart
 AIM; KAH
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Company Statement
Kalahari Minerals plc (KAH) is an AIM-quoted exploration company with an advanced portfolio of copper and base metal prospects in Namibia. These projects are at various levels of development from reserve definition projects to green field exploration, covering the majority of the known, but un-mined, Namibian portion of the Kalahari Copper Belt. The Company is currently undertaking a development and exploration programme aimed at identifying the feasibility of commencing one or more mining operations based on oxide and/or sulphide copper resources.
Kalahari also holds 39.11% of ASX listed Extract Resources Ltd (ASX:EXT). Extract, through extensive drilling campaigns, has developed the Husab project’s two key areas – Ida Dome and Rossing South, consistently reporting outstanding drill results. On 5th September 2008 Kalahari announced a proposed restructuring of the ownership of Kalahari Minerals Plc and Extract Resources Limited by way of reverse takeover. The merged group would be dual listed on AIM and the ASX and the enlarged company, Kalahari, will be one of the largest uranium explorers listed on AIM in terms of market capitalisation.
The Company enjoys strong institutional support, in particular Rio Tinto Australia which announced on 11 September that it had taken a 14.9% stake in Kalahari. Additionally Rio Tinto took a 10.9% stake in Extract which will, post merger, result in Rio Tinto holding 16.55% of the Enlarged Company.
An AIM admission document, setting out full details of the enlarged company, is expected to be published by the end of October 2008.
Current Operations
Dordabis
Kalahari's Dordabis Project comprises of an area of 882 sq km located 90 km southeast of Windhoek and transected by the main tarmac highway.
The project area in the heart of the Kalahari Copper Belt includes three known areas of copper mineralisation at the surface along a 10km stretch of a 35km-long package of preferential host rocks.
These projects contain known copper sulphide deposits which are already partially defined and at a pre-feasibility stage of reserve definition and detailed drilling. Koperberg is the only one to have been drill-tested but other prospects within the Dordabis project area, including Onverwacht, Protea and Swartberg, have known copper occurrences.
These potentially give the Company additional regional opportunities to exploit economic mineralisation. The Company believes that the Dordabis project is also prospective for mineralisation of IOCG origin.
Witvlei
The Witvlei Project area is located about 80 km north east of Dordabis and consists of two Exclusive Prospecting Licenses covering a number of significant sedimentary hosted copper occurrences and deposits identified in the late 1960’s and 1970’s during a period of exploration for Copper Belt style deposits. The dominant copper mineral in the sulphide zone is chalcocite with subordinate chalcopyrite, bornite and covellite. The dominant oxide and transitional copper minerals are malachite, azurite, cuprite, native copper and covellite. This secondary zone generally extends to a depth of 20 – 30 metres below surface.
Ubib
The Ubib project area is near the operational Navachab gold mine and is believed to be prospective for gold mineralisation.
The project covers approximately 713sq km located within a significant metallogenic terrain characterised by polymetallic base metal-uranium-gold mineralisation.
The regional geology is dominated by structural domes, major regional shear zones and abundant intrusions with compositions enriched in metals.
A number of prospective zones have been identified by the Company with regional stream sediment sampling programmes currently in progress. Early results are positive, and follow up work is currently in progress over anomalous areas.
Namib
The Namib Lead Zinc Project is located in the highly prospective Namib Desert 30km east-north-east of Swakopmund on Exclusive Prospecting Licence 2902 ('EPL2902'), an area, which covers 4,523 hectares in the Erongo region, and Swakopmund district. There is a good infrastructure base in the area with rail links and roads to main cities.
The Namib Project is centred on the old Namib Lead Mine, which was an underground operation that commenced in 1965, placed under care and maintenance in February 1992, and has since been abandoned. The Namib base metal deposits are located on the western side of the Rossing Mountain and hosted in marginal shelf faces limestone that has subsequently been subject to intense structural deformation, and metamorphism to form the Karibib marbles. The Karibib Formation forms part of the Swakop Group located within the southern technostratigraphic zone of the Pre-Cambrian, Damara Orogen.
Production records indicate that from 1986 to 1991, 356,300 tonnes were milled at the old mine with yield grades of 5.3% zinc and 1.6% lead to produce 38,121 tonnes of zinc concentrate, and 14,142 tonnes of lead concentrate.
Lead was the primary concentrate produced until 1986, with old tails dumps reportedly containing at least 445,000 tonnes at 2.0% zinc.
Previous mine studies indicate surface tails and underground mining potential of 1.65 million tonnes at 5.7% zinc, 1.6% lead and 40.2 g/t silver (non JORC compliant).
Work by Kalahari is aimed at defining the full potential of this project with a view to recommencing mining of the sulphide mineralisation and processing of the sulphides and legacy tails material.
Uranium
Extract’s principal asset is its 100%-owned Husab Uranium Project which contains three known uranium targets; Ida Dome; Hildenhof; and Rossing South.
Extract’s 637 sq km Husab Project is located in the heart of the Namib Desert, surrounded by a number of major uranium projects including Rio Tinto’s Rossing Mine, one of the largest open pit uranium mines in the world, Uramin’s Trekkopje Deposit and Paladin Resources’ Langer Heinrich Mine. This geographical region is considered to be one of the most prolific uranium areas in the world.
Extract, through extensive drilling campaigns, has continued to develop the Husab project’s two key areas – Ida Dome and Rossing South, consistently reporting outstanding drill results.
Rossing South
Rossing South has, in the period, shifted much of the focus of Extract in becoming the more dominant project. Located approximately 1.5km from the boundary of Extract’s licence area and 7km south of Rio Tinto’s Rossing Mine, it is the Company’s belief that it is the first new alaskite hosted uranium discovery in Namibia in many years. Rossing South has excellent potential to host a significant uranium deposit under the sand cover.
Early in the drilling programme, from the first line on a 15km strike target, Extract announced they had discovered a major new uranium discovery at Rossing South, an outstanding result from the first drilling at this target. Throughout the period Extract has continued with an aggressive reconnaissance drill programme. Three large RC rigs are currently on site, dedicated to drilling out Zone 1, which has been extended to 1.8km of strike, with mineralisation open along strike to the south and at depth. It is estimated that this drill programme will define an initial resource by Q1 2009. Handheld spectrometer readings taken from the one metre bulk RC samples continue to indicate that broad zones of strong mineralisation are being intersected within uraniferous alaskite.
Following the definition of the initial Rossing South resource, full scale feasibility work to determine the optimum mining and processing options will be undertaken. Preliminary metallurgical and base line environmental monitoring is being undertaken to continually progress in tandem with the resource definition drilling in progress.
Preliminary metallurgical test work and mineralogical work indicates favourable mineralogy for a conventional acid leach processing plant, such as that used at Rio Tinto’s Rossing Mine.
Ida Dome
A maiden resource was recently announced for the Ida Dome Project of 25.1m lbs U308 within the Garnet Valley, New Camp and Ida Central zones. These areas have not as yet been closed off and are expected to continue to grow along with the resource drilling currently occurring on Holland’s Dome, which is also within the Ida Dome Project. This maiden JORC resource includes results from 28,852m of drilling completed to date at Ida Dome – 48% of the planned 60,000m drilling programme. This maiden resource is a solid foundation for the uranium resource base and Ida Dome is shaping up to as a significant project in its own right.
Geographical Spread
Board of Directors and Key Management
| Mark Hohnen | Executive Chairman |
| Glyn Tonge | Non-executive Director |
| Stephen Galloway | Non-executive Director |
| Keith Webb | Regional Exploration Manager |
| Sadike Nepela | General Manager |
Company Address30 Charles Street
|
Additional Address/Key Contact45 Ventnor Avenue, West Perth |
Capital166,559,130 Ordinary Shares |
Annual General MeetingTBA | Year End31st December |
Nominated BrokersEvolution Securities Limited | Nominated AdvisorsBlue Oar Securities PLC |
Major Shareholders
| Niger Uranium Ltd | 27,780,000 | 16.7% | |
| Rio Tinto International Holdings Australia PTY Ltd | 24,817,310 | 14.9% | |
| Blakeney Management Ltd | 17,840,000 | 10.7% | 17.04.08 |
| Coronet Resources Ltd | 16,000,000 | 9.6% | |
| CQS | 11,716,667 | 7.0% | 27.06.08 |
| Pershing Nominees Ltd | 10,915,900 | 6.6% | |
| Henderson Global Investors | 6,400,000 | 3.8% | 26.03.08 |
Related News
17/12/08 - Mark Hohnen of Kalahari Minerals Sees Real Value In His Stake In Extract Resources And Will Not Let It Go Cheaply15/09/08 - Kalahari Minerals Escapes The Frying Pan, As Rossing South Tempts In Rio Tinto
18/06/08 - Kalahari Continues To Get More Credit For Its Uranium Investments Than For Its Own Projects
24/01/08 - Kalahari Minerals Has Much More Than Uranium Going For It
15/05/07 - Kalahari Minerals Goes For Base Metals With Uranium On The Side
12/02/07 - Time For Junior Mining Stocks To Consider Their Future
Most Recent Statement
18/12/08 - Notice of Major Shareholdings by Emerging Metals11/12/08 - Project Update
08/12/08 - Requisition
25/11/08 - Project Update
12/11/08 - Final Results
11/11/08 - Rossing South continues to return wide, high grade zones of uranium mineralisation