News

September 11, 2008

Moydow’s Kimberlite Count In Angola Notches Up To Four, And There May Be More To Come

By Alastair Ford

Moydow chief executive Brian Kiernan has a simple choice phrase to sum up all the latest developments with his company. “There’s a lot of stuff going on, mainly on the Dala project in Angola”, he says, succinctly. That, in a nutshell, is it. Moydow may not yet have rocked anybody’s world with its diamond exploration programme in Angola, not with a share price that’s lost a third of its value since autumn last year. But then the market’s not that enamoured about diamonds at the moment, as US retail sales continue to weaken, and it hasn’t exactly warmed to Angola either, a country which currently stands one notch above Nigeria as a nice place to do business or visit. Still, Moydow has plugged away on Dala. The latest announcement, issued on Tuesday 9th September, that it had discovered a fourth kimberlite on the property, although it caused not a smatter of interest on Aim, was at least duly noted in the London offices of Moydow’s neighbours in Angola, Petra Diamonds. So at least there are some people out there paying attention.

Moydow is a company with a slightly unusual set-up. As an early stage diamond explorer, investors might be forgiven for showing some alarm that the company is busy ratcheting up debt as it continues to turn the drills on Dala. Debt currently stands at around US$5 million, which isn’t a paltry sum in a market where new finance is thin on the ground indeed. Brian Kiernan is only half joking when he says, “cash is more difficult to come by than diamonds at the moment”. But lest readers think the...