News

May 22, 2008

Third Time Lucky For Resolute Mining?

By Our Man in Oz

There’s an old saying in the Australian outback that the first two owners of a country pub fail. It’s the third owner who makes money. Over the next few months investors in Australian goldminer Resolute Mining will discover whether that adage is transferable to Africa, and to mining. If “pub rules” apply, then Resolute’s Syama project will do wonders for the share price of the Aussie company which has taken up in the central African country of Mali, where BHP Billiton and Randgold Resources left off.

Both of the earlier owners were defeated by low gold prices in the 1990s, and the sulphur-rich ore found in the deeper parts of Syama. But two critical factors have changed since Resolute came to the Syama party in April 2003. A new ore processing technique has been developed, and the gold price has almost tripled from US$320 an ounce to more than US$920 an ounce today. There might yet be a third factor which hasn’t so far attracted much attention: seriously interesting exploration success.

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