Murchison United NL
Agricola Resources Plc

Find out more about Subscribing Companies
Unique access to energy
investors. Global distribution
of company news.
Find out more.
Sign up for our free weekly newsletter
Informed comment and independent news delivered
by email every week.
Sign up here.
Find out more about Minesite Forums
Management and investors
are brought together at our
investor forums.
Find out more.
Bulletin Board
Join other informed investors.
Debate mining companies.
Visit Bulletin Boards.
OPUS Executive
An Insider's Guide to the Mining Sector, 2nd edition
T1ps Spreadbetting
HighGrade.net
Commodity Watch plc - holding company of Minesite
Asia Mining Congress 2009
Commodity Watch Radio
Exchange Traded Gold
UNCTAD
Terrapinn Commodity Investment World
Bullion Desk
Doug Casey Research
Ambrian Capital

Company Information for Tertiary Minerals Plc

Company stock charts - 12 Month chart

Exchange AIM; TYM


View full financial data

Company Statement

Tertiary Minerals plc ("the Company") is a UK based public minerals exploration and development company. Its shares trade on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange (“AIM”) under the trading symbol “TYM”.

The Company aims to provide capital growth for shareholders through the costs effective exploration and development of mineral deposits.

The Company is conducting feasibility studies for development of the world’s largest deposit of tantalum (-niobium and rare-earths) in Saudi Arabia in conjunction with its Saudi joint venture partners and its project portfolio including world-class exploration targets in the politically stable Nordic countries and a major fluorspar resource at Storuman in Sweden.

The Directors' policy is to progress its “flagship” projects towards production and to maintain a portfolio of grass roots to advanced exploration projects such that the Company has, as far as is possible, mature drill-stage projects at all times and thus continuing exposure to the opportunity for the discovery of commercial ore-bodies.

The Company also works through joint venture or farm-in agreements with other mineral companies on its projects where this would allow it to accelerate exploration and/or development of a project beyond the financial resources available to it, or in order to explore further its projects at minimal cost.

In 2005 the Company sponsored the formation and AIM admission of Sunrise Diamonds plc and remains the major shareholder in that company shareholder in that company.


Current Operations

Finland
Kaaresselka
The Company holds the Kaaresselkä gold prospect in the Lappland Greenstone Belt in Northern Finland.

This greenstone belt contains numerous gold deposits including the world-class 3 million+ ounce Suurikuusikko discovery now being developed by Agnico Eagle.
Gold was first discovered at Kaaresselkä by the Geological Survey of Finland (“GTK”) which put down 10,000m of diamond core drilling in 185 shallow holes. The project area has well developed infrastructure and is accessed by a network of logging roads and is just 15km from the Pahtavaara gold mine.

Drilling to date at Kaaresselkä is reported by GTK to have intersected gold mineralisation in three separate zones – Vanha, Tienvarsi and Lampi – within an area of 1.1km by 0.6km. Drilling of the Vanha zone indicates that it is at least 650m long and broken into a number of fault blocks so that it does not outcrop continuously. In the centre of the Vanha zone there is a continuous block of mineralisation 200m long and 9-16m wide continuing to the deepest drill-hole at a depth of 55m from surface.

Rosendal
Tertiary has carried out a number of drilling programmes at Rosendal and initiated a preliminary feasibility study. CSMA Consultants Ltd completed an initial financial evaluation in 2002 as a part of the preliminary feasibility study. This work evaluated capital and operating costs for a contract mining operation feeding a gravity concentration plant producing 60,000 pounds of Ta2O5 in high-grade tantalite concentrates. The capital cost for a 125,000 tonne per annum plant was estimated at US$5.5 million.

The basis for the CSMA study was an Inferred Mineral Resource block model compiled by SRK Consulting and estimated to contain 1.05 million tonnes at a mean grade of 255ppm Ta2O5.

Kolari
The Kolari Iron Ore Project contains the is a prime magnetite iron-ore target - “Sivakkalehto” - in Kolari at the heart of Finland’s main iron ore district.

The European market for iron ore is approximately 200 million tonnes and only 30 million tonnes is produced within Europe, mostly from the Kiruna mine in Sweden which produces a similar magnetite iron ore. The balance is sourced mainly from Brazil and Australia and so there is a big economic advantage to have production within the European market with significant savings on the cost of importing iron ore from the southern hemisphere.

Prices for iron ore pellets have nearly doubled since 2003 and price rises of 25-35% are forecast fro 2008.

Vähäjoki
Recent academic work has confirmed the mineralisation is of the IOCG type, which includes some of the largest copper-gold and uranium deposits in the world, including Olympic Dam in South Australia.

Tertiary Minerals plc (“Tertiary” or “the Company”) has signed an earn-in/joint venture agreement with Inmet Mining Corporation (“Inmet”), a mid-tier TSX-listed Canadian mining company which owns and operates a number of base metal and gold mines in Turkey, Canada and Europe including the Pyhäsalmi copper-zinc mine in Finland. In 2006 Pyhäsalmi produced 15,000 tonnes of copper, 35,700 tonnes of zinc and over 500,000 tonnes of pyrite.

Under the terms of the agreement an Inmet Mining Corporation subsidiary, Pyhäsalmi Mine Oy (“Pyhäsalmi”) will be entitled to earn a 75% interest in three mineral claims held by Tertiary Minerals at Vähäjoki by sole funding exploration costs totalling €1,000,000 before 31 December 2010 (including €150,000 before 31 December 2008 and €500,000 before 31 December 2009). Once this total expenditure has been met Tertiary may elect to contribute its 25% of further expenditure in joint venture with Inmet or convert its interest to a 2.5% Net Smelter Return royalty.

Sweden
Storberget
The Storberget prospect is located in northern Sweden, 30km north of Skelleftea, in the heart of the historic Skellefte mining district. The famous Boliden gold mine and the active Bjorkdal gold mine both lie within a 25km radius.

Outcrops within the prospect were originally sampled by Boliden in the 1940’s, who discovered locally semi-massive arsenopyrite plus minor pyrite in an east-west striking, sub-vertical quartz vein, between 20cm to 80cm in thickness and hosted by foliated mafic meta-volcanics.

Two phases of grab and composite sampling by Tertiary returned grades of between 3.6 g/t and 10.0 g/t gold from 5 samples of quartz-vein, sulphide-rich material.

The high-grade gold-bearing quartz vein at Storberget outcrops at the top of a prominent hill. The area immediately surrounding the mineralised outcrop is covered by dense vegetation and low-lying swampy ground which may conceal further mineralisation and possibly a larger stockwork vein system.
Follow-up exploration will include geochemistry and ground geophysics to define priority targets for eventual drill testing.

Ahmavuoma
Ahmavuoma is located in the Norbotten district of northern Sweden.

It is one of a number of Iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) projects being explored by the Company. IOCG deposits are typically large, including Olympic Dam in Australia, and have become one of the most sought after deposit types in the world today.

Storuman
Tertiary Minerals holds an exploration licence coveing a major deposit of fluorspar near Storuman in the Vasterbotten district of Northern Sweden.  Fluorspar is the commercial name for the industrial mineral fluorite (calcium fluoride - chemical formula CaF2). The Storuman deposit is a flat-lying sandstone-hosted replacement deposit.  It has been defined by 39 diamond drill holes and extends over an area of at least 2 km by 1.2 km where it is typically 3-10 m thick.

Saudi Arabia
Ghurayyah
Following on from favourable metallurgical testwork a Scoping Study for development of the Ghurayyah tantalum-niobium deposit in Saudi Arabia was completed in 2003 with positive results. The Study included financial modeling of a number of alternative processing flow sheets over an initial 20-year mine life with costs estimated to an accuracy of +/- 30%. On a 100% equity funded, un-escalated basis the four main flow sheets were all economically attractive. Each produced pre-tax Internal Rates of Return (IRR) in excess of 25% and Net Present Values (NPV) in the range $55-285 million using discount rates between 10 and 20%.


Geographical Spread

The Nordic Countries and Saudi Arabia


Board of Directors and Key Management

Patrick Cheetham Executive Chairman
Donald McAlister Non-exec
David Whitehead Non-exec
Colin Fitch Company Secretary
Andrew Dixon Project Manager

Company Address

Sunrise House, Hulley Road
Macclesfield, Cheshire, United Kingdom SK10 2LP

Telephone:+44 (0)1625 626203
Facsimile:+44 (0)1625 626204
Email:info[at]tertiaryminerals.com
Website:http://www.tertiaryminerals.com

Capital

Issued Share Capital 63,603,736

Annual General Meeting

January

Year End

30 September

Nominated Brokers

Seymour Pierce Limited
20 Old Bailey
London
EC4M 7EN

Nominated Advisors

Seymour Pierce Limited
20 Old Bailey
London
EC4M 7EN

Major Shareholders

Major Shareholders Holding %
HSBC Global Custody Nominee (UK) 5,859,928 9.2%
Pershing Keen Nominees Limited ELPLAC 4,125,000 6.5%
Ahmed Hamed Algosaibi and Brothers 4,088,548 6.4%
Mrs Carole Rowan 2,954,499 4.6%
Patrick Lyn Cheetham 2,943,625 4.6%
Karen Elizabeth Cheetham 2,843,625 4.5%
Barclayshare Nominees Limited 2,175,591 3.4%
Pershing Keen Nominees PSL982 2,162,000 3.4%

Related News

12/11/08 - Tertiary Minerals May Be Onto A Fluorspar Winner At Storuman
20/05/08 - Stepping Out With Fluorspar: Tertiary Minerals Enjoys A Bounce
27/02/08 - Tertiary Minerals Hopes to Flourish with Flourspar
18/07/07 - Tertiary Intent On Circumventing Saudi Worries About Uranium

Most Recent Statement

05/11/08 - THICKER FLUORSPAR ZONES BOOST STORUMAN PROJECT
08/10/08 - Kolari Iron Testwork Results
05/09/08 - TERTIARY MOVES QUICKLY INTO NEXT PHASE
02/09/08 - STORUMAN DRILLING RESULTS
13/08/08 - Admission to trading on the PLUS platform
08/07/08 - Contract Awarded For Mineral Processing Testwork On Storuman Fluorspar Project

To top