London-listed Zambezi Resources plans to undertake a dual listing on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and an Australian initial public offering (IPO), to accelerate exploration and development of its quality portfolio of copper-gold projects in Zambia, the company said on Monday.
The announcement followed a series of developments within the company's portfolio, including an initial copper resource estimate for its flagship Cheowa project, which the company owns in joint venture with Glencore International.
The proposed dual listing was designed to broaden the company's international shareholder base through the introduction of Australian institutional and retail investors, increase liquidity in the stock, improve analyst coverage and raise additional funds to accelerate its exploration and development activities, Zambezi Resources said.
Zambezi has established a portfolio of copper-gold, gold and uranium projects in Zambia, covering relatively unexplored areas in the country.
The details of the Australian IPO and dual listing, including the size of the proposed capital raising, had not yet been finalised, but the company was compiling a prospectus and planned to list on the ASX by June.
Initial 26 000 t copper resource established at Cheowa
Following successful drilling programmes in 2006, Zambezi announced its maiden Zambian copper resource estimate for its Cheowa project, which is expected to become the cornerstone of the company's plans to develop a substantial copper-gold mining operation in Zambia.
The inferred resource estimate is 1,7-million tons, at 1,5% copper and 0,5 g/t gold for 26 000 tons of contained copper metal and 29 000 oz of contained gold (using a 0,5% copper-cut-off grade).
The company said the 2006 programme had confirmed the potential for a substantial copper-gold resource inventory to be established at Cheowa, making the project strategically important for the company and its joint-venture partner.
Glencore can earn a 51% interest in the Cheowa project by spending $10-million on exploration, with a minimum commitment of $4-million. Two new purpose-built track-mounted RC rigs and two man-portable low-environmental-impact DC rigs have been commissioned for the 2007 drilling campaign at Cheowa, which will enhance drilling productivity and economics, Zambezi Resources said.
The objective of this year's programme is to deliver on the theoretical target potential.
In addition to the Cheowa resource, Zambezi announced further results from its newly-announced copper discovery at Kangaluwi-Chisawa, which last year returned positive drilling results.
Elsewhere, Zambezi recently completed regional high-resolution, radiometric surveys at its Mulungushi and Mpande uranium projects, and also announced the results of preliminary processing of an ultra-high resolution helicopter-borne radiometric survey of its advanced Oryx uranium project.
The company said five areas of anomalism had been identified from the survey at Mpande, and five areas at Mulungushi, including four prominent bulls-eye-style targets surface radiometric anomalies at Mpande ranging from 1,25 km2 to 1,5 km2.
At the company's more advanced Oryx project, several strong anomalies had been defined, approximately 1 km to the west of the area that was previously trenched during the 2006 field season.
source news : miningweekly.co.za
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