African Eagle Resources PLC
 

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CHANGE OF BROKER AND NOMINATED ADVISER
STRATEGIC REVIEW SHIFTS EMPHASIS TOWARDS PRODUCTION

News Report
24 March 2006

African Eagle (ticker AFE, "the Company"), is pleased to announce that it has appointed Seymour Pierce as Broker and Nominated Adviser.

Since listing on the London AIM market in June 2003, the Company has built up and evaluated a strong portfolio of advanced and early stage exploration projects. After a full review of all its projects, the Company has determined that the Mkushi copper project in Zambia is the nearest to making a commercial production decision and thus pre-feasibility studies have begun.

Work will continue on the Company's other priority projects (Miyabi, Ndola, Mokambo and Eagle Eye), which together provide major future upside potential, but emphasis will be strongly on securing a return from Mkushi and on advancing other projects with suitable partners.

By the end of 2005, African Eagle had completed two full African field seasons of work since its AIM listing in June 2003 and had been able to evaluate all its exploration properties thoroughly. The Company's emphasis during this 30 month period was firmly on a small number of headline projects, but it also continued to build a broad asset base by adding projects considered highly prospective, effectively leveraging its skills and local networks to build up a very significant upside potential. The highly promising Ndola and Mokambo copper licences on the Zambian Copperbelt are two such new projects. African Eagle's current portfolio represents the best of the many projects which the company has evaluated over the period.

By the end of this period of asset building and evaluation, with all the exploration results to hand, African Eagle's Board was in a position to review all these projects and decide on a strategy for realising the value of the Company's portfolio. The buoyant metals market, the best for decades, offers an unrivalled opportunity for achieving value from these assets.

African Eagle's "nearest-to- market" asset is the Mkushi copper project in Zambia. Containing a reported resource of more than 300,000 tonnes of copper metal, Mkushi has excellent infrastructure and the history of previous mining will assist in the permitting process for renewed operations. The mineralisation appears to have simple metallurgy which should allow efficient production of a copper sulphide concentrate.

African Eagle now aims to generate income from Mkushi as soon as possible. The Company will shortly commission an independent scoping study which will include milling test work and preliminary economic modelling based on a modular approach to project development. It is expected that this study will support the Company's own preliminary calculations which show that Mkushi could be highly profitable A resource drilling programme is underway and it is anticipated that a full feasibility study can be completed by end 2007.

The Company's second near-market asset is its Miyabi gold project in Tanzania. The recently updated 520,000 ounce independent Mineral Resource Estimate brought the Company much closer to establishing Miyabi as a mineable asset. The Company's emphasis on this project will also now shift to generating an economic pre-feasibility study, including additional drilling to enlarge the resource, with a view to getting the project into production. The metallurgical test results announced on 20 January have already demonstrated that the gold can be extracted by conventional leaching.

Beyond these two near-market projects, the Ndola, Mokambo and Eagle Eye projects offer considerable upside and the exploration potential of the Company's early-stage projects provide a solid foundation to the portfolio.

African Eagle recognises that it cannot on its own do full justice to all these projects and has been actively seeking farm-in partners to participate in their exploration and development. The Company will continue to use its skills and contacts to acquire promising new ventures, with an eye to developing them in partnership with other operators. The recent signature of an agreement with MinEx Projects to explore one of the Company's Tanzanian diamond projects is an example of the Company's ability to assemble attractive projects and find suitable farm-in or joint-venture partners and several other farm-in deals are under negotiation.

To effect this changed strategy better, the Company's Board responsibilities have been adjusted. Managing Director Mark Parker will concentrate on strategy and business development, while Operations Director Chris Davies will be responsible for all aspects of exploration and evaluation.

Today's change of Broker and Nomad is also an element in the Company's change of emphasis. Seymour Pierce is one of the City's longest established brokers and is a leading provider of corporate broking and finance services to smaller quoted companies, with over 150 retained corporate clients and especially strong research and corporate finance expertise in the Mining sector. Seymour Pierce has led over two hundred primary and secondary issues since 1st January 2004, raising in excess of £625 million for corporate clients.

I am convinced that focussing our efforts on taking one or two near-market projects through towards production, coupled with the addition of resources on our most advanced exploration projects is the correct strategy and will enable us to achieve the value which I believe is inherent in African Eagle's outstanding portfolio of exploration assets. I have included summaries of our projects below and full descriptions can be found on our website www.africaneagle.co.uk

John Park
Chairman African Eagle Resources plc
African Eagle Resources plc

 
 

About African Eagle's projects

Mkushi

A report commissioned by the Zambian nationalised copper company in 1990 estimated that more than 300,000 tonnes of copper metal remained in the ground at Mkushi, in a resource of 30Mt at a grade of 1.24% copper. African Eagle's drilling over the past months has indicated that this estimate, although it pre-dates modern resource reporting standards, appears well founded.

The local infrastructure around Mkushi is excellent and the past history of mining should make permitting for renewed operations straightforward. The mineralisation appears to have simple chalcopyrite mineralogy which should allow a copper sulphide concentrate to be produced efficiently at relatively modest capital cost.

Moreover, the Company's geophysical surveys have indicated that other mineralised zones exist which were not recognised by previous explorers. African Eagle believes that these could bring the total resource to 50Mt at greater than 1% copper, with 500,000 tonnes of contained metal. The Company now plans to conduct a full resource drilling programme and economic evaluation at Mkushi, leading to a full feasibility study during 2007 with a view to taking the project to commercial production.

Miyabi

The Company's Miyabi gold project holds an independently audited JORC-compliant Mineral Resource estimate of 12.4Mt at a grade of 1.3g/t, containing 520,000 ounces of gold of which 71% is in the Indicated category. (Company news release of 21 March 2006). Grade sensitivity analysis also revealed that at 1g/t cut-off the resource is 6.3Mt at 1.82 g/t, for 370,000 ounces of gold. Recent metallurgical tests indicated that the gold can be extracted successfully by conventional leaching.

The Company believes that this brings Miyabi much closer to being a mineable asset, with a good level of confidence in the resource. The Miyabi team's next task is to commence an economic pre-feasibility study, with additional drilling to add significantly to the total, especially at the Ngaya and Shambani South zones and new targets identified from recent IP and magnetic surveys.

Ndola

The Ndola licence is located in Zambia's Copperbelt and surrounds the historic Bwana Mkubwa copper mine, mid-way between First Quantum's Frontier and Lonshi assets. The licence contains two highly significant targets:

  • Lower Roan style mineralisation. Most of the known deposits of the Copperbelt, including Bwana Mkubwa, Frontier and the older mines at Luanshya, Nkana and Mufulira, lie within rocks of the Lower Roan unit. Within this geology in African Eagle's licence, an unclassified deposit estimated to contain 40Mt at a grade of 0.8% copper, known as Ndola East, was reported from drilling carried out in the 1950's and 1970's. There are strong hints that the mineralisation extends both north and south of the Ndola East deposit.
  • Lonshi-type mineralisation. Copper occurrences have been reported in the licence area near the DRC frontier but there is no evidence that they have ever been investigated. The occurrences lie about 5km north of Lonshi, within rocks of the same Kundelungu geological unit. Lonshi is a high grade deposit with little surface expression, discovered by soil geochemistry.

The Company believes that modern exploration techniques based on current geological thinking on Copperbelt mineralisation could add significantly to this asset.

Makombo

The Mokambo licence lies in the Zambian Copper Belt about 30km north of the Company's Ndola licence. Composed largely of Lower Roan geology, the licence holds an unclassified deposit investigated in the mid-1970s and then estimated to contain 41 million tonnes grading 1.7% copper. African Eagle has started a thorough review of all existing data and will implement a field exploration programme in 2006, including geophysical surveys and drilling, to evaluate this extremely promising licence.

Eagle Eye

Another of African Eagle's exploration projects with considerable upside potential is the Company's iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) discovery at Eagle Eye. IOCG deposits can be substantial and often occur within even larger mineralising systems. From its exploration to date, African Eagle has identified an IOCG mineralising system extending over a strike length of more than 25km. Within this, the Company's test drill holes yielded potentially economic intersections, including 67m at 0.7% copper, 21m at 1.1%, 12m at 3% and 6m at 5%.

Significant work will be needed to explore the system fully and we believe the Company needs to bring in a farm-in partner with experience of this type of deposit, to share the risks and rewards.

Other advanced projects

The Msasa gold project in Tanzania contains a shear-hosted gold system which yielded a drill intersection of 930g/t over 1m, perhaps indicating a high grade deposit similar to that at Tulawaka, 15km to the north. The Igurubi gold project has also yielded high-grade intersections, including 4m at 14.2g/t and 6m at 7.3g/t. Surface surveys have indicated at least one additional gold-bearing zone. The Zanzui project is a 15km diameter layered mafic complex with potential for nickel and platinum mineralisation. The Company plans to follow up platinum and palladium anomalies identified from soil geochemical surveys.

In Zambia, MinEx Projects (formerly MSA) is exploring the 2000 square kilometre Lunga licence for Kansanshi-type copper mineralisation and other deposits, under a farm-in agreement. A soil geochemical survey over the whole licence has revealed some extremely promising copper-gold anomalies.

Early-stage projects

African Eagle has 10 early-stage gold projects in Tanzania, many of which have yielded very encouraging early results and several of which could develop into significant discoveries. Especially notable are the Kagulamu, Gloria, Kiwasi Hills, Dutwa and Mabale Hills areas. The Company also holds two diamond project areas in Tanzania, and has signed an agreement with MinEx Projects (formerly MSA) to explore one of them under joint venture.

Zambian early stage projects include the Kampumba copper project and the Nyimba polymetallic sulphide project. The Fingoe project in Mozambique contains geology and reported mineralisation similar to that at Eagle Eye, and hence has IOCG potential. In eastern Mozambique, the Nickel Ridge (Muazua) and Majele gold projects are subject to a farm-in agreement with African Advanced Metals.

The Company will continue to use its skills and contacts to acquire promising new ventures, with an eye to developing them in partnership with other operators.

Farm-outs and Joint Ventures

African Eagle recognises that it cannot on its own do full justice to all its projects and is actively seeking farm-in partners to participate in their exploration and development. The recent signature of an agreement with MinEx Projects to explore one of the Company's Tanzanian diamond projects is an example of the Company's ability to assemble attractive projects and find suitable farm-in or joint-venture partners. Several other farm-out deals are under negotiation.

Competent Person

Where not previously reported by the Company, information in this review relating to exploration results is based on information compiled by the Company. The compilation and review was supervised by Mr Mark Parker, African Eagle's Managing Director, who is a Member of the Institution of Materials, Minerals and Mining and bound by its code of ethics. Mr Parker has in excess of thirty years experience relevant to the styles of mineralisation and types of deposit under consideration. Mr Parker consents to the inclusion of the information in the form and context in which it appears.

 
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