Companies: AFE    DES    GRWA    LOR   

Worries about China's raw material demand and feared summer investor lethargy has put several floats on hold, but broker Williams de Broe is hurrying to bring Canadian zinc hopeful Ontzinc to AIM shortly to raise nearly £6 million.

Headed by entrepreneur Greig Peebles, Ontzinc is developing projects in Ontario and plans to reopen a zinc mine in northern New York State, encouraged by zinc's recent strength. The float price has yet to be finalised.

Joe Nally, leading light at W de B, says the broker is working on two other floats, one in coal ('about as hot as you can get'), now scheduled for autumn.

As foreshadowed in Growth Company Investor, the firm is also arranging a £2 million AIM issue for Tanzanite One. This company, spun out of South African-quoted AfGem, holds the world's only source of tanzanite, the lustrous blue jewellery ingredient, in Tanzania.

Ed Nealon, former boss of Aquarius Platinum, is among keen backers of Tanzanite One, which is headed by Mike Nunn. Old hands say the chief risk comes from local 'artisanal' miners and theft, but the mine (once owned by Samax) is 'the last in the world' says Nally, with an estimated life of 25 years.

Nickel group on the prowl

Donald Bailey and Colin Steyn, the two former Rio Tinto luminaries steering diversified nickel miner LionOre, are looking for companies to buy for their Toronto-based company, listed in Canada and London. LionOre, which produced 7,000 tonnes from Botswana and Western Australia, has an annual production target of 40,000 tonnes.

Steyn argues LionOre holds a strong card with Activox, a new process for extracting nickel from sulphide rock, which, they claim, will enable it to boost production despite today's acute shortage of smelting capacity. Steyn says LionOre can use Activox to obtain stakes in small producers unable to use the prohibitively expensive alternative of building new smelters.

With nickel reserves of 235,000 tonnes and 530,000 oz of gold, the company wanted to raise equity money recently but was deterred by their fall from a 355p 12-month high to 240p. They have now rallied 257p.

If Activox can win LionOre some bargains, the shares could be worth a long-term punt – especially if they tempt a larger group.

Eagle's eye view of Africa

John Park, genial Australian chairman of Aim-listed hopeful African Eagle Resources, professes to be unruffled by recent mining market nerves and prefers to concentrate on the company's gold prospects at Miyabi in Tanzania, copper and gold in Zambia, and nickel in Mozambique. Former boss of successful African mining group Samax, he says the company, under managing director Mark Parker, is not only excited by Sasare's Eagle Eye prospect but also enthusiastic about its Kampumba copper and gold licence, also in Zambia.

African Eagle has three more options to take up in Tanzania and has been offered nickel projects in Mozambique and gold prospects in Congo. Floated at 6p last year, the shares have touched 28p and now trade at 17.5p, where they could reward a punt.

Greek boost from South Atlantic

The latest price surge in Desire Petroleum, the AIM-listed oil and gas explorer with interests in the Falklands and chaired by the redoubtable Dr Colin Phipps, has done no harm to bombed-out Greenwich Resources, which holds a 4.15 per cent stake. Battle-scared veteran of Venezuela and the Sudan, fully-listed Greeenwich has shuffled its Desire holding from a Dutch subsidiary to the main company for tax reasons.

Desire, awaiting seismic results from the Falklands next month, has soared from 7p to more than 30p. Greenwich, itself once chaired by Phipps and now focused on the Sappes gold project in Greece, has doubled to 3p – a small fraction of former peaks.

Now chaired by John Corcoran, of the Multiplex group, Greenwich's Greek plans face environmental opposition, despite the Economic Ministry's support. Expecting royalty payments from Venezuela in six months, it is strictly for gamblers only.