Mining tycoon Robert de Crespigny is re-floating long-time dog Greenwich Resources, after merging it with his Buka Minerals and Danae Resources. A £15 million placing is scheduled for the enlarged company, to be renamed Scarborough Minerals, which will go for early-stage projects, but no ‘blue sky’.

The goal is growth through corporate activity. De Crespigny excelled in this pursuit Down Under, taking few prisoners but achieving a track record that should win friends for Scarborough.

Amur seeks Russian riches

Broker Nabarro Wells hopes to raise around £4.5 million on AIM for Amur Minerals Corporation, formerly Croesus Resources, with nickel, copper and platinum group metals prospects in far-eastern Russia. North American geological consultant Robin Young runs Amur, with indicated and inferred resources of 209,000 tonnes of nickel, 58,500 tonnes of copper and 13,600 kilogrammes of platinum group metals in its Kun-Manie licence.

The company has already raised £6 million privately and consultant SRK has put a value of between £35 and £47 million on the resource to date. Amur points out this as yet represents only two per cent of the licence area.

Clearly speculative, Amur could reward a punt.

Gem groups welcome 

Following KimCor Diamonds’ success in raising an above-target £3.35 million on AIM at 15p for tailings and exploration projects in South Africa, the market awaits a London launch this summer for Aussie-listed Kimberley Diamonds, now the equivalent of 69p. Kimberley has an estimated five million carats at Ellendale in Western Australia and 51 per cent of another Down Under-listed group Blina Diamonds, now 29p, whose own prospects in the same area are possibly more exciting.

Blina has a joint venture in Australia with AIM counter Gravity Diamonds, depressed at 14.5p. Both Kimberley and Blina show growth potential. Gamblers might consider Tertiary Minerals’ spin-off Sunrise Diamonds at 3p, with interests in the Kuusamo diamond cluster in Finland and backed by Bruce Rowan’s Starvest group.

Eastern promise

Malaysian entrepreneur Dato Andrew Kam says he is contemplating steps to make AIM-quoted Peninsular Gold more accessible to investors. The company, currently very tightly held, is focused on gold prospects in Malaysia’s central gold belt, not far from fellow AIM counter Avocet’s Penjom gold mine, and Kam declares his aim is to establish a five-million oz resource.

Peninsular owns the Raub tailings project, estimated to hold 180,000 oz of gold. The company plans to build a £4.75 million plant to produce 26,000 oz a year for seven years as from 2007, at an envisaged cost of $163 an ounce, against today’s market price of $565.

Peninsular is considering underground possibilities at Raub, where past grades exceeded ten grammes of gold per tonne of ore.  Bigger current prizes, says Kam, are the nearby Tersang, with an inferred gold resource of 528,000 oz, and Chenua, which geophysical analysis suggests could be larger than Tersang.

The hope is to establish a one-million oz resource at Tersang by drilling in the next 12 months, with expected operating costs of around $250 an ounce. This suggests speculative possibilities for Peninsular shares at 60p, if it can ease its illiquidity.     
Neighbouring Avocet, meanwhile, has risen to 146p since Growth Company Investor highlighted its speculative potential at 76p last July and should make more progress in today’s climate. The company could also earn a significant stake in Chinese gold projects, including Hatu in Xinjiang Province with a 912,000-oz inferred resource.