Companies: BRM   

Uranium prospector Brinkley Mining expects its Congolese joint venture to receive prospecting rights by Christmas.

Spun off last year from African trading, transport, leisure and resources group Lonrho, AIM-quoted Brinkley is concentrating on five targets in the Democratic Republic of Congo. All were previously mined, all show impressive historic uranium mineralisation – in one case including 30 metres with more than one per cent uranium – and one is the rich Shinkolobwe mine, which supplied the material for the atomic bombs dropped in 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and carried on producing until the 1960s.

With a Government reshuffle expected soon and a state agency holding 25 per cent of the joint venture, Brinkley chairman Gerard Holden sounds optimistic about the prospecting rights award — although he acknowledges that there are local factions opposed, which have retained British lobbyists to further their interests. He says Brinkley will have done so much preparatory work by Christmas that it will be able to start drilling as soon as the rights are awarded.

Outside the Congo, Brinkley, which still has £13 million of the £18.6 million raised at flotation, is exploring for uranium at Waterval in South Africa’s Western Cape and hopes to be able to define a ‘relatively high-grade’ resource, with some molybdenum, in November. Holden says Lonrho has no stake left in the company, which has spent nearly £3 million on Waterval so far.

Brinkley has applied to explore another South African uranium prospect at Damsfontein/Bloemfontein. The company has also lodged applications in Niger, Chad and Southern Sudan, where its joint venture partner is linked to Philip Richards of RAB Capital.

RAB holds eight per cent of Brinkley, whose shares were floated at 50p but came in for short selling and have since been further hit by political fears over the Congo. Now a lowly 10.25p, the shares are a punt on the prospecting rights award and on the projects’ living up to expectations.

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Brinkley Mining	AIM	£4.2m	1.18p	-0.32p
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