Vane toasts nuclear future

18/11/2008 Robert Tyerman

Battered Vane Minerals aims to use cash from Mexican gold and silver production to develop high-grade US uranium projects.

The London-based company, which raised £6.25 million a year ago at 17.5p and still has £4 million left, is also helping to fund developing uranium prospects in Arizona and Utah with production proceeds from its Diablito gold and silver mine in Mexico.

AIM-quoted Vane, which is involved in a 50-50 joint venture for some of these projects with Canadian group Uranium One, has identified high-grade deposits of around one per cent U3O8, says commercial development director Matthew Idiens, arguing that would make them viable even if uranium fell from a current $48 a lb to around $30.

The company is also involved in ‘non-core’ copper and gold projects in the south-western areas of the USA and is drilling for copper and gold in Paraguay. With these, a success would probably lead to the sale of the assets.

A stock market now out of love with raw materials and exploration has marked Vane’s shares down savagely from 32.5p last year to 3.38p now, valuing the company at £7.63 million. But bulls argue the increasing number of countries committing themselves to nuclear power must augur well for the uranium price in the long, while Idiens claims management and friendly shareholders control enough to make a cheap opportunistic bid almost impossible.

The shares have long-term speculative recovery potential for those, who even in today’s climate, are not deterred by risk.

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