Companies: CME ��

Mineral sands player Carnegie Minerals has increased its resource in Senegal and is ‘actively discussing’ potential new projects.

Chaired by active Australian entrepreneur Alan Burns, AIM-quoted Carnegie, which is already producing at Sayang in The Gambia, has been exploring in the neighbouring West African state of Senegal, where it has now established a mineral sands resource at one of its projects, Niafarang, of 4.8 million tonnes, with a high grade of 12 per cent heavy metals. Of these, zircon, used for ceramics, accounts for 13.7 per cent and rutile, bearing titanium oxide for pigments, represents 2.3 per cent.

Sayang, which sent its first shipment of 1,200 tonnes of concentrate to China last September, could produce 20,000 tonnes of zircon and rutile a year, said Carnegie’s managing director Alan Hopkins. He argued the company’s 750 sq km of licences in Senegal will prove much richer and more extensive when resource drilling starts in the autumn.

Astron has lent the �2 million needed to start initial production interest free. When Carnegie has repaid that next year, the AIM group will keep a half share of gross profits, which are expected to start at �1.75 million on �3.5 million revenues.

‘Senegal could be the company maker’, suggested Hopkins. Floated last August with a �2 million placing at 8p, Carnegie shares now trade at 9.25p, valuing the company at �5.1 million, and offer speculative promise.