mining new article

Reefton refutes report, requests retraction


Jesse Riseborough


Wednesday, April 13, 2005
EMBATTLED uranium explorer Reefton Mining has asked for a retraction from a Namibian newspaper that published a report casting serious doubt on the potential for uranium at the company's Erongo project in Namibia.

In a story recently published in the Namibian national newspaper, Professor John Moore of the Rhodes University Geology Department was quoted as saying he would be very surprised if Hakskeen, within Erongo, contained "real and viable" quantities of uranium.

However Reefton chief executive officer Simon Gilbert told MiningNews.net he had contacted Professor Moore regarding the story and was advised by Moore that he was quoted out of context. Gilbert said Moore had emailed this statement regarding quotes attributed to him in the story.

"I am afraid I have been miss-attributed in this article," Moore has told Gilbert.

"The reporter phoned me but I did not have any direct information regarding the Hakskeen deposit. He told me that the radiometric anomaly was reportedly related to thorium. I then told him that if that was the case then the anomaly could not be related to carnotite, as carnotite does not contain thorium.

"I then explained to him the nature of thorium anomalies and that section is correctly attributed to me. I told him that I visit the Rossing area (not Hakskeen area) on an annual basis, to show my students the difference between real and false anomalies.

All the references attributed to me regarding the nature of the Hakskeen deposit and area anomalies are incorrect, I have no knowledge of the geology of the area. I referred the reporter to Professor Jacobs and Dr Nick Stevens. It is possible he has confused statements coming from Dr Nick Stevens as coming from me."

Dr Nick Stevens, a Cape Town-based geologist who wrote his doctorate on the geology of the Hakskeen region, was also quoted in the story as saying he was very sceptical about Reefton's announcement of a new uranium discovery on March 18.

Stevens claimed the geology of the granite-based deposit is distinctly different to other known uranium deposits in the region including the ASX-listed Paladin Resource's Langer Heinrich deposit.

"It is what we call monozite, a rare earth phosphate normally associated with heavy beach sands but one that also can give off a radioactive signal," Stevens said.

Gilbert said Reefton were also awaiting a response from Dr Stevens regarding his comments to the newspaper.

"We are waiting on a response from Stevens as well which will hopefully come through today and then I would think the company would be in a position to form a response to that.

"We actually want the paper to write, essentially a retraction article because they have mislead the public in a big way. You could potentially say that article has stripped 20% off the value of the company because since that has come out we have dropped from 10c down to 8c," Gilbert said.

Meantime the company is still awaiting resolution regarding the renewal applications for exploration licences at Erongo.

Shares in Reefton today were up almost 4% this morning to 8.1c.