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Hegarty straight-bats PanAust speculation

Paul Garvey
Thursday, 22 February 2007

OXIANA managing director Owen Hegarty has played down speculation that his company is behind this morning's spike in the share price of Laos-focused gold developer Pan Australian Resources, which has gained more than 20% in frantic trade.

Pan Australian Resources'Phu Bia heap leach gold project in Laos

After opening at 32c, Pan Australian shares ran up to a high of 38.5c - a gain for the day of 20.3% - with more than 52 million shares changing hands.

The volume of shares has effectively doubled the number of shares traded in Pan this month.

Observers cited rumours of a bid from Oxiana as a catalyst for the move, but in a conference call to journalists on Oxiana's full year profit results, Hegarty played a straight bat to the suggestion it could be considering a tilt at its fellow Lao player.

"We don't usually comment on market rumours, I hadn't actually heard that myself, but we haven't been sitting there on the screen watching them go up and down," Hegarty said.

"We know those guys very well of course because we're together there in Laos, they're a fair way away from us, but we can't comment on all of that."

Oxiana recently announced a friendly takeover bid for Agincourt Resources, which holds the advanced multi-million oz Martabe gold-silver deposit in Indonesia.

Pan Australian is currently reaping modest cash flow from its Phu Bia gold mine in Laos. The company's main game is the Phu Kham copper-gold project, which once fully operational will produce 50,000t of copper, 50,000oz gold and 400,000oz silver a year.

Observers also cited the publishing of a bullish on-line analyst report overnight as a catalyst for this morning's move.

Shares in PanAust were last changing hands at 38c apiece.