marben100

Mark when you have time can you look for me at FTE

your opinion about FTE in London & what sentiment is over there?
used to be MUR new code FTE
i done nice M/T trade in the past on them
0.048 to 0.14 and took half position again on them few weeks back (only 250k so far @0.050 & 0.051)
what do you think about them atm?
management? & Lady Barbara Judge
Areva involvement?
London sentiment?
etc

Thanks FB
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Forte Energy Has Cleaned Up Its Act And Now Looks To Be One Of The Better Positioned Uranium Juniors

Forte Energy has certainly come a long way since it transformed itself into a uranium company, a couple of years ago. Once upon-a-time, drinking to forget the regrets about missed opportunities and the sorrows about what might have been was a key past-time for those who ran and those who backed Forte Energy. But that, of course, was back in the days when the company was known as Murchison United, and had not long suffered at the hands of the Portuguese government the sort of dispossession more normally associated with Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. It took a while to clean up “Murchy” - as the company was affectionately known – and while it was still in limbo the company’s shares lurched along on the bottom unloved by all but a few faithful old retainers, not all of whom were 100 per cent respectable.
There’s a different air about Forte now, though. As of 18th July 2008, the company’s non-executive deputy chairman is Lady Barbara Judge. Lady Judge is also non-executive chairman of the UK Atomic Energy Association (UKAEA), although given the august nature of Lady Judge’s positions we thought we’d better get things right and check that she’s not actually a “chairwoman” in either case - she isn’t, although in some of her other jobs she is simply a “chair”. As chair, chairman, or director, this illustrious lady also holds down roles with Massey Energy, Friends Provident, and Robert Walters, although it’s interesting to note on her own profile on the UKAEA page that she lists her directorship of “Murchison United” as second only to her role as chair of the governing body of the School of African And Oriental Studies. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a fully paid up member of the great and the good, and her presence on the board of Forte tells Minesite two key things. Firstly, Forte will be now able to open doors in London, and in the world of business and high finance generally that some smaller capitalized companies don’t even know exist. Secondly, French nuclear giant Areva has recently been cozying up to Forte in a big way, and, although it’s nice to have the attention - and it’s been more than welcome - Lady Judge will no doubt ensure that the French don’t get into a position where they feel they can start to take liberties.

Mark Reilly, the man tasked with the day-to-day running of Forte, is in a fairly confident mood when he hooks up with Minesite for one of those giant American-style coffees in a Starbucks right in the heart of the City. But there’s not much confidence to be seen anywhere else in the neighbourhood. Who knows? – if the Americans had only stuck to drinking from reasonably-sized coffee cups, maybe the country’s borrowers and lenders wouldn’t have gone so haywire… But none of that concerns Forte, at least not directly. This is a company that’s already had its financial apocalypse and is a long way into the bounce back phase. This is a company that even if its shares have dropped by 50 per cent or so since last year, is still up by a factor of more than three times on where was four or five years ago. And there are tangible reasons to be cheerful about the future too: there’s money in the bank, and let’s face it, even if the uranium spot price has been flat over the past few months, uranium is the only other metal outside of silver and gold that anyone is remotely bullish about in the short to medium term.

That leaves Mark Reilly with a relatively easy sell, although there’s still much work to be done on the ground at Forte’s projects, and still much work to be done convincing investors that the two countries in which Forte is operating, Guinea and Mauretania, are safe enough places to be spending cash, given that cash is very much king nowadays. The project in Mauretania is the bigger of the company’s two prospects, but the next news will be on Guinea, where a 6,000 metre drill campaign was recently completed. The results from that will be out within the next six to eight weeks, and, says Mark Reilly, “we’re reasonably confident we’ll have an economic resource”. The next step there will be a pre-feasibility study. Meanwhile, in Mauretania, Forte is targeting a minimum of 60 million pounds of U3O8 under its joint venture with Areva, and expects to put out an initial resource statement before the year end. As to the politics, well the world may have moved on, and so may Murchison United, but there’s nothing like having the national champion of the former colonial power batting for your side on the ground in Africa, even if a cricketing metaphor isn’t perhaps the most apposite to Areva or the French. That said, with A$4 million of its own, plus the prospect of realizing some value from some residual copper assets, Forte is certainly in a strong enough position to be master of its own destiny. What would be really nice would be a bit of upward movement in spot uranium, but you can’t have everything.