Sorry if anyone has already posted... article from a Radelaide...

Sorry if anyone has already posted... article from a Radelaide newspaper.

http://www.indaily.com.au/?iid=50691#folio=001

text below.... but bring on the happy times tomorrow morning hopefully!

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TUESDAY, 26 JULY 2011
Miner upbeat as retailers shut shop
KEVIN NAUGHTON

IT?S another two-speed day in SA today as staff at Just Jeans stores wonder which ones will be closed as ?under-performers? and a mining company gears up for a big announcement.

Premier Retailing, owners of fashion brands Just Jeans, Portmans, Peter Alexander and others, will close 50 stores around Australia and shed staff in a response to ?challenging? retail conditions.

Tomorrow morning Rex Minerals will advise the market of its plans for the staged construction of a copper mine near Ardrossan, but jobs are unlikely to be generated until 2014.

That?s cold comfort for the store workers in the sluggish part of our economy. But while the Just Jeans story is part an ongoing slide in the retail sector, the Rex story is a big one.

So big, you can expect Premier Rann to be saying the words Rex and Mining Boom right up until election day March 2014.

Rex Minerals went into a trading halt on the stock exchange yesterday saying it will make an announcement on Wednesday.

Brokers with an eye on the sector are expecting more than just good news from the explorer, which has been drilling for some years on the Pine Point Hillgrove fault 5km from Ardrossan.

Melbourne-based Foster Stockbroking advised its clients it expected an updated resource announcement: ?Recent drill results have highlighted the potential for a lower strip ratio than first expected, with shallow intercepts grading >1% Cu. A lower strip, combined with expected magnetite credits (produced as a by-product), could have a material impact on the forecast cash costs.?

In layperson?s language, it means the amount of dirt that needs to be scraped off is less than thought, making it cheaper to extract the ore.

The mining industry is buzzing with speculation about Rex?s prospect.

Given Rex?s previous announcements, the industry expects the company will upgrade its estimated resource and announce a timetable that will take it from scoping the project, to pre-feasibility, feasibility, financing and construction.

Some optimistic estimates are that the mine could be under construction by 2014 with the first copper leaving Ardrossan or Port Adelaide in 2015.

Rex has been buying up land in the area in the last year or so and has no native title hurdles or land access concerns.

In terms of scale, this project looks to be as big as Prominent Hill in the far north, but its location means a greater local impact than Prominent?s fly-in/fly-out operation.

It might be just enough to get Just Jeans to open a store in Ardrossan.