FYI from this mornibgs AgeMiners focus on costs May 17, 2011BIG...

FYI from this mornibgs Age

Miners focus on costs May 17, 2011

BIG miners are focusing on their own exploration efforts in Africa because the cost of taking over juniors with attractive deposits there is too high, says Boart Longyear chief Craig Kipp.

Boart Longyear provides drilling services to the mining industry.

''There are more companies going into Africa and what we see is, four to five years ago, they would have been junior companies,'' Mr Kipp said.

Advertisement: Story continues below ''What we're seeing now is a lot of the majors are asking for drilling equipment and wanting to do major exploration programs in some of these countries.

''The juniors are expensive and a lot of large resource companies have cash to fund their own exploration.''

Much of Africa contains rich, largely untapped mineral deposits and is increasingly becoming a destination for miners and explorers, especially as Australia moves to a new 30 per cent mining tax.

Cashed-up majors are beefing up their African positions with plays such as Rio Tinto's $3.9 billion takeover of Mozambique-focused coal producer Riversdale Mining.

Mr Kipp said compliance with African laws was an increasingly big issue for new entrants.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/miners-focus-on-costs-20110516-1eput.html#ixzz1MYsOIqM6