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Kalahari gains exposure to Asian resources sector

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - Aim-listed resources company Kalahari Minerals reported on Friday that it had raised 37,89-million through two capital raisings in the year ended December 2009.

Kalahari chairperson Mark Hohnen said that this demonstrated a strong investor appetite for the company's assets.

"We have also welcomed new strategic investors to our shareholder register, providing further support to our already strong institutional backing."

Recent additions to Kalahari's shareholder base included the Japanese trading house Itochu that had taken a circa 15% interest in the company and appointed a representative.

A major Chinese investment company APAC Resources had also agreed to acquire circa 4,45% of Kalahari's issued share capital.

Hohnen said that further to the support that the investments offer the company's shareholder register, which also included mining major Rio Tinto holding a circa 12,5% interest, both Itochu and APAC's involvement with Kalahari would provide it with exposure to the Asian resource sector.

"We believe that access to this network will be highly beneficial, as we work together with Extract in developing the Rssing South project towards production," concluded Honen.

During the reporting period Kalahari had increased its interest in Extract to 40,8%.

Hohnen said that the company remained wholly supportive of Extract's rapid development schedule for its world-class uranium assets in Namibia, and that it was looking forward to the next phase of development of the Rssing South project, which would include a resource upgrade of the project and the publication of a definitive feasibility study.

Rssing South, which has a current Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant resource of 267-million pounds of U3O8 at average grades of 487 ppm, has been defined as the highest-grade granite-hosted uranium deposit in Namibia.

Hohnen noted that zone one and zone two at Rssing South remained open at depth and strike indicating that the total resource for the project could exceed 500-million pounds of U3O8, placing it among the largest uranium assets in the world.

Meawhile, Hohnen said that Kalahari had also instigated key initiatives towards developing its non-uranium assets through establishing relationships with commodity developer North River, aimed at fast tracking its gold, copper and other base-metal projects towards production through a joint-development agreement.

Under the agreement, Kalahari had retained a 44,7% interest in North River.

Since the signing of the agreement North River had implemented an aggressive development programme focused primarily on developing the company's key copper projects and the Namib lead/zinc project towards production.