media coverage, page-6

Okay guys, used the old typing skills and here is the newspaper article.

Uranium Standout

Uranium stocks have not exactly been in favor since last year’s Fukushima disaster, but there is one out there that has just about outperformed every stock on the planet in recent weeks. It is Alliance Resources (AGS) owned 25.8 per cent by Ian Gandel’s Abbotsleigh and a 25 per cent partner in the Four Mile uranium deposit in South Australia, with an affiliate of General Atomics of the US holding the rest as the project operator.

Four Mile is one of the best uranium discoveries in recent times (32,000 tonnes of the radioactive stuff) and it managed to get environmental clearance from the old rock ‘n’ roller Peter Garrett when he was enjoying higher profile times in Canberra as environment minister in 2009.

Garrett, the former anti uranium activist who once stood for the Nuclear Disarmament Party, said he did not take the decision lightly, and we are sure he didn’t. What we also know for sure is that it ain’t Garrett’s fault that Four Mile has yet to become a mine. If all had gone to plan, the in-situ leach operation could probably have been up and running inside of nine months.

More legal squabbles between the partners than you can poke a stick at have stopped it. But there has been some good with the partners confirming the litigation on the native title agreement for Four Mile has been settled.

The market has taken that as an indicator that it might also be able to cuddle up some more and resolve the two outstanding bits of litigation in which Alliance is the plaintiff.

Maybe so. That’s why Alliance shares, which were friendless at 21 cents per share at the start of the year were fetching 40.5 cents yesterday. That’s a gain of 93 per cent, albeit off a low base for the suffering shareholders who thought that when Garrett gave the all-clear back in 2009 they were on a near-term winner.

Four Mile should be a nice project even at current depressed uranium prices, which are sitting on about $US52 a pound on the spot market, and something north of $US60 a pound in the long term market.

Under one development scenario – using General Atomics’ wholly owned and nearby existing uranium processing plant (four miles up the road as you guessed) at the Beverley operation – the all-up costs at Four Mile have previously been estimated at $38.80 a pound. Nice margins beckon.