I don't hold MET but have shares in a company that has about a 37% holding in MET. i can't remember its name!! can someone help-out? meanwhile things keep going well in BF.
From Mine site.com
March 01, 2011
Mt Isa Metals Plays It With A Straight Bat In Burkina Faso
By Our Man in Oz
Africa has always been a good news/bad news sort of a place, so it should come as no surprise that some gold explorers in Burkina Faso might be risking considerable pain by not reading the fine print of the country?s mining law. Buried in the documents is a three-line requirement that says no company can own more than 10 exploration leases. Now, Minesite?s Man in Oz would like to be able to claim that he had discovered this hidden gem (time bomb?) while investing time in a quick analysis of the Burkina Faso Mining Code. Somehow, though, he suspects you know that?s not true. In fact, he made the discovery while wondering why the latest Australian explorer to achieve success in Burkina, Mt Isa Metals, had created a whole new company less than six months after making what looks to be a first-class gold strike. ?Some other companies have ignored that point, adopting an Australian she?ll be right mate approach?, said Mt Isa Metals chief executive, Peter Spiers. ?We?re being more careful.?
Australians are still getting to know Africa, and more to the point, Australian investors are still getting to know it. In these circumstances a prudent approach is called for, since investors would have every right to be annoyed if their company makes a discovery only for a dispute to arise over legitimacy of tenure. Hence the creation by Mt Isa of Harmattan Gold, to remove all doubt.
Minesite did not contact Peter for a chat about arcane aspects of African mining laws. Even so, the formation of Harmattan, with 40 of its own seed investors, a modest capital base of A$1.8 million, and an independently owned package of tenements, contains two important pointers. The first is for other companies - to consider their own positions as regards the law. And the second is to appreciate that Mt Isa Metals has effectively doubled-up its interest in Burkina Faso, after making one of the better grass roots gold discoveries of the past 12 months, at its Nabanga prospect in the south-east of the country.
The best assays returned from drilling at Nabanga include two metres at 15.98 grams of gold per tonne from a depth of just 19 metres, 10 metres at three grams per tonne from 25 metres and eight metres at 14.01 grams per tonne from 26 metres. Not only are the grades attractive, they are reasonably thick, and close to the surface. What?s more, gold mineralisation at more than 0.5 grams per tonne has been defined along 3.6 kilometres of strike with an average lode intersection of 4.6 metres at 5.66 grams per tonne. Much more drilling is planned, part funded by a recent A$14.4 million placement which has left Mt Isa Metals with a handy A$18 million in the bank. The challenge for Peter will be to locate a drill rig, or two, as every rig in the country is booked up and the first available slot with a contractor doesn?t come up until next month.
Be that as it may, investors with a yen for African exploration have been quick to move into Mt Isa Metals, though, somewhat curiously, one of the company?s original backers has been equally quick to move out. Since mid last year, the company?s shares have been on a charge, rising from lows of A10 cents, to a peak in late January of A90 cents. Recent sales have been back around A63 cents, partly a function of the A$14.4 million capital raising which was done at A70 cents, and partly because one of Australia?s richest young men, junior coal baron Nathan Tinkler, dumped his entire 18 per cent stake in the company at A60 cents. But Peter said the exit of Tinkler - to institutional investors such as Acorn Capital, a micro-cap specialist, and Thorney Investments, an arm of the empire left by Australia?s late cardboard king, Richard Pratt - had not caused undue concern. ?Nathan was an early supporter because our original target was copper in the Mt Isa region of Queensland?, Peter said. ?When we started to achieve success in African gold he decided that wasn?t a place he wanted to be.?
Africa may not be everyone?s bag, but at least Mt Isa Metals offers about as straightforward an exploration story as can be found anywhere. It started with a decision several years ago to send a small team to Burkina Faso to walk the ground. Tenements were identified the hard way, rather than through the acquisition of a package of ground from a vendor, and the local laws studied ? which is why Harmattan Gold has been created. But surely, asked Minesite?s Man, Harmattan is now a competitor to Mt Isa Metals? ?We have effectively created a competitor, but if we didn?t do it somebody else would?, Peter said. ?We now have the option of owning half this new entity, or we can have none of it. Creating Harmattan has been much easier than building the portfolio in Mt Isa Metals because the second time around we knew exactly what to do, and it is to the letter of the law, and it will add value to shareholders in Mt Isa Metals.?
Another concern is that the new company will not have access to exploration tenements of the same quality. ?There?s no doubt that when we first flew over in late 2009 there was lot more ground available?, Peter said. ?Perhaps some of the low hanging fruit has gone. But having said that, there are plenty of opportunities in Burkina Faso. As an example, there was one tenement we just missed out on where the successful company is now running an 11-rig drilling programme.?
Mt Isa Metals in Burkina Faso is a work in progress, but for the geologically minded there are a number of photographs in the company?s most recent presentations, available here, which illustrate why the country is so highly rated in the gold industry. They show surface outcropping quartz veins of a metre and more assaying up to 22 grams per tonne. And there?s nothing like that left in the soil-covered Australian outback, or in many other parts of the world.
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- met has too many tenements :-)
met has too many tenements :-)
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