COMPANY RELEASES Retail Star ready to relist on ASX Thursday , 10 Jul 2008
Shareholder Meeting To Approve Changes Transforming RSL Into Mineral Explorer
Promising Exploration Results From Projects In Malawi And Northern Territory
Red Rock Resources (AIM:RRR) says a relisting of its 24.2p.c. owned Retail Star Limited (ASX: RSL) - soon to be renamed Resource Star - is to be considered at a shareholder meeting next Monday in Australia, and in anticipation of this it has filed a Prospectus with ASIC in Australia.
Since Red Rock's initial involvement in May last year, RSL has seen a continued build up of management expertise and positive exploration results.
RSL shareholders meet on 14 July to approve plans to recapitalise and transform the company into a mineral explorer, mainly in uranium. The company is to raise up to $A2.5m through an entitlement issue and share placement as part of its relisting, with Red Rock underwriting $A1.1m of the issue.
At Machinga in Southern Malawi, where the company is planning 5,000m of reverse circulation drilling, RSL has completed a scintillometer survey at 200m line spacing over one 7km long radiometric anomaly. Whilst the main target is uranium mineralization, initial analysis of rock chip samples using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) has returned grades of up to 1.55p.c. niobium and 6.2p.c. zirconium. Since uranium was the main target, the samples were not collected with niobium and zirconium in view, and the company believes that detailed work could return high average values of these metals. RSL is now testing for tantalum and titanium as well as rare earth elements.
Meanwhile, exploration moves to the main Chinduzi radioactive anomaly at Machinga.
Mr. Andrew Bell, who chairs both Red Rock and RSL, commented today: "There are obvious comparisons with Globe's nearby Kanyika project, which appears to be proceeding, and we are extremely encouraged by the general level of grades for certain elements. We are advised that the model of Mt Weld in Western Australia may also be relevant, which is why testing is also taking place for rare earths. The prospect that we may have stumbled across a potentially economic deposit of something other than uranium is an exciting one, and we are also continuing the programmed uranium work at Chinduzi."
Meanwhile at Edith River in Australia's Northern Territory, the first phase of field reconnaissance prior to drilling in the Autumn is near to completion with 247 rock chip samples collected which show values of up to 1291 eppm uranium. This work extended beyond the ground covered by the old discoveries in the area, and Red Rock considers these results to be particularly good for a first pass programme.
"Our new discovery area adds significant additional potential outside the known areas of mineralisation, and the tenor of results is particularly promising, although this is early days", said Mr Bell.
"Overall, our associate RSL has made a very good start in both exploration programmes. We now await laboratory results and the start of drilling. Given the current delays in lab processing and that we thought the results significant, we felt we owed shareholders a progress report in the interim period. We have restructured the company to focus on the single objective of becoming a uranium producer, but if the results at Machinga start to show we may also have a commercial deposit of other valuable metals on our uranium tenements, we will not neglect the opportunity.
"Ian Scott, our MD and formerly chief geologist at Olympic Dam, is driving the exploration programmes along in a disciplined and methodical fashion, and we are confident we will continue to evidence good progress in future releases".
Further Information:
Andrew Bell, Chairman, Red Rock Resources plc Tel: 07766 474849
Ron Marshman/John Greenhalgh, Lothbury Financial Tel: 020-7011-9411
http://www.rrrplc.com/
SRT Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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