must read....

MC Camma's already posted the link - but it's worth its own thread with the full article -
Might explain some of the good moves starting to happen.
Should be a great performer through the year imo...
From little things, big things grow

June 12, 2007

IF a tree falls and no one is around to hear it fall, does it make a sound?
Similarly, if an Australian miner lists on the Alternative Investment Market and goes on to become a $660 million heavyweight, does anyone sit up and take notice?

It is less than two years since International Ferro Metals listed on the AIM in September 30 2005 after raising 99 million pounds.

The integrated ferro chrome producer is now worth a cool 284 million pounds and now has made moves to join the main list on the London Stock Exchange.

It would prove another triumph for IFM's board, in particular its founder Stephen Turner and chairman Tony Grey, he of Pancontinental Mining fame.

Currently worth about 107 pence, UK stockbroker Numis said the stock could be worth up to 287p each given the continued Chinese demand for stainless steels.

Now one of the promoters behind IFM, Alan Doyle, is looking to replicate some of that success with Great Australian Resources where he sits on the board as a non-executive director.

Like IFM, Great Australian is very focused on opportunities in South Africa and even claims its Morokweng project has the potential to host a world-class ore body similarly to the mighty Sudbury nickel province - a region which yields about 30 per cent of annual global nickel production.

It says Morokweng, 425 kilometres west of Johannesburg, came into life when a slow moving metal asteroid smashed into the earth to create a nickel/platinum resources.

Great Australian's share price started to take off around late April on increased volumes on what was really an absence of news.

The company is burning cash at a rate of about $300,000 a quarter, mostly on exploration expenditure which is a good sign.

There is still about $500,000 cash in the bank.

But for the year-to-date, the shares have appreciated nearly 80 per cent, far outpacing the rise on the bourse and giving Great Australian a market cap of a tick over $20 million.

So is Great Australian on the verge of emulating the success of IFM?

The answer to that lies within its Mooiplats project on the north-eastern limb of the Bushveld Complex in South Africa, and also with Morokweng.

According to its latest quarterly update, platinum values at Mooiplats are “extremely encouraging” and that a JORC resource could only be a matter of months.

Some drill intercepts at Mooiplats include 1.68, at 5.82 grams per tonne of platinum and 1.15m at 7.73gpt.

“Based on the continuity of the drill results to date, the company does not anticipate the requirement for an extensive amount of drilling to reach a JORC-compliant resource,” company managing director Joe Cornelius said.

At Morokweng, where Great Australian has the right to acquire 74 per cent of the project, initial tests have returned some results grading up to 27 per cent nickel over a 70cm intercept.

But current tenement holders have only drilled four holes at Morokweng.

So there is a long way before Great Australian can taste even a modicum of success that IFM has, but there is something to be gained out of recognising opportunities in South Africa overlooked by the bigger players.

[email protected]