Sound start at ForrestaniaPaul GarveyThursday, December 30,...

Sound start at Forrestania


Paul Garvey


Thursday, December 30, 2004
RANGE Resources' drilling campaign at its Forrestania project in Western Australia has started in ideal fashion, with the first hole of the 18 RC hole program returning 14m of sulphide mineralisation and boosting the junior's share price in the process.

Shares in Range jumped from 3.7c to 5.1c apiece on the back of the sulphide discovery announcement, representing a gain of almost 38%.

Range Resources geologist Mark Clifford has interpreted the intersection, which was garnered from between 202 and 216m down hole, as "potential nickel sulphide mineralisation".

Results from laboratory analysis of the intersection are expected to be available early in the New Year.

Range holds a cluster of tenements around the north of Western Areas' Forrestania landholding, which is home to several nickel resources including the high-grade soon-to-be-mined Flying Fox deposit.

Range recently refocused its efforts to concentrate on exploration projects at the Forrestania nickel belt and at Donnybrook in WA's south-west.

The result will be particularly satisfying for shareholders who participated in Range's non-renounceable rights issue last month, in which shares were offered at 1.5c each.

That rights issue, which was underwritten by Findlay and Co Stockbrokers, experienced a shortfall worth almost $470,000. Those shareholders who participated in the issue have now gained a paper return of 240% on their investment.

The 18-hole program will wrap up in January.