As i am very pleased with the progress of Marenica,but not with the coverage of the media,i thought i had to do something there. So i wrote an article,which i sent to several mining/stock related websites in the hope that they will publish it,thus shining some light on Marenicas potential. It was already published at an English Forum named Stockopedia, where people were very helpful in editing it an correcting expressions which were not typically English.(Thanks to Dave) So here is the article and i will let you know if i am successful in getting it published at some of the websites.
Wantedman
Marenica Energy (ASX:MEY) opens a new chapter
Marenica Energy, an Australian uranium explorer, released a company update on Thursday, following significant corporate developments over the Christmas period and the receipt of encouraging new exploration data from its 80%-owned Marenica Uranium Project in Namibia, Southern Africa. [1] With the entry of Areva, the French nuclear giant, into its capital structure, the Company enters a new chapter in its development.
Marenica was formerly known as West Australian Metals. As this company had a change of management in the spring of 2009, earlier developments are of limited relevance for Marenica today. However, in the spring of 2009, Marenica was nearly broke. This was prevented by Batavia Mining who bought 30 million shares for $0.07 AUD each, giving Marenica $2.1 million AUD of cash. In June 2009, MEY raised another $9.9 million AUD through a placement which was taken up by POLO Resources (49.56 million shares at $0.12 AUD), Amber Petroleum, now AFNat Resources (20.65 million shares) and associates who acquired the remaining 12.39 million shares.
After this capital raising, Marenica Energy announced a drilling program for their Namibian Marenica project which they conducted in the summer and fall of 2009. This led to a resource upgrade for the paleochannels (secondary uranium) after they evaluated 39% of the drilling. They now have 38.6 Mlbs uranium at an average grade of ~ 150-160 ppm (up from 34 Mlbs at 140 ppm). The grade is not quite clear as they make a difference between indicated resources (170 ppm) and inferred resources (140 ppm) The final resource upgrade is due in January 2010 and is expected to lift the overall resource somewhere in the ~45-50 Mlbs category. More would be a pleasant surprise.
It is also expected that Marenica will be able to increase the average grades to ~ 180 ppm. In particular, the last drilling results with average grades of 196 ppm could prove to have a positive impact on the final upgrade. It should be noted that 94% of the total resource discovered up to date, are not deeper than 40 m below the surface with 80% being not deeper than 20m, which will reflect in the scoping study, due to be released in March/April.
MEY also had some drilling done at the Phillipus Dome, which were disappointing and some more at Springbok which are still pending but which are expected to be released shortly. The third, most southerly Dome hasn't seen drilling yet but was overflown late in 2009 to target promising drilling zones. In their latest announcement, Marenica stated that they identified 16 new exploration targets among them possible secondary uranium areas, which could have been flushed out from the third Dome. This has led to speculation that this Dome could be the source of Arevas Trekkopje.
On the corporate side, Marenica Energy was able to get its license extended by the Namibian Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) in the fall, ensuring security of tenure. As part of this, an MOU was signed with local company Millennium Minerals (Pty) LTD under the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) principles set out by the MME [2]
The most exciting recent development for MEY has been the entry of Areva, the world leader in the nuclear fuel cycle (from uranium mining, conversion and enrichment through to spent fuel re-processing and re-cycling). The French giant is the owner of the Trekkopje project, for which they paid ~ 18 USD/lbs in the summer of 2007. The Trekkopje deposit is a shallow, high-tonnage, low-grade uranium deposit hosted by calcretised palaeo-channels. Full production at Trekkopje is anticipated to commence in 2011 with a forecast initial mine life of 12 years
Trekkopje is located just 30 km from Marenica whose ore is of the same nature as Arevas at Trekkopje, so there should be synergies if Areva were to acquire the Australian company. The French company has already built a processing plant for $1.4 billion USD as well as a desalination plant for their Trekkopje Mine, which is due for commissioning in 2011. The grades of Trekkopje had an average of only 128 ppm, so Marenicas ore might help to increase efficiency there.
On the 23rd of December, Areva swapped their Berkeley shares for nearly all of Polos Marenica shares. Polo kept its options though, which are exercisable at $0.25 AUD (expiry date in the summer of 2011) along with 2 Mio shares. So Areva now has a 10.6 % stake in Marenica (47.56 million shares) for which they paid a 75% premium to Polo at the time of the deal (= $0.184 AUD/share),making them the largest shareholder. As Areva is not known to be an investment company, there is speculation about a possible future takeover.
The share price has performed poorly from the 2009 height of $0.245 AUD (after the entry of Polo in the summer) but saw a nice jump after Areva announced its entry. Volumes have increased considerably since then, but there still is some selling pressure. The top 20 shareholders own 74% of the company. Marenica is currently valued well below $2 USD/lbs.
The next key event for Marenica should be the Springbok results and the final resource upgrade for the paleochannels, expected before the end of this month.
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