As copper becomes ever hotter property and the tantalising price of $3/lb heaves into view, at least for the optimistic among us, companies with their focus on the metal naturally become more interesting. A recent newcomer to the London market, Kalahari Minerals [AIM:KAH] can offer investors no less than three copper projects, with a uranium joint venture thrown in to add piquancy to the proposition.

Altogether, Kalahari can already boast an estimated 250,000 tonnes of copper in the ground across its Namibian ground, which makes it clear that the company has moved beyond exploration and into the pre-feasibility phase with its two key projects. The area in which the company is operating was explored preliminarily by other players back in the 1970s, and a sizable portion of the presently known resources originate from this spell, but failure by those then exploring to come across any very large targets plus a deteriorating political situation in Namibia brought proceedings to a halt.



Now that the copper market looks very different and the politics of Namibia have improved, Kalaharis ground is a lot more desirable. Indeed, the companys Chairman Mark Hohnen admits that it has been lucky to have been able to stake the areas it has, which essentially amount to a large slice of the Namibian section of the Kalahari copper belt, which has some geological similarities with the much storied Zambian copper belt.

Kalaharis first order of priority is the Dordabis project, within which it has homed in on a deposit known as Koperberg. Drilling here has identified oxide and sulphide zones of mineralisation and recorded some good intersections, the highlight of which has been 5 metres graded at 3.43% copper. A small scale pilot processing plant is already recovering copper cathode on site.

The Koperberg resource is still open, and an alluring possibility raised by Hohnen is that it could conform to the Olympic Dam geological model. That is, a massive body of IOCG (iron oxide copper gold) mineralisation with significant smatterings of uranium. It is too early to tell whether this is the case or not, but such a scenario is certainly something pleasant to dream of for Kalahari shareholders, and the company has allocated funds specifically towards testing this hypothesis.

Kalaharis second key project goes by the name of Witvlei, and hosts five known copper deposits along with a number of prospects. The next step for the company will be to try and expand the existing deposits and define resources at the prospects in order to come up with a total resource of a potentially economic size.

If this resource development programme comes up with the goods, Hohnen suggests that an attractive option for Kalahari at Witvlei may be the tried and tested development model of establishing initial cash flow from oxide material before moving on to trickier-to-process sulphides. The same development path could also be worth considering at Koperberg if the Olympic Dam model is not found to hold true there.

Kalaharis only grassroots stage project is Ubib, which has been is known to host copper gold mineralisation with a hint of uranium but needs appraising more thoroughly before much more than this can be said. The project is located some 15 kilometres from Anglo Gold Ashantis Navachab gold mine, which obviously auspicates well. Current work is centred on stream sampling to help identify prospective target zones for the application of more advanced exploration techniques.

The Husab uranium project, which is a joint venture with Extract Resources [ASX:EXT] structured to give Extract 51% and Kalahari the remainder, has surprised both companies. Hohnen says that little was thought of Husab until last year, when some great radiometric anomalies were turned up. The presence of uranium along with other metals has now been confirmed, and diamond drilling to test the deposit at depth begins in the next couple of weeks.

Husab is located right between the Rossing uranium mine, owned by Rio Tinto [LSE:RIO; NYSE:RTP], and the Langer Heinrich deposit, which is being developed by the uranium darling of the Australian market, Paladin Resources [ASX:PDN]. Extract has already gained significant recognition from its constituency of investors for Husab, and if drilling confirms the joint venture partners optimism, then the project could well help win Kalahari some fans in the London market, where uranium plays are not as numerous as they could be, and hence much in demand.

Investment Outlook

Kalahari has raised 6 million by way of its AIM listing, and intends to devote the largest portion of this sum to work at Dordabis. Therefore, this is the project that investors should be keeping their weather eye on. Significant progress down the road to feasibility is sure to add value to the company, other things, such as the copper market, being equal.

But in addition to Dordabis, there is scope for either or both of Witvlei and Ubib to shape up and grab investors attention. Husab already stands out, and with a high level of market interest in new uranium projects still apparent, it is a nice asset for Kalahari to have.

KB - avoid Pierchic .... very expensive even by Dubai standards and really not that exciting even at half the price ..... i believe there is a good Italian at Hilton, which I guess must be the one in the biz sector of town ..... restaurant at Waafi Mall also said to be good, but a long way to go for that ..... Persian restaurant at Mirage ued to be pretty good but have not been there for a few years .... Meat Co along Promenade at Al Qasr not bad ..... failing that, go self-catering and cook better and cheaper for yourself!

ok cynic, thanks. Much nicer chats we're having these days :-)

just to wet the appetite of KAH shareholders...

http://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/Companies/ByEvent/TradingTechniques/Inbrief/article/20090218/2ce2d82e-fd9e-11dd-ac57-00144f2af8e8/Rio-increases-stake-in-Kalahari-Minerals.jsp

EXT had a fantastic session in Oz last night, KAH looking very cheap now.

It does appear that KAH,NGR and EML are shinning out from the rest? Rumours
from our Aussie i/boards are that things are heating up with serveral companies hovering around, seems that EXT have put a min of au$7 at present $2.45,
so almost 200% above todays M/Cap. This is a rumour so should be treated as such,but i would not be surprised if talks of some sort are taking place?
aimho
cyril

any unsupported story from Oz, like the Philippines and similar, should be treated most circumspectly

A post today from a respected proactive author,

Mirabaud have this morning initiated coverage of KAH. They have an NAV for it of 122p and rate it "buy". Most of this is based on applying the multiple of US$5.76/lb from the Forsys sale to the current resources attributable to KAH of 53Mlb.

However, the also say: "The recent C$579m bid approach for Forsys Metals values its resource (289Mt @ 127ppm for 81Mlb U3O8) at US$5.76/lb U3O8. Crucially given the scale, grades and strategic proximity to Rio Tintos operations, we believe Extracts Rossing South deposit could have a significantly higher value in the region."

and:

"Importantly the Rossing South deposit offers substantial exploration upside. The current 108Mlb U3O8 Rossing resource is defined from drilling over 2.4km of the deposits 15km strike length with the expected 100Mlb increase due later this year defined from drilling over a further 2km of the deposits strike length."

and:

"We also highlight the acquisition of a 49% share in Arevas Trekkopje project in Namibia (to include the off-take of 50% of the mines uranium production) by China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation. We believe CGNPC may have paid
approximately US$750m for its holding in the recent acquisition. This sum would
equate to an in-ground valuation of around US$14.6/lb U3O8 resource at the project."

cyril

and if you start number crunching as to what the valuation could be if Rossing keeps churning out these test results then this is a multibagger, see ADVFN thread.

i should have added ADVFN into my post 115!

it's all too easy to keep hyping a stock on the basis of too much (biased) information ..... don't forget that this stock is already up about 70% in the last week .... at the very least, it needs time to recover its breath .... after that, then just maybe it will start moving ahead again, albeit against the tide

Its partner EXT again up a shedload in Oz last night on big volume in a falling market. KAH very undervalued at this price now, we may get a breakout today if it decides to play catch up. Could well be that a bid is finally emerging for EXT in Oz.

i'm a lazy shit, so please confirm that EXT and KAH are development partners in Rossing

cynic; The answer to that can be found on this thread. I find that question surprising, as in post 108, you will the info you require(also 110 is a must read) which was posted last week?
cyril

"yes" would have sufficed

Phew !!!....made it....! just escaped from an episode of "the Prisoner" in Bunny 's beer basement in my electric Portmeiron KAH (car)....should have a look....it's like alice in wonderland in there but keep the KAH engine running for a plucky escape if necessary !.

You can also goto page 2 (post 33), Proactive report. Proactive investors are a bunch of extremely competent armteur investors who take the trouble to pass on
their findings, always a worthy site to get up to speed.
cyril

thanks cyril .... i'll try to be a good boy (fat chance!) and at least review earlier posts


rf .... have you ever been to portmeiron?

cynic your language is deteriorating on the blnx thread now here--tut. tut! remember not everyone is in the boys club.

that's what comes of being a slumdog - lol!

lol.

No....never Cynic !....It's in Wales....hope my spelling is correct...it's where the cult series (17 episodes) "The Prisoner" was filmed...hope I'm right with the statistics !.

it's a strange place, with the stream that runs past the posh hotel, being somewhat fragrant!