Decided to start this since the above seems to have had a great start this year and have the potencial to outperform the other sectors. All your inputs and reserch is always welcome. Here are my speculative picks.

African Diamonds (AFD)
Jubilee Platinum (JLP)
African Eagle (AFE)
African Gold (AFG)
Caledon Resources (CDN)
Minco (MIO)
Mano River (MANA)
Eurasia (EUA)
Brazilian Diamonds (BDY)
Petrel Resources (PET)
Emerald Energy (ENN)

Thanks Buckets for your input, lets hope so, I hold some shares already... and making 25% so far. there was the bad news of goldfield but there are other drilling result coming out in 3 weeks which will I fell the price will be pushed up.

I quite like the Mano River and Petrel due to high volatility, the pricey comodities they searching. If they strike lucky the shares will sore. Also Caledon Resources because it is darling China...

Does anyone know if any UK mining exploration have copper projects in the East or any oil exploration have or pursuing interests in oil from Libya?

You missed AFD right next to Mano and already showing good results

hi exmortal..are you related to ex dividend? yep got some AFE LAST WED
and doing well pitty i missed out on diamonds they may have further to go
miners seem to be in fashion ,ie anything gold,diamond related in the coming
downturn predicted for the index in weekend paper note tom winnefred
got these stocks into his private peps and was recc on tips1 sheet letd hope
it continues...martynz

Sorry Janus.. have added it. I missed this share I remember tracking it together with African Gold, unfortunately miss the opp to jump in when it was 4p few months ago. I am waiting for either of those to show a dip so I can jump in.

Martinz, ex dividend? dont understand your question. I feel most of the above shares will at least increase another 20% in the next month, the momentum is there. Anyway does anyone know if any UK mining exploration also searches for other precios gems? like EMERALDS OR RUBIES? They are also on the increase.

I would add Kenmare Resources to your watch list above as I believe they will advance pretty well this year assuming their facilities construction gets under way on time.
best of luck. snakey

Xmortal,

I would definately add Firestone Diamonds to that list.

They already produce diamonds, unlike most above, and also ahve two terrific projects in Mopipi, Botswana, and Groen River, S. Africa, and their JC mine at Bonte Koe is due to open very soon!

Throughout the recent frenzy FDI have hardly moved, and that must surely change before long?

I hold and am planning to add.


I also feel Mano River will continue to rise, and I hold those too!

I really don't know how much further AFD can rise, but feel some have already taken profits, and are looking where else they can place their funds for a similar ride, IMHO.

I feel there will be some massive profit taking this week for AFD. Mano River is in my wish list, need to see a dip b4 I get in. It has gold and diamonds projects. Dont like the countries they are working on though too much strife. But I guess with this kind of shares one needs to take the approach of: better to travel than to arrive!!

You could have a look at HIF as well, been lots of buying over the last few weeks awaiting drilling results. Anglo pacific have bought 5 mill shares. Paul Curtis also bought 400k last month
I have a few

Griffin Mining another to add to your list

xmortal,

Have you see Mano River today?

I did feel they would go after all the attention AFD has received recently, and I'm sure that Firestone will go soon too, as they have very good prospects down in teh Groen River, and the Mopipi exploration in Botsana continues, with prospects of a JV being announced.

http://www.firestonediamonds.com/

Will update the gains later. Will defo buy some mano river as I think the momentum is there. Firediamonds are Petrel are also on my wish list.

Hello:

Petrel Resources (PET) down 16.67% I think it will bounce back maybe 10% tomorrow or wednesday. I think this share has a high response to news and reading www.oilbarrel.com the first news about the tenders will be around the 1 week of March so it could be a good build up prior to the news. Also the other two tenders will follow suit. Very high risk, more so than some of the mining stocks here. I rather travel than to arrive to the news in this case

African Diamonds (AFD) Down 7.48% Profit taking and needs consolidation. To me it is overvalued. I feel it will drop more and wednesday.

African Gold (AFG) Good gains again 9.80% up. Not sure what will be the performance of this tomorrow. There is momentum though as gold keeps going up and dollar down. Need to see a dip in order to get in.

African Eagle (AFE) Second day of good gains after the not so good news regarding Gold Fields. Theres gold in Miyabi and very likely to be more at its Eagle Eye prospect. I feel the price will take a rest before assulting again prior to the news on the Eagle Eye result. Conservative target in 3 weeks 35p.

Mano River (MANA) The best of all. 14.78% up. At some point it today reached more than 23% Represents a good buy for most who missed out on AFD rally. its price path almost followed AFD as the day progressed. Again I can't really tell if it will go up tomorrow.

Emerald Energy (ENN) A new non excutive director was appointed, He has a good record; worked for many including International Power. This share is a penny stock and has the potential to go more than 500% by the end of the year IMHO.

Do you have any news or inputs??? bring them on then!!!

Good evening all. Lets prey it is a good day for all our mining and oil stocks for 2004!! DYOR please.

A picture to go with XM's MANA and MIO comment above. Two of my liveliest holdings this month.

MANA

MIO


In these first 40 days of 2004, MANA is already up 146%, while MIO has trebled. News is reportedly expected soon from MANA - possibly during this week's huge international mining convention in Cape Town. Shares nms is 1000, but usually available in lots of 25,000 and quite a few punters allegedly switching into it from AFD today.

http://www.mbendi.co.za/iic/events/indaba2004/index.htm


Click for full INDABA 2004 Conference Programme

African Diamonds and Mano River Poised for Growth
argues Charles Wyatt of www.minesite.com

Most of 2003's winners in London's junior mining sector were mine development stories, but 2004 looks like being different. The sector is now at an interesting stage with lots to go for. Now, for the first time in nearly a decade, investors are anticipating drilling results, and for those few companies which actually know how to direct these drills, the rewards may be very large indeed. But, as always, there is scope for the lucky adventurer to make good and that, fundamentally, is why mining investment is so fascinating.

African Diamonds

One company that has come a long way in a short time is African Diamonds. This company listed on AIM last summer at 7p with interest focused on the drilling due to be carried out on its Serowe licence in Botswana in a search for alluvial diamonds. This licence is some 100 kilometres south east of De Beers' prolific Orapa kimberlite diamond mine and is thought to cover ancient palaeo alluvial channels which drained this primary source. So far no alluvials have ever been found which could have originated from Orapa, but this is probably because the covering of Kalahari sediment is so thick. In the meantime the company has found some diamonds while drilling kimberlites on its Orapa project.

African Diamonds also has kimberlite Pipe 3 at Koidu in Sierra Leone.. This Pipe has now been dewatered and the kimberlite exposed at a depth of 30 feet . A ramp has been completed to give access to what is effectively a quarry and a 240 tonne/day dense media separation plant has been shipped up from South Africa. The idea is to take a 10,000 tonne bulk sample and, if warranted by the results , enlarge the plant and continue mining.

At the time of its AGM last month John Teeling, chairman of African Diamonds, predicted that the company would be producing gem quality diamonds within 8 weeks. He drew attention to the fact that the new DiamondWorks mine on Pipes 1 and 2, three kilometres away, is reporting outstanding grades of 67 carats per hundred tonnes, as well as finding gemstones weighing more than 25 carats. .He also forecast that production would commence on the 55 per cent owned joint venture at Kolo in Lesotho, in the 2nd quarter of this year. Initially a total of 30,000 tons will be mined, from which African Diamonds expects to recover 5,000 carats including some large stones. This too is expected to continue into full commercial production.

John Teeling concluded by saying that spectacular results were being obtained from the kimberlite dyke mapping and sampling programme in Sierra Leone Early stage analysis suggested grades of 1 carat per cubic metre and Mano River Resources is finding similar results on an adjacent licence.

Mano River Resources

In fact Mano River is a company well worth considering by investors if they feel that African Diamonds has soared far enough for the time being. In the time that the share price of African Diamonds has risen from 7p to over 50p, that of Mano River has advanced more sedately from 4p to 10.5p. It is exploring for world class gold and diamond deposits and already has close to one million ounces of gold in estimated resources, a cluster of diamondiferous kimberlites and a number of highly attractive early stage diamond and gold targets in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. There is now an increasing market recognition of the recent positive evolution in the regional, political and economic landscapes of these countries, and the rating of Mano River is starting to reflect this.

The company has recently been rewarded by the Ministry of Natural Resources for its loyalty to Sierra Leone with the award of a 9,700 sq km licence. This licence covers the whole of the south eastern quadrant of the country and is underlain by the ancient Archaean Man Craton, which is highly prospective for diamonds, gold and base metals. It extends from the world-renowned Kono Diamond Fields, where Mano already has licences, to the Liberian border. In the west of Liberia Mano discovered the first ever known diamond-bearing kimberlite pipes, now under Joint Venture with Trans Hex Group of South Africa. This is quite a track record and Mano is already discussing a possible joint venture over the new licence to include an airborne geophysical survey.

Tom Elder the CEO, was at Minesite's Forum on Tuesday and confirmed that the licence actually covers nearly 15 per cent of the whole of Sierra Leone and consists of highly prospective, under-explored, diamond bearing terrain. He has a good team and will make the most of this opportunity. Why diamonds, you may ask, when base and precious metal prices are performing so well? James Picton, one of the world's leading diamond analysts, is best qualified to answer this as he has devised a chart which shows that diamonds are outpacing gold in price and should continue to do so. He reckons that we are facing a decade during which production of rough diamonds will be insufficient to meet demand. Last year , according to Picton, rough prices rose by 20 per cent and he expects something similar in 2004. In such a situation there is bound to be investor interest in the most successful explorers and these are more likely to be in Africa than Canada or Australia.


Veteran mining writer, Charles Wyatt edits www.minesite.com the definitive source of information about small cap mining stocks. The site is free to register with and members gain access to regular forums where they can meet the men behind the stories.

Note: Botswana (where AFD is operating) announced a 7.5% devaluation of its currency before the weekend. Is this good or bad news for AFD?


PS: Xmortal - I too used to bracket all exploration companies together in my watchlists, as they do share common risks in respect of gambling on discoveries, etc. But if there is enough response to this thread it may be worth splitting the opening list into one for Oil & Gas, and another for Mining?, as separate sector classification/charts apply, and separate Investment Trusts. O&G being reported in 'energy' journals, and mining in 'minerals/mining' ones.

Personal view: Get your gold while it's still in the ground
By Jim Slater (Filed: 09/02/2004)


Investors who believe, as I do, that gold is in the early stages of a bull market have to decide whether to buy bullion or invest in gold mining shares. I recommend the latter because of the leverage.

The first example of the leverage is that the total market capitalisation of all the gold mining stocks is less than 0.5pc of the stock market capitalisation of all stocks. Investors would only need to re-allocate a tiny proportion of their assets to bullion and gold mining stocks to rocket-propel their prices far beyond previous highs.

A gold mine that produces gold at $200 an ounce offers relatively low leverage. With gold at $400 an ounce, on a rise to $450, profits would increase by 25pc against 11pc for bullion. With a rising gold price it would be much more rewarding, albeit potentially riskier, to invest in more marginal mines.

One that produces gold with a break-even point of $350 an ounce would be making $50 an ounce with gold at $400. An 11pc rise in the gold price would double the mine's profits. Junior mines usually have further development work to do before they begin to produce gold. Therefore their gold resources will not be classified as reserves and are likely to be described as inferred resources.

When buying the shares of first- and second-tier producing gold mines in America and Canada, investors pay an average of approximately $135 per ounce for their gold reserves in the ground. With a non-producing junior company investors pay an average of $45 an ounce for their resources.

In late 2002, when I co-founded the company that was recently reversed into Galahad Gold, the gold price was just over $300 an ounce and gold shares were very cheap.

We decided to buy as much gold and precious metals as possible and set a limit of less than $10 an ounce for gold in the ground. We managed to buy into two significant deposits at well below that level. Now that gold has risen by $100 an ounce and gold shares have had a good run, we have lifted our limit to $20 an ounce, which still provides excellent leverage.

To obtain the maximum leverage it clearly makes sense to buy gold in the ground as cheaply as possible. The cost per ounce is determined by dividing the fully diluted market capital (less any obviously surplus cash) by the number of ounces of gold in reserve and resource estimates. However, such a simplistic measure needs some additional protective criteria to help eliminate the wrong-uns.

The other protective criteria we bear in mind are:

1 The resources should be in a politically stable country. America, Canada and Australia come immediately to mind as the three main countries that qualify. In contrast, for example, in Russia, it can be very difficult to register a title properly, in South Africa black empowerment can be an issue and in Colombia you might be kidnapped.

2 The environmental position needs to be relatively straightforward. In California for example, the regulations are so onerous that the cost of production is usually prohibitive.

3 The resources must be calculated in accordance with the regulations of the country in question. In Canada, for example, National Instrument 43-101 outlines the criteria, which include economic viability.

4 The management must have either developed a deposit and sold it to a major or brought a mine into production.

5 The company must have the financial capability to raise further funds.

I recommend investors to try to identify (with the help of their brokers if necessary) gold mining companies whose gold resources can be invested in at less than $20 an ounce and also satisfy all of my protective criteria.

Many of the companies that make up the averages are not compliant with local regulations for calculating resources and are in unstable countries.

You can readily see, therefore, that the companies you select using my protective criteria should be better than average and this will provide a relatively safe ride to the $45 average level and a consequent doubling of your money.

As the mine is developed, there is a longer joyful journey towards the $135 average for first- and second-tier producing mines. There would be some equity dilution to raise funds to cover the equity portion of capital costs but frequently this is offset by substantial increases in resource estimates as the mine is developed.

I have over-simplified my approach. There are many other factors that complicate the position, such as other metals, for example copper, which may have to be mined in tandem to make the whole project economic. Sometimes a whole suite of metals might be involved. There are also questions of grade, metallurgy, working costs, capital costs and the time lag before production is likely to commence.

However, the key criterion of a low cost of gold per ounce strengthened by protective criteria is very simple and highly leveraged. Given a rising gold price, I am confident that, on balance, it will substantially outperform other ways of investing in junior gold shares.


Jim Slater is deputy chairman and financial director of Galahad Gold

Chickened out of MIO at 31.5p this morning.

Juzzle, thanks for your input very much appreciated. You are right in spliting the thread into Oil and Mining. There a lot of profit taking which is good anyway. Most shares listed here are almost down 10%.

Not very good day at all more most of mining stock. Only one of the oil stocks perform superbly.

Emerald Energy. It put a 21% up performance. I feel this will do nicely this year. Heres why some important people are now working for them.

Company Emerald Energy PLC
TIDM EEN
Headline Director Appointment
Released 15:17 9 Feb 2004
Number 1824V


EMERALD ENERGY PLC

9 FEBRUARY 2004



Emerald Energy (Emerald or the Company)



Director Appointment



Emerald Energy plc is pleased to announce the appointment of Keith Henry as a non-executive director of the Company with immediate effect.



Up until 1995 he was Chief Executive of Brown & Root Limited and from 1995 to 1999 he held the position of Chief Executive with National Power Plc. He was Chief Executive of Kvaerner Engineering and Construction Limited from 1999 to 2002. He currently is a non executive director of Petroleum Geo- Services ASA.



In addition to the above, he has held the following past directorships:

Davy Process Technology Limited

Davy Metals Limited

Enterprise Oil Limited

International Power plc

Electricity Association Limited



There is no further information to be disclosed under paragraphs 16.4(a) and 6.F
2 (b) to (g) of the UKLA Listing Rules.




Alastair Beardsall, Emeralds Chairman said:

I am extremely pleased Keith has joined the Companys board. He has a wealth of industry experience that will help Emerald to both formulate and implement its growth strategy for the future.



Enquiries: Alastair Beardsall - 020 7925 2440

This link is one I find useful to skim through for news -- mineweb

And infomine ain't bad either. Check out the 'companies' button and the 'countries' button in particular.

And this precious metals rolling newsfeed too.
Plus this specific oil newsfeed.
And this specific gas newsfeed.
Or this one for energy news in general.