Project Plan : Producing Summer of 2006

Shares in Issue : 91.66 million

Main Web Site : http://www.vandiemanmines.com/ (Out of date and to be addressed)

VDM is break even on ONLY tin at 7000 US$ tin prices. Add in Sapphires and Gold on top of 7000 US$ and your making good money, add in a price above 7000 US$ for tin and your making serious money.

About Van Diemen Mines

Van Dieman Mines plc owns 13 exploration and retention licences in Tasmania and was admitted to Londons Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in November 2004.

The Scotia, Central Ringarooma and Great Northern Plains areas constitute a tin and gem based resource in excess of 100 million cubic meters. Further areas immediately adjoining the Great Northern Plains resource are estimated to contain in excess of 39 million cubic meters while offshore, extending into Bass Strait, a tin mineralisation zone of some 200 million cubic meters has been delineated.

These alluvial mineral resources encompass a number of discrete project areas. Some deposits such as Endurance and Pioneer which form part of the Central Ringarooma area are "stand alone" projects whilst others such as Scotia, Great Northern Plains and Offshore are linked together, such that they each form part of a major resource area.

The Van Dieman team has spent three years researching the Ringarooma project and Ambrian Partners estimate its break-even cost of producing tin alone at some US$7,800 per tonne BUT there are Sapphires and Gold as well as the tin (along with Zircon, Rutile and Tantalite) !!

Latest News :

5th Dec 2005 : "Mining Lease Granted" : Link Click Here

28th Dec 2005 : "Funding for Treatment/Clean-up Plants" : Link Click Here


Major Shareholders :

Markswift Limited 40.75%
Credit Suisse FCBN Ltd 10.73%
AXA S.A. 7.87%
Chase Nominees Limited 6.95%
The Bank of New York (Nominees) 5.27%
HSBC Global Custody Nominee (UK) 5.18%
Z Nominees Limited 3.74%
Nutraco Nominees Limited 3.60%

Other information :

Old article, good info, price of tin has rapidly moved up now, to well into the profit zone on tin alone for VDM !


30th Nov 2005 :

http://metalsplace.com/metalsnews/?a=3156

Celebrations this month of Van Dieman Mines' first anniversary on AIM were necessarily a fairly low-key affair. Not that are any problems mining at its Tasmanian tin and sapphire resource is on schedule to start next summer but setting up mining operations is not the most exciting of processes, and Van Dieman is hard at it, progressing through the task list. Nothing to hit the headlines or champagne here!

In a few weeks, however, that could change. Van Dieman Mines is right now doing the sums to see how best to fund the treatment plant for its Scotia and Endurance mines. If the best option is judged to be an equity issue, then it will be raising its profile. News on that front should be out within weeks.

Van Dieman has cash, around 2.3m at the end July interim stage, but this money is set aside for the mining operations themselves, especially necessary as it is starting mining at the Scotia and at Endurance mines simultaneously. The plan has always been for the treatment plant to be funded separately. As yet the final price for the plant has to be agreed, so the size of the funding requirement has yet to be revealed.

While the current softness of the tin price is not the best background against which to be going to the market, Van Diemans' CEO, Clive Trist, says his confidence comes from the majority of forecasts which are going for a recovery to a US$7,000-US$8,000/tonne range in 2006. Operational break-even from independent studies put the Van Dieman Mines' break-even at around US$7,040 a tonne of tin. That is quite a way from the current price of just over $6,000, but his hopes are for a rally before next summer. There were signs of better sentiment this week as the price crept up a little, but whether the market will produce enough recovery to be useful for that funding remains to be seen.

However, Van Dieman's strength is that it also has sapphires, plus heavy mineralisation that includes a small amount of gold. The gold will be separated out for sale to the US jewellery market.

The company's hand is further strengthened by the fact that it already has in place a six-year contract with Thailand Smelting and Refining for the purchase and smelting of its entire output of tin concentrates. The contract is based on the LME tin price at the time of the delivery of concentrate, and on the basis of the tin price and estimated production at the time of the September announcement was worth around US$60 million. Mine life is estimated at 15 years.

So, though Trist still has his sleeves rolled up, working through his in-tray, he is sounding pretty relaxed. He has also getting the company's operating headquarters up and running at a little village between the Scotia and Endurance mine sites. This comprises a ten-acre site, depot, tin clean-up shed and shipping facility.

Van Diemans owns overall thirteen exploration licences in the north east Tasmanian tin region, which has been a significant contributor to the overall production of tin and precious stones in Tasmania. Records up to 1980 show recovery of over 40,000 tonnes of tin. This stretches from the Blue Tier granite massif in the south to the north and northeast coasts and into offshore Bass Strait of Australia, a zone delineated to contain around 200 million cubic metres. Hopefully more information will be forthcoming on the sapphires in the coming months as the tin story does not stand up by itself until the price moves significantly.

The Daily Telegraph tipped it up in the 30's last year, although they were on the right track about good profits and early dividend, I think they did not research it properly enough, or they would have known about the clean up and treatment plant requirements, and also it was just initial sample start up.

Now is the time to buy I think, and the targets are for a very much higher SP when production commences !

Tin is well up from this article, Gold is up and Sapphires are up, all looking now to generate more profits for VDM, perhaps the new target should be 15 million revenue ??


http://tinyurl.com/r92lf

VDM July 2005

VDM has also made significant progress in procuring an ore-processing plant and has agreed to sell the tin concentrate it will produce to a London Metals Exchange trader. Tin production is expected to cover operating and capital costs of around 5.5m per year with the sapphires bringing total revenues to 10m per year. With the project nearing reality, now is the time to buy.

a very interesting prospect, Papel, but the list of major shareholders if still correct totals 84% not leaving much for ordinary shareholders and then if we to include yours too!

tipton it is correct as the latest list. From the big trades (including the X) today I think there is more institution interest.

Should be a good run for VDM now into production in the summer and onwards from there.

Old article, good info, price of tin has rapidly moved up now, to well into the profit zone on tin alone for VDM !


30th Nov 2005 :

http://metalsplace.com/metalsnews/?a=3156

Celebrations this month of Van Dieman Mines' first anniversary on AIM were necessarily a fairly low-key affair. Not that are any problems mining at its Tasmanian tin and sapphire resource is on schedule to start next summer but setting up mining operations is not the most exciting of processes, and Van Dieman is hard at it, progressing through the task list. Nothing to hit the headlines or champagne here!

In a few weeks, however, that could change. Van Dieman Mines is right now doing the sums to see how best to fund the treatment plant for its Scotia and Endurance mines. If the best option is judged to be an equity issue, then it will be raising its profile. News on that front should be out within weeks.

Van Dieman has cash, around 2.3m at the end July interim stage, but this money is set aside for the mining operations themselves, especially necessary as it is starting mining at the Scotia and at Endurance mines simultaneously. The plan has always been for the treatment plant to be funded separately. As yet the final price for the plant has to be agreed, so the size of the funding requirement has yet to be revealed.

While the current softness of the tin price is not the best background against which to be going to the market, Van Diemans' CEO, Clive Trist, says his confidence comes from the majority of forecasts which are going for a recovery to a US$7,000-US$8,000/tonne range in 2006. Operational break-even from independent studies put the Van Dieman Mines' break-even at around US$7,040 a tonne of tin. That is quite a way from the current price of just over $6,000, but his hopes are for a rally before next summer. There were signs of better sentiment this week as the price crept up a little, but whether the market will produce enough recovery to be useful for that funding remains to be seen.

However, Van Dieman's strength is that it also has sapphires, plus heavy mineralisation that includes a small amount of gold. The gold will be separated out for sale to the US jewellery market.

The company's hand is further strengthened by the fact that it already has in place a six-year contract with Thailand Smelting and Refining for the purchase and smelting of its entire output of tin concentrates. The contract is based on the LME tin price at the time of the delivery of concentrate, and on the basis of the tin price and estimated production at the time of the September announcement was worth around US$60 million. Mine life is estimated at 15 years.

So, though Trist still has his sleeves rolled up, working through his in-tray, he is sounding pretty relaxed. He has also getting the company's operating headquarters up and running at a little village between the Scotia and Endurance mine sites. This comprises a ten-acre site, depot, tin clean-up shed and shipping facility.

Van Diemans owns overall thirteen exploration licences in the north east Tasmanian tin region, which has been a significant contributor to the overall production of tin and precious stones in Tasmania. Records up to 1980 show recovery of over 40,000 tonnes of tin. This stretches from the Blue Tier granite massif in the south to the north and northeast coasts and into offshore Bass Strait of Australia, a zone delineated to contain around 200 million cubic metres. Hopefully more information will be forthcoming on the sapphires in the coming months as the tin story does not stand up by itself until the price moves significantly.

Bryan Green, MHA Tasmanain Minister for Infrastructure, Energy and Resources -

Sunday, 12 February 2006

The development of the Van Dieman Mines alluvial tin project in North-East Tasmania has taken another step forward. The Minister for Infrastructure, Energy and Resources, Bryan Green, said he intended to grant Van Dieman Mines retention licences over two areas - Monarch Flats and Pioneer - with a combined area of eight square kilometres near Pioneer.

Van Dieman previously held these areas as exploration licences and it has established that they contain alluvial tin and sapphire resources, Mr Green said. The company intends that alluvial mining on their nearby Endurance and Scotia mining licences will be in full production in the first half of this year. It considers the Monarch Flats and Pioneer areas as an integral part of the Van Dieman Mines Ringarooma Project of North-Eastern Tasmania, which consolidates all the potential alluvial tin resources in the region. This will allow exploration and production to proceed in a coherent manner and with subsequent economies of scale.

Van Dieman intends to concentrate initial mining at Endurance and Scotia to generate cash flow while still pursuing studies on the retention licence areas, at a cost of $100,000 for two years, to bring them up to mining standard, Mr Green said. It will phase in mining at Monarch Flats and Pioneer when the two-year mine life of Endurance has expired. It is pleasing to see that Van Dieman Mines is planning to invest in the North-East over a number of years.

The recovery of co-product sapphire for the first time should provide the new alluvial mining projects with greater economic robustness than the old operations that were mainly focused on the recovery of tin concentrates, Mr Green said.

Further information: Tasmanian Government Communications Unit - Phone: (03) 6233 6573

A post on AFN :


PapalPower - 3 May'06 - 06:18 - 14 of 14

nig, I have been watching VDM a lot, and always put off by the terrible PR, but I have forgiven Trist as he has been doing his job and not worrying about playing to the crowd, bit of an "old school" type, no need to hype, the finished product will do the talking, and so as it nears, I am adding more and more.

I think to be honest the Telegraph article July 05 was poorly researched, firstly they forgot the need to raise cash for the Treatment and Clean Up plants, and second and what I think is a big "boo - boo" is that they were too clever, when Trist was talking to the UK market said "summer start" they were too clever and thought Taz summer (South Hem) meaning Winter UK, when in fact Trist was talking about UK summer (North Hem) meaning Summer 06. Simple but silly mistake I think :) Never mind, the time is drawing near now....and lets see what Trist delivers, he has said he will be paying early divs from the profits.


nigthepig - 2 May'06 - 17:55 - 11 of 13
Good to see people back on the VDM board(s).
I've been hanging around, and topping up since I bought in after the Telegraph tip. Hopefully the waiting might pay off!!!!

As the available shares to punters is limited does this mean it will act like EKY and rocket everytime there is a large number of buys?

Techno, I do not think its that tight, however, its certainly presently more undervalued than EKY was !! :)

L2 now 2 v 1 @22/25

Summer production, Tin/Gold/Sapphire prices all up, will pay an early dividend. Very undervalued and forgotten if you ask me.

Back to 3 v 3 on L2 @20/25.

My target for production starting in the summer is the other side of 50p a share, one to accumulate I think ahead of events coming.

Strong and stready on VDM, a good thing about having no hot money or SB on them, on good news this should fly away :)

Results out today :)

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=200606140700295322E


........."Against this background, it is clear that the Company's share price performance has yet to reflect fully the positive impact of these developments. The Company's senior executive management have demonstrated great resourcefulness in the face of numerous operating challenges over the past year, and have brought the Company to the point where the start of production can now be anticipated with confidence in the latter part of 2006. This, together with solid market expectations for the Company's major products, augurs well for the generation of steady continued revenue once mining operations are under way."

Good news, and positive outlook, things should be picking up come Autumn for VDM :)

Extract from uk-analyst.com :

"............A strong full-year statement came from Van Dieman Mines which reported substantial progress. The group said it expected steady continued revenue once its mining operations get under way. The revelations came as a pre-tax loss of 604,601 pounds were recorded for the 12 months to December 31st. The group said it saw substantial progress on a number of fronts towards the goal of establishing successful mining and treatment operations on the company's tin and sapphire mining leases in north east Tasmania. However, it was Van Dieman's comments that its share price performance had yet to reflect fully the positive impact of these developments that helped shares 1.5p higher to 20p.................."

Good news today :)

http://www.investegate.co.uk/article.aspx?id=200607260700207047G

Van Dieman Mines plc
26 July 2006

26 July 2006

VAN DIEMAN MINES PLC

Positive response from US to sapphire and other gemstone samples

Van Dieman ('Van Dieman' or 'the Company'), the AIM listed mining company, which
is developing tin and sapphire mines in Tasmania, announces that the initial
samples of sapphire have been extremely well received in the USA. Quality has
proven to be excellent and a potentially lucrative market has been identified
for the spinel gemstone by-product.

Sapphire Evaluation

To date, some 6,000 carats of mine run sapphire has been shipped to the
Company's contracted laboratories in the USA for sorting, grading, cutting
and evaluation. By early August, sorting of remaining stockpiled material is
expected to yield a further 5,000 to 10,000 carats of mine run sapphire for
shipment to the USA.

Results from laboratory evaluation of small pilot plant parcels of
sapphire shipped earlier this year have confirmed the Company's expectations
regarding quality. Evaluation of the larger parcels that have been and are
being shipped is expected not only to confirm quality but also to provide
valuable information regarding yields and size distribution. This
information and samples produced from this programme are an essential
component in successfully marketing the sapphire to the major buyers in the
US jewellery market.

Following the successful pilot plant bulk sampling programmes at approved
sites on the Company's tenements at Weld, Wyniford and Frome Rivers approval
has now been secured for the pilot plant to undertake further bulk sampling
at Main Creek at Welborough and at a site on the Great Northern Plains
adjacent to its Scotia mining lease.

During the first half of this year, the Company's directors attended the
Tucson and Las Vegas gem shows in the USA. Feedback they received from
exhibitors, buyers and industry contacts confirms that the sapphire market
has polarised into two segments, namely beryllium-diffused sapphire and
natural sapphire (non heat treated and heat treated). An ongoing shortage of
natural sapphire which can be verified as fair trade, provenanced stone was
evident at these shows and is seen as supporting price stability for quality
stone. US Census Bureau statistics show imports of sapphire for 2005 rose by
6.7% and represented 23% of total gem imports.

These developments augur well for this segment of the Company's business as it
moves into production later this year.

New Product

The Company has received advice from its USA marketing partners regarding
samples of cut spinel that they have been showing to the US jewellery
industry. Responses received from the market indicates that the quality of
this material is excellent and that it will find a ready application in the
US as a jewellery substitute for 'black diamond'.

Produced as part of the Company's ongoing pilot plant programme, some
60,000 carats of mine run spinel have been sorted and shipped to the USA and
approximately 3,500 carats have been cut for sampling to the industry. Over
the next few weeks sorting of stockpiled material processed from the pilot
plant is expected to yield a further 10 kg of mine run spinel which will be
shipped to the USA for grading and cutting, generating a further 50,000
carats of cut material.

Until now spinel, which is present in sizeable quantities in the Scotia
and Endurance ore bodies, had been considered a waste product and of no
value.

While much remains to accurately quantify the market, initial indications of
demand and achievable pricing suggest cut spinel has the potential in the short
term to generate revenues in excess of US$1.5 million per annum for the Company.

ENQUIRIES:

VAN DIEMAN MINES plc Tel: +61 (0) 2 8908 5103
Clive Trist, Managing Director Email:
clive.trist@vandiemanmines.com

BANKSIDE CONSULTANTS Tel: +44 (0) 20 7367 8888
Michael Padley / Daniela Hale

Note:

Mine Run Sapphire - sapphires that have been extracted by the pilot plant.

Spinel - is a semi precious mineral, basically aluminum oxide with variable
amounts of magnesium, iron, nickel and chromium. For centuries, most gem spinels
were thought to be rubies or sapphires - a reasonable assumption, because both
spinel and corundum are found in the same deposits and have similar properties.



This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

And a nice write up on Proactive Investors (its free to register and free to read) :

http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/articles/article.asp?VDM

Few more delays :


Van Dieman Mines plc
27 February 2007

VAN DIEMAN MINES PLC

Progress with Permitting & Treatment Plants

Van Dieman Mines plc ('Van Dieman' or 'the Company'), the AIM-listed mining
company which is developing tin and sapphire mines in Tasmania, announces that,
following completion of the public exhibition process of its Development
Proposal & Environmental Management Plan (DPEMP) for the Scotia mine, there have been no representations from the public and that no issues were raised by the Dorset Council. Comments on the project were received from a number of State Government agencies and the Company has answered these in a supplement to the DPEMP which was lodged with the Department of Tourism, Arts and Environment (DTAE) on 6 February, 2007.

The Tasmanian Board of Environmental Management and Pollution Control will
consider the DPEMP at its monthly Board meeting and will advise the Company and
the Dorset Council of their decision.

Upon receipt of the Board of Environmental Management and Pollution Control
approval documents, the Dorset Council has indicated it is prepared to convene a special Council meeting to approve the Development Application for mining to commence.

The Board will continue to update shareholders as soon as any further
developments occur and hope to be in a position to provide a further update by
the end of March.

The Tin Shed Treatment Plant has been shipped from the USA and two of the four
containers have arrived in Australia with the balance due mid March. This plant
will now be assembled in the Tin Shed in readiness for commissioning. The Main
Treatment Plant is being held at the manufacturer's premises in the USA pending
permitting approval when it will be shipped direct to the Scotia mine site for
assembly and commissioning.

Clive Trist, Managing Director commented:

'We have been understandably disappointed by the additional delay to our project raised by the requirement to prepare a supplement to the DPEMP, particularly since the answers to most of the comments received from government agencies were contained in the original DPEMP document and its appendices. However, in the interests of moving forward with minimal delay, the Company and its consultants worked continuously through the Christmas /New Year period to prepare and lodge the Supplement at the beginning of February.'

'It is pleasing to see the arrival of the Tin Shed Treatment Plant, major items
of the earthmoving fleet, the fresh water and tailings piping for the main
treatment plant as part of the build up of plant and equipment in readiness for
the Scotia mine start up once permitting is finally granted.'

27 February, 2007

Seems to have turned around on a breakout now.

Must say, after all the delays, and its nearly 2008, they are in much better shape now, and so is the price of tin.

Tin at nearly all time highs...production soon ....stable country....sp might go higher here.....reminds me of GFM !

I have been doing some rough calculations here : I've come up with a valuation of 21 million for the company with 5.5 in the bank (some debt that will be paid off) and a turnover per year of 7.5 million in tin (Scotia)...production about to start, the Endurance mine coming into production later this year...2 other possible mines...a huge jorc resource at (Scotia)....and jorc updates coming for the other mines....Coming back to the debt...at a guess they will probably pay that off within 5 years if they carry on producing tin (700 tons) per year at $20000 a ton. If the price of tin remains above $20000 a ton : this company should be quids in (as so to speak)...and I have not put a calculation on the sapphires.....I reckon that if you took away the debt...you are looking at another possible Griffin Mining here !