I don't believe that the mentioned "African Gold Zimbabwe" is AFG, but the article does demonstrate rapid resurgence of E&P in Zimbabwe:

Mining Giants Plan Massive Diamond Prospecting

The Herald (Harare)

January 22, 2004
Posted to the web January 22, 2004

Harare

MINING giants, De Beers Zimbabwe Prospecting Limited and Circle Three Mining Corporation are proposing a massive diamond prospecting project that will see the two companies prospecting for the mineral in Gweru, Harare, Bulawayo and Kadoma mining districts.

The two mining companies intend to prospect for diamond in areas covering a total of 448 180 hectares.


Another company, African Gold Zimbabwe, has also undertaken to prospect for gold on two areas measuring 120 550 hectares within the Harare and Gweru mining districts.

De Beers Zimbabwe Prospecting Limited, Circle Three Mining Corporation and African Gold Zimbabwe have applied to the Mining Affairs Board for an exclusive prospecting order for 12 areas under the four mining districts.

In the latest issue of the Government gazette, the Mining Affairs Board said De Beers, Circle Three Mining and African Gold Zimbabwe intend to prospect for diamonds and gold over an area of approximately 568 730 hectares from the three areas.

"The applicants intend to prospect for diamond within the areas, which have been reserved against prospecting pending determination of this application.

"Prospecting authority is sought upon registered base mineral blocks within the reservation," read part of the notice.

One of the two diamond prospecting projects to be undertaken by Circle Three Mining measures 65 000 hectares and is bounded by a line commencing on the Zimbabwe-Zambia border approximating five kilometres.

All areas, which have been earmarked for prospecting are within the 15 000 hectares and 65 000 hectares range and are mostly in the traditional mineral bearing areas of the country.

The proposal to prospect for diamond in the country comes at a time when the US$41 million Murowa Diamond Mine has started to operate following the successful relocation of 141 families which were on the mining site.

Mining is one of the sectors which has been depressed over the last five years but some of the players in the industry have said investors should look at non-traditional minerals.

An example that is often given is that of platinum, which is fast becoming the world's most lucrative mineral.

The mining of diamond in Zimbabwe is also fast gaining pace and it is expected that some of the mining projects would create a lot of employment.

Relevant Links

Southern Africa
Mining
Zimbabwe

the sampling has been carried out inhouse, could the misleading/biased. BE WARNED - under investigation????

poes
are u saying the results are under investigation or u think they should be investigated.
Please respond as u do suggest that u know something that is not generaly known.
Of course u could just be sowing doubts.

Todays Investor Chronicle -

3 December 2004

AFRICAN GOLD (AFG)

'My word is my bond' is an age-old stock market phrase but, nowadays, it can clearly be misinterpreted. Back in December 2003, African Gold raised 400,000 via the issue of 40m shares at 1p, with warrants. A number of new directors came on board, led by Oliver Baring and Hank Slack, both of whom have held senior positions at Anglo American. A number of other investors joined in, too, and, in less than two months, the share price soared to more than 14p.

However, over the following six months, the share price fell almost as quickly to a low of 4p. Why was this? The answer is that some of the new investors (but not the new directors) seem to have misinterpreted verbal instructions not to sell early and, to date, have sold almost 23m shares - and are still selling.

But the worst may be over for the share price. The new board has been quick to change direction. Instead of focusing on one gold mine in Zimbabwe, the company now has four gold properties in Ghana on the Ashanti Gold Belt. The top drilling priority there is Konongo, where all the first 14 200-metre holes drilled have produced commercial gold grades.

Best news of all is that the big investor behind a recent 1.4m private placing at 5p is gold bug Merrill Lynch. It invested more than 1m for an 8 per cent stake. The money is necessary because African Gold is currently spending more than $400,000 a month on exploration work in Ghana - and employing 50 staff in the process. Slightly better economic conditions in Zimbabwe - annual inflation is down from over 300 per cent to around 200 per cent - has also encouraged the company to refurbish plant at its Inez mine there. Up until now, the mine has been on a care-and-maintenance basis. African Gold has also been awarded a further 10 exploration licences in Zimbabwe.

Why Gold Stocks?
They Provide the Biggest Bang for your Buck.

During a gold bull market, I have a strong preference for gold stocks over either gold bullion or gold coins, largely because gold shares are leveraged to the price of gold. In other words, as the price of gold rises, profits of gold-mining stocks rise more in percentage terms. Generally, over the longer term, the share prices of major gold-mining firms rise by a factor of two or three times more than the price of gold.

The reason gold-mining profits are leveraged to the price of gold is obvious. A rising gold price does not lead to a rising cost of production. Therefore, for companies that are already profitable, incremental revenues received from selling gold at a higher price flow straight to the company's pre-tax bottom line. For companies that are unprofitable, a rise in the gold price can suddenly lift them into profitability and with that, the share prices can sometimes rise dramatically.

Successful junior gold-mining companies, or those companies that are not yet in production, frequently rise by a factor of 5 to 10 times more than the price of gold. Not only does a rising gold price make the gold in the ground more valuable, but junior gold-mining firms frequently make gold discoveries that raise the intrinsic per share value very dramatically, compared to what a discovery of similar size would do for a senior mining firm. For example, if a major mining firm with 100 million ounces and 200 million shares of stock outstanding discovered a million-ounce gold deposit, it would have increased its reserves by just 1% and added 0.005 oz. gold/share. On the other hand, if a junior gold-mining firm with 20 million shares outstanding and just 200,000 ounces of reserves made that same one-million-ounce gold discovery, it would have increased its reserves by 400% and the gold equity in the ground would have risen from 0.01 oz. gold per share to 0.06 oz. gold/share. Therefore, in a secular gold bull market, I am partial to gold shares, but even more so toward junior gold-mining shares.

Another reason I favor gold shares is that while gold bullion itself was made illegal to own during the 1930s, gold shares were not. We hope our government will never make the same foolish decision to make gold ownership illegal again. But if they do, there is a precedent for believing gold shares may not be affected.

... (Advertising material)

Rumours on ADVFN that AFG are in merger talks.

As per AFG website:


Company Profile

AIM - Company incorporated in 1988 with 3000 shareholders
Nov 2003: Efforts to re-focus the company away from Zimbabwe
Private Placement resulting in O. Baring, J. Anderson, H. Slack join the board
Acquisition of Ghana Gold Properties - Jan 04 - May 04.
Acquisitions Completed May 26 2004
Significant acquisition / merger under discussion.
285 m shares in issue, market cap 17m @ 6p.

Impressive rise today

Very good

African Gold posted a widening interim loss today, but shares in the exploration group still rose 1.258p to 8p on a confident outlook. In the 6 months to September 30th, the company posted a loss of 222,000 compared with a loss of 72,000 in the same period last year. The group recently raised 1.4 million to carry on its exploration and it said the business had developed rapidly with significant progress in Ghana at its four projects on the Ashanti Gold Belt. There have also been interesting opportunities to work with other mining groups in Africa, it added. In the coming year the company will evaluate which of these options will best enable us to pursue its strategy of developing African Gold into a broadly-based African natural resources business with both exploration and production assets.

How will the news just released regarding the admission of shares affect the SP,

Any views????

Date: January 13, 2005

African Gold Set To Beat Its Original Target Of Becoming A Major African Gold Explorer In Three Years.

Life for African Gold, as we know it, commenced at the end of 2003 when a group of investors put 400,000 into the company and the board of directors was realigned. Hitherto the company had shrunk to almost microscopic size though the well known Dublin entrepreneur John Teeling managed to keep it alive with a single asset - the Inez mine in Zimbabwe. In the six months to end September 2003 this mine lost 6,000, but since then it has been refurbished and additional resources have been proven up at depth. It will never be a company maker and the new team has switched the focus very much onto West Africa, and in particular on Ghana.

The first acquisition took place in May and it was then that Oliver Baring moved up to being executive chairman joint with Dr Teeling. At that time the other directors were Hank Slack and John Anderson who had arrived with Baring, David Horgan, who is a long time cohort of John Teelings, and Joe Donohue who was a founder of African Gold. In the last month or so Donohue has retired and Guy Young has joined the board as a non- executive director. He is another who has spent a major portion of his career with Anglo American and has vast expertise in the mining business. According to Oliver Baring he will play a key role in the continuing broadening of African Golds investor base and the development of its management team. Baring, of course , spent time with the Anglo American/De Beers group before returning to merchant banking and Hank Slack was a main board director of Anglo American from 1981 to 1999 and chief executive of Minorco from 1991 to 1999.

There is not much the new board does not know about mining, or about raising finance for that matter. John Anderson is director in charge of natural resource and emerging market investments at JO Hambro Investment management and has been involved in mining markets, particularly those of Africa and Australia, for 35 years. And the new board is now in control and can move ahead on all fronts. The first deals have all been in Ghana starting in May with the 70 per cent interest in three mining licences in the Konongo/Owere district on the northeast portion of the Ashanti gold belt. The fully permitted 125 sq kms mining lease covers 20 per cent of the strike length of this prolific gold belt. Metallurgy is good and mine infrastructure including roads, buildings, and water supply is excellent. There is a CIL processing plant on site.

These licences host a resource of 950,000 ozs gold at an average grade of 2.3 g/t and the sulphide ore bodies are very similar to the mineralisation at Ashantis huge and high grade Obuasi mine which has been the backbone of the company for many years. Not too many gold exploration companies kick off life with the acquisition of a million ounce resource, plus a plant, plus an adjacent prospecting licence containing a number of exploration targets. More recently African Gold also acquired the Banka mining lease, south of Konongo, and also on the Ashanti gold belt, where recent exploration had defined a wide zone of Banket conglomerate now thought to be over 8 kms long. The geology is well known and trenching has confirmed commercial gold grades across these zones of mineralization which are 25 metres wide in places.

The latest news from the Konongo/Owere gold exploration programme is very encouraging. 38 drill holes have been completed and the 21 that have been assayed all contain commercial grade gold mineralisation. One hole intersected 12 metres at 10.9 g/t gold and another 16 metres at 12.06 g/t and this drilling is focused on only one of the nine ore bodies that have been identified so far. Further drilling and trenching is planned over the coming months and there seems little doubt that proven / probable reserve greater than 1 million ounces will be outlined during this year. If this proves to be the case it should prove relatively cheap for the company to establish a mine producing 75,000 to 100,000 ozs of gold/year within a couple of years.

This is certainly not the limit of the new boards ambitions. Banka could also become a mine, though it is early days yet, and limited work has yet been undertaken on two other properties - Ahanta and Akrokeri - which will be evaluated this year. The company has also hinted that it could be discussing a merger with a private African mining group. Oliver Baring is pretty tight lipped about this at the moment, but if it materialises the impact on African Gold could be major. It would enable him to claim that the company had been transformed from a minnow into a major African gold explorer, with production on the horizon, in much less than the three year time frame originally set

Shares magazine has given a favourable article this week on African Gold.

can u post it here hlyeo..

Best volume day for months 9,837,297 shares traded
4,245,365 buy
2,000,000 buy
1,000,000 buy
250,000 buy
250,000 buy
RNS must be close perhaps tomorrow.

Greetings John50.

I was intrigued by the volume aswell.

But what makes you think that the big trades were Buys?

Cheers
Amar (Tad Holder)

Amar

I think it is safe to assume they were purchases. Selling on this sort of volume would invariably depress the share price.

The orders would have been filled threw the day when the bid was at 7.50 and offer at 8.00.

Thanks for your responses.

Tempted to take the plunge...

Cheers
Amar

This is one to buy as once it finds gold, it will be a shooting star.

More funny price movements this morning.....

Is something afoot.

Regards
Amar