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

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

it is 8.75p now...strong buy as gold findings is imminent

Look to go long of Gold

Suggests Zak Mir of Zaks-TA.com
Gold has been in recovery mode ever since our Prime Minister in waiting Gordon Brown jettisoned this country's remaining reserves just above the low point of the current cycle near $250. This was a great fundamental buy signal, But ever since then the price of gold has started to push to the upside. The best period for the metal so far was almost exactly a year ago when those gold bugs that had bought into the sector of the stock market which saw many of the small caps soar. But as is often the case with using the stock market as a proxy for an underlying commodity, the gearing in your favour is very often not as strong as the gearing against you. This meant that even when gold broke the initial highs of 2004 late in the year, gold stocks remained subdued.

And in some ways this was a correct response given the way that much of the reason for the spike in gold at the end of last year was only due to the decline in the dollar, with the metal being practically flat in terms of its value in euros.

But this does not necessarily mean that it is the end of the road for gold. The trading clichfor a bull market is to buy on dips and the decline from $450 certainly qualifies in this request. What can be seen on the hourly chart is the way that the 2004 support line runs through $420.Therefore any dips towards this zone should be regarded as buying opportunities. Given that we are currently only some $3 away from the 2004 support line, one could go long of gold with a stop loss of as little as $5 on an end of day close stop loss basis. Only a end of day close below $418 ends the buy dip scenario where we see a top of 2004 price channel target above last year's high as high as $470.

UK-Analyst

Article from todays IC. From the ADVFN board.
Oliver Baring, chairman of AFG another former J Teeling company was busy putting the final touches on a deal to merge AFG with a private South African outfit headed up by some heavyweight industry players. A deal should be formaly announced next week.

Interesting stuff. Hope for a prosperouse week, next week.

azhar
this was another of my stocks, i dont hold it now

There would be more upward movement with a merger in hand

akel44 why not? this is just the begining. These will be going places within 2 years.

I'm in it before they strike gold bigtime

Bizarre spread on this 7.5 bid and 9.0 offer, but when I topped up this afternoon I got 7.85 (and it was marked down as a sell). Seems daft because the advertised 16%+ spread must put off a lot of potential investors.