Member Info for Strangerstill

A final point worthy of note is the transfer of £7.2m from the Capital Reduction Reserve to boost Retained Earnings, and

facilitate dividend payments in future years.

I sent an email to Central Asia Metals re Ariana as a potential partner. CAML is a copper, lead and zinc miner and are currently building up a war chest to invest in a mine at the development stage. I pointed out to CAML that Ariana has some interesting developments, especially copper/gold in Cyprus and was pleasantly surprised to get the following response the next day.

Hi Anthony,

Thanks for the email. We are aware of Ariana Resources and look at many BD opportunities, particularly those in our commodities and geographies.

Thanks for thinking of us.

Kind regards, Louise

Wonders never cease.

I sent an email to Central Asia Metals re Ariana as a potential partner. CAML is a copper, lead and zinc miner and are currently building up a war chest to invest in a mine at the development stage .I pointed out to CAML that Ariana has some interesting developments, especially copper/gold in Cyprus and was pleasantly surprised to get the following response the next day.

Hi Anthony,

Thanks for the email. We are aware of Ariana Resources and look at many BD opportunities, particularly those in our commodities and geographies.

Thanks for thinking of us.

Kind regards, Louise

Wonders never cease.

Mu guess is that CAML are holding back cash to invest in another operation. Their business development activities in 2022 consisted of 40 opportunities (evaluated), 17 NDAs (signed) and 2 site visits. If they can find another SASA then I will be a happy shareholder.

Any day spent in the Lakes cannot be all bad.

Apliki

What has happened to Apliki?
It looks like Venus has let the agreement for Apliki lapse. Is this the reason why Ariana have announced today that they are taking a majority shareholding so that they can exert more control over Venus?

Tavsan

I really don’t think that Ariana, Zenit, Ozaltin or Proccea can be blamed for the legal challenge to Tavsan. Legal challenges are the norm these days for any proposed new mine.

I am invested in Savannah Resources which had a ruling by Portugal's environmental regulator, Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente ('APA') that the EIA evaluation process should now continue under Article 16 of Decree-Law No. 151-B/2013, amended and republished by the Decree-law 152-B/2017 of 11 December ('Article 16') which has delayed it for at least 6 months.

I am invested in Rio Tinto which had its exploration licences for Lithium mining revoked in Serbia following local protests.

I am invested in Lithium Americas which had its Thacker Pass mine delayed by 18 months because of a legal challenge by environmentalists (who seriously believe that we should go back to horses and carts).

It is what it is, and we only hope that Zenit gets a positive ruling and that this does not take too long.

And the answer is not too bad, I have had better and much worse.

I bought most of my shares in 2018, but have topped up since.
I hold 3,810,294 shares.
They have cost me £79,008 and are now worth (07/03/23) £102,230 making a capital gain of £23,222 (+29.4%)
I have had dividends of £24,160 which is a return on the original investment of +30.6%.
So on average my capital return has been 5.88% and my dividend return has been 6.12% over the five years.

A lot of people are criticising KS for not being based in Turkey and spending a large proportion of time in Australia. Let’s face it, Ariana is not the company long term investors invested in several years ago, Ariana was a gold prospector with a controlling interest in a gold mine, now it is a prospecting company with a global strategy and a minority interest in a Turkish based JV that has a producing gold mine, a gold mine in development and has the rights to a relatively large gold/silver/copper ore body. Ariana is now a spectator to the operations in Turkey and has no control over the events there. This is something that has to be sorted out by Zenit and Ozaltin (who have a controlling interest in Zenit). It really makes no difference where KS is based.

I am hopeful that the legal action is a hiccup, although a very annoying one, and that as Zenit’s was issued an EIA Positive Decision Certificate for the Project dated 8 October 2021 this should be upheld unless Zenit acted in bad faith or has not complied with the EIA. A positive note is that Ozaltin is a large Turkish company that has undertaken several large public sector projects and should have good contacts with the government bodies concerned.

Let’s hope for a speedy and successful conclusion to the legal challenge.

This court has a previous history of such decisions.
This appears to be a reaction to the earthquake in southern Turkey.
https://m.bianet.org/english/print/215447-court-cancels-environmental-impact-assessment-report-for-gold-mine-in-murat-mountain

Top up of 86,895 at 2.96 with the intention of selling when the shares get back to 3.5 (whenever that is).

The fact that George Santos is a Republican Congressman and the Republican party have welcomed him with open arms (because they have a very small majority in the House) really shows just what the Republican party is all about; that is lying and cheating and not giving a damn about the effect of their actions on the American people.

The threat to oppose raising the debt ceiling for the USA risking a default by the USA is just typical of Republican madness. Opposing the debt ceiling will open the possibility of the USA not being able to service its debt resulting in higher interest rates for the USA.

Back in 2011, when the Republican party was intoxicated with the Tea Party, McCarthy was the House majority whip – the third in command – as they thought the unthinkable about defaulting on Treasury debt.

After months of pointless crisis, the Republicans caved and ended up with a package of budget cuts that were vastly outweighed by the billions of dollars in extra costs incurred by the crisis itself. According to the Government Accountability Office, the debt ceiling fiasco cost Treasury an extra $1.3bn in just one year, and billions more in higher borrowing costs for years to come.

It would be best for the USA if the Republicans worked with the Democrats on areas of agreement where they could help the USA economy. Interest rates might fall quicker and the price of gold might go up sooner.

I think it is about time that this share chat should concentrate on some sensible discussion about Ariana and not be used to air contentious political arguments.

Excellent analysis, thanks.

There have been several comments about the viability of Salinbas due to the fact that the terrain is relatively steep. The geological maps for Salinbas produced by Ariana show that the mineralisation runs parallel with the slope and will be accessed using open cast mining.

https://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/5394U_1-2020-7-29.pdf

There has been some suggestion that Salinbas will not be economic in which case Ariana got a very good price. I believe that Salinbas will be economic at current gold prices and that Ariana de-risked the project for itself as Ozaltin are paying for the work needed to produce a feasibility study and then the JV picks up the tab for the development of the mine after which Ariana gets 23.5% of the profits.

Just waiting now for news about Tavsan which, I must admit, is taking an inordinately long time, unfortunately Ariana does not control this and it is up to the JV to pull its finger out.

What are the chances of a positive RNS tomorrow morning.

The report below is old. Nigel has produced another report today titled 'Ariana Resources - production report and Tavsan on the way.'
This report is very positive with a buy recommendation.

The analysis by Nigel Somerville might have a bearing on the share price.

https://fivefreesharetips.com/content.php?id=642

"Meanwhile, construction of our Tavsan Mine has formally commenced and we look
forward to seeing this mine in operation within approximately 12 months. Certain
project development work is still underway in the background, including a Reserve
estimate, which will go hand-in-hand with a finance package that Zenit is expecting to
conclude for the project."

It is obvious that Ariana expects the reserve estimates at Tavsan to be significantly increased over the initial feasibility study and the JV is waiting to raise the funding once the new reserve estimate is out. The new reserve estimate should significantly decrease the risk of the project and make the raising of funds easier. I can understand why only the preliminary work is being carried out and why the main construction will not proceed until the new reserve estimate is produced. We just have to be patient.

The delay in the IPO for Venus minerals is probably due to the fact that the climate for IPOs in the UK is very negative;

We may have to wait for market conditions to improve before Venus goes ahead with the IPO.

The amount of cash raised via initial public offerings in London plunged in the first half of the year as firms pull back from the public markets amid extreme volatility and historic levels of inflation, new data has revealed.

The total proceeds of IPOs in the capital plunged 94 per cent in the first half of the year as 26 firms raised a total of £595m, a sharp slump from 47 issuers raising £9.4bn in the same period in 2021, according to data from big four firm EY.

London’s main market hosted just six IPOs in the second quarter, raising £192m in total, whilst the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) saw one admission which raised £6m.

The data underscores a torrid six months for equity markets as a ****tail of inflationary pressures, war in Ukraine and rising interest rates cause investors and firms to pull back from the public markets.

‘Perfect Storm’
Scott McCubbin, EY UKI IPO lead, said it had been a “very difficult start to 2022” for the City’s IPO market.

“There is a perfect storm of geopolitical pressure creating a challenging macroeconomic landscape, which are compounded by inflationary pressures focused on high energy and commodity prices leading to associated interest rates rises,” he said.

“We expect a weak IPO market for the remainder of 2022 due to these challenging conditions.”

He added that the pipeline of firms looking to come to market in the UK remained “healthy” however, as a number of firms delay IPOs due to the market turbulence.

According to the JV agreement
'Ariana Resources will be responsible for exploration across the Joint Venture, which will be reimbursed at cost plus a bonus of two times the exploration cost for increases to project resources of over 10% or following the vend-in of new projects'
Now we keep being told of all the excellent exploration results for the JV but in the accounts there is only a share of the profit of the JV and no mention or accounting for any cost or revenue for the exploration work which is now Ariana Resources main work.

Anyone have any insight on this?

Next you will tell me that Father Christmas doesn't exist.