AMC.L Regulatory News (AMC)

23 Apr 2007 07:01

Amur Minerals Corporation23 April 2007 23 April 2006 Amur Minerals Corporation ("Amur" or "the Company") Placing of 15.5million ordinary shares to raise £2.79 million (the "Placing") Amur Minerals Corporation ("Amur" or the "Company") has raised £2.79 million byway of a placing of 15.5 million ordinary shares (the "Placing Shares") at 18p("Placing Price"). Fox-Davies Capital Limited has, as co-broker for the Company,procured the subscribers for the placing. Amur intends to use the proceeds of the Placing to fund the ongoing explorationand development work at Kun-Manie, the Company's main nickel exploration projectin the Amur region of Far East Russia, as well as for initial field work on therecently acquired Anadjakan and Kustakskaya licences. The Company will alsocontinue to pursue new projects, with a particular emphasis on those that havethe potential to provide near-term production. The Placing Shares will represent 17.98 per cent. of the existing issued sharecapital of the Company. The Placing Price of 18 pence per share represents a 6.5per cent. discount to the middle market closing price of 19.25 pence per shareon 9 March 2007 (the last trading day prior to the announcement that the Companywas seeking to undertake a private placement) and a discount of 2.7 per cent. tothe intended price of 18.5 pence as announced on 12 March 2007. Following theadmission of the Placing Shares to trading on AIM, the Company will have101,703,938 shares in issue. Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for the Placing Shares tobe admitted to trading on AIM. It is expected that Admission will becomeeffective and that trading will commence on 27 April 2007. The Placing Shareswill, when issued and fully paid, rank pari passu in all respects with theCompany's existing shares, including the right to receive any dividend or otherdistribution thereafter declared, made or paid. Robin Young, CEO of Amur, stated: "The funds from this placing will help us toaccelerate the next stages of exploration and studies on our main licence area,and will help to speed up the continuing work on our newer licence areas anddrilling targets. We look forward to updating the market in the near future withthe progress made during the upcoming field season." Enquiries: Amur Minerals Corp. Co-Broker Nomad and Co-Broker Public Relations Fox-Davies Capital RBC Capital Parkgreen Limited Markets CommunicationsRobin Young Daniel Fox-Davies Andrew Smith Victoria ThomasCEO Martin Eales +44 (0) 7981 126 818 +44 (0) 20 7936 5200 +44 (0) 20 7029 7881 +44 (0) 20 7851 7480 Notes to Editors About Amur Minerals Amur's principal asset is the 100% owned Kun-Manie exploration licence, anickel-copper deposit located in the Amur Province in the far east of theRussian Federation. The Kun-Manie licence area is approximately 950 km(2) and islocated 700 km northeast of the capital city of Blagoveshchensk and is 750kmnorth of the Chinese border. In April 2004 ZAO Kun-Manie, a wholly ownedsubsidiary of Amur, was granted a licence to explore for nickel and relatedmetals, including copper and platinum, in respect of the Kun-Manie licence. Work carried out to date on the Kun-Manie licence including diamond coredrilling, trenching and geological mapping has identified four mineralisedtargets; the Vodorazdelny, Ikenskoe, Maly Krumkon and Falcon zones, three ofwhich warrant further exploration as the limits of the mineralisation have notbeen identified. The four zones are located within a 15 kilometre long segmentof the 40 kilometre long Krumkon Trend. This trend is the primary explorationtarget within the licence area. An additional three targets identified asChornie Ispelene, Yan Hegd and Kubuk (also referred to as Ata) have beenidentified as additional drill targets. Chornie Ispelene and Kubuk lie withinthe trend whilst Yan Hegd is located approximately 8 kilometres to its north.Approximately 50% of the Krumkon Trend remains to be examined by reconnaissancework where existing Soviet data indicates potential exists to identifyadditional drill targets. Exploration drill results have been utilised by SRK Consulting to calculateresources. These include resources of the Measured, Indicated and Inferredcategories which have been estimated for the deposits of Vodorazdelny, Ikenskoeand Maly Krumkon. Effective January, 2007, the independently compiled ResourceEstimate consists of a total of 53.3 Mt at a mean grade of 0.48% nickel and0.14% copper containing 254,500 tonnes of nickel; and 73,000 tonnes of copper.This is summarised in the following table. SRK Consulting's 2006 Year End Resource Report =========== ======== ====== ====== ===== ======Orebody Tonnage Ni Ni Cu Cu (Mt) (%) (t) (%) (t)=========== ======== ====== ====== ===== ======VodorazdelnyIndicated 5.9 0.71 41,800 0.20 11,800 IkenskoeMeasured 3.7 0.61 22,700 0.16 5,800Indicated 26.8 0.42 111,300 0.12 32,700Sub-total 30.5 0.44 134,000 0.13 38,500Inferred 5.9 0.49 28,700 0.13 7,500Total Ikenskoe 36.4 0.45 162,700 0.13 46,000 Maly KrumkonInferred 11.0 0.45 50,000 0.14 15,200 Total Measured 3.7 0.61 22,700 0.16 5,800Total Indicated 32.7 0.47 153,100 0.14 44,500Total Inferred 16.9 0.47 78,700 0.13 22,700Grand Total 53.3 0.48 254,500 0.14 73,000 Presently, Amur is compiling a prefeasibility study on the Kun-Manie Project tobe completed in the second quarter of 2007. Concurrently, work is also beingconducted on the assembly of a report to be submitted to the State Committee onReserves (GKZ). Upon approval, the GKZ shall issue a certificate of "Discovery".This certification allows the Company to continue along the process ofconverting portions of the exploration licence into a mining licence. Immediately to the east of the Kun-Manie licence and across the Amur Oblast andKhabarovsk Krai border, Amur has acquired the Kustakskaya Project. This 1,034square kilometre, 25 year exploration and production licence contains twogeological terrains. Each terrain contains a different mineralisation typetarget. The southern half of the licence is interpreted to be a continuation ofthe Krumkon Trend identified within the Kun-Manie exploration licence. Thenorthern half of the licence area contains Mesozoic granitic intrusives whereinhistorical Russian results indicate the potential for copper, cobalt and minornickel to be present. The Company will undertake field exploration of thislicence area in 2008 in accordance with the terms of the licence. Havingrecently acquired this licence, the Company places no value on this property. Amur also controls the Anadjakan gold-copper exploration licence in KharaborvskKrai near the well-infrastructured city of Elban. The Company chooses not toreport any value on this asset until it concludes its comprehensive review ofall information and verifies existing Russian results. The 2007 explorationprogramme for this area is designed to check the historical results and definefuture drill targets. The exploration of this licence area will begin during the2007 field season. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange