12 Apr 2010 10:33
Berkeley Mineral Resources Plc
("BMR" or "the Company")
Placing Raises £500,000 to Develop Kabwe
Berkeley Mineral Resources Plc, a company engaged in the reprocessing of tailing dumps at Kabwe in Zambia, announces that it has raised a total of £500,000 before expenses by way of a Placing of 25 million new ordinary shares at a price of 2p per share.
These funds have been raised primarily to develop the processing of the tailings dumps that the Company has acquired at Kabwe Mine in Zambia, as previously announced.
Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for the 25,000,000 ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and dealings are expected to commence on 14 April 2010.
Following the allotment of the 25,000,000 ordinary shares, the Company's issued number of ordinary shares of 1p each and therefore its total number of voting rights will be 326,009,197.
Masoud Alikhani, Chairman of Berkeley Mineral Resources Plc, commented:
"The receipt of these additional funds will allow BMR to proceed promptly with our scheduled plans for resource verification and the beneficiation plant technical pre-feasibility study in preparation for the exploitation of the stockpiles we have acquired at Kabwe".
12 April 2010
Contacts:
Masoud Alikhani, Chairman, Berkeley Mineral Resources 020 7408 1181
Jonathan Wright, Seymour Pierce 020 7107 8000
Michael Padley , Lothbury Financial Services 07798 863 690
Notes to editors
BMR is a minerals company with a primary strategy of investing in tailings processing. By accessing dump deposits with known grades and metallurgy, it avoids exploration or mining
costs, has a secure licence and fixed environmental criteria, and can produce concentrates
according to viability at current market prices.
The Kabwe deposits, located approximately 110km north of the Zambian capital Lusaka,
were discovered in 1902. From 1906, Kabwe was a significant mine. By the time it closed in
1994, due to depletion of the massive sulphide mineralisation and lowered metal prices, it
had produced about 1.8m tonnes of zinc, 800,000t of lead, 7,800t of vanadium pentoxide
and lesser quantities of cadmium, silver and copper. After closure, most of the mine complex
was sold off on a piecemeal basis. Berkeley's project is part of an overall plan to re-assemble the Kabwe site into a single entity operating under a single Large Scale Mining Licence.
The waste dumps at Kabwe cover an area of about 1km2 and contain over 7m tons
of various waste residues with an estimated combined metal content of 455,000t zinc and
368,500t lead.
BMR benefits from the existing infrastructure at Kabwe, including processing plant, good roads, water supply, ample power, local labour and direct on-site sidings connection to overseas markets via international railwaysto South Africa and to Indian Ocean ports.
For further information please see the Company's website at http://www.bmrplc.com
The directors of Berkeley Mineral Resources accept responsibility for this announcement.