QFI.L Regulatory News (QFI)

8 Jun 2005 07:00

Zareba PLC08 June 2005 ZAREBA PLC INVESTMENT IN NAMIBIAN DIAMOND MINER Zareba PLC is pleased to announce that it has made its first investment inaccordance with the strategy set out in its prospectus dated 8 February 2005. This investment of Namibian Dollars 500,000 (£40,000) has secured an interest of5% of the total issued capital of a company currently commencing diamondproduction in the Northern section of the Skeleton Coast area of Namibia. Theconcession to be mined is situated near the mouth of the Kunene River. Theinvestment will be used to secure a second pan for separation of the diamondsfrom the alluvial deposits. Zareba has agreed to subscribe up to a furtherNamibian Dollars 1,500,000 on similar terms, should this be required. The intention is to float this project on AIM as a separate company,provisionally named Kunene River Diamonds PLC. This is likely to be in thesecond half of 2005. As a first step to flotation a Competent Person's Report isbeing commissioned. The area where mining operations will take place is situated within the SkeletonCoast National Park. The southern portion of the Park is open to visitors, asfar as the settlement of Terrace Bay. North of Terrace Bay visitors are notpermitted. There is a track suitable for 4X4 vehicles as far as Rocky Point, butthe last 220 kilometres to the site requires vehicles to drive along the beach.After passing the Park headquarters at Moewe Bay there is no habitation of anykind for the last 270 kilometres. This extreme remoteness has meant that nodiamond exploration took place until recently and all exploration has been underthe control of Glen Rogers, the proposed Chief Executive of Kunene RiverDiamonds, and explains why these deposits were not previously known.Notwithstanding this, diamond mining has taken place on the northern, Angolan,bank of the Kunene River prior to the Angolan civil war. Most diamond mining in Namibia to date has taken place in the South of thecountry, along the Atlantic coast. Diamonds there are generally accepted asbeing derived from inland sources along the Orange River. This mining is ofalluvial diamonds, either off shore where the main operations take place, or onshore, where diamonds have been re-deposited by wave action. Because thediamonds have to travel further from the mouth of the Orange River, the furthernorth they are deposited in marine gravels the smaller the average size tends tobe. The Kunene diamonds are bigger than those which could be expected from OrangeRiver sources. They can also be distinguished from Orange River diamonds bytheir extreme hardness. It therefore appears that the diamonds were depositedfrom a new source. While that source is not known with certainty, the mostlikely explanations are either that the diamonds have been transported fromknown kimberlitic areas in Angola, or that they are from as yet unknownkimberlites in Namibia itself. The diamondiferous gravels themselves can be seenfrom the associated clays to comprise both marine and river deposits. Whileestablished resources should enable mining for between ten and twenty years,depending on the rate of extraction, a further exploration programme will alsobe undertaken to establish additional resources within the existing area, whichcomprises approximately 200 square kilometres, as well as exploring gravelsdeposited by other paleo-river systems along the northern Skeleton Coast. While this is Zareba's first investment, it is also evaluating other miningprojects. Brian Moritz (Chairman) 8 June 2005 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange