Tertiary Minerals Regulatory News (TYM)

2 Jun 2005 15:59

Tertiary Minerals PLC02 June 2005 The following announcement was made by our 26.5p.c. owned associate SunriseDiamonds Plc earlier today. "SUNRISE FOR DIAMOND FLOAT AIM LISTING TO FUND EXPLORATION OF CLUSTER OF KIMBERLITES FOUND IN "DIAMOND WINDOW" OF FINLAND • Spin-Off From Tertiary Makes Its Debut On June 6 • Main Prospects Include Three Kimberlites And 45 Untested Targets • Chairman Has 8p.c Interest In Company • Karelian Craton Favoured As One Of Best Areas For Diamonds In World________________________________________________________________________________ Sunrise Diamonds is to test a new cluster of kimberlites discovered in the"diamond window" of Finland. The spin-off from Tertiary Minerals plc, whichlists on AIM on June 6, has raised just over £700,000 to fund its search of theKarelian Craton which experts regard as and one of best areas in the world fordiamonds. A total £400,000 was raised mainly from Tertiary shareholders on a"seedcorn" subscription basis at 1p per share and a further £307,500 last weekfrom institutions and investors at 2p per share with a half warrant to subscribefor additional shares at 3p per share in Year 1 or 5p per share in Year 2.Tertiary retains a 26.53p.c. stake in the company which with 75.37m shares onlisting has a capitalisation of £1.51m at issue price. Sunrise chairman, Mr. Patrick Cheetham (who also chairs Tertiary) and his wifehave jointly bought 6m shares at 1p and the two non-executive directors havealso each bought 500,000 shares. Published geochemical data on indicator minerals suggest that the "diamondwindow" beneath central Finland may be 90km or more thick - on a par or greaterthan other cratons in the world containing economic diamond deposits because ofits situation within a thick, cool continental crust. Kimberlites are widelydistributed in the Karelian and a higher-than-average percentage containdiamonds. Project manager of Sunrise is Andrew Dixon, 45, a mineral processing engineer,who has held plant supervisory and management positions with De Beers, ArgyleDiamond Mines, Trans Hex and Ashton Diamonds. Non-executive director NeilHerbert is currently finance director of Kalahari Diamonds, and formerly CFO ofAIM-listed Brancote Holdings until its US$368m takeover in 2002, and PatagoniaGold from listing in 2003 to its sale nine months later. Fellow non-executiveFrancis Johnstone is currently commercial director of AIM-listed Ridge Miningand a non-executive director of Brazilian Diamonds Ltd which is activelyexploring a number of diamondiferous kimberlites in Brazil. SUNRISE - 2 Draig Mineral Developments, the independent expert, reporting on Sunriseprospects say its main Kuusamo project area is on the southern margin of aprovince that stretches for over 1,000km from Northern Finland through thediamond bearing regions of Kandalaksha, Terskii Bereg, Arkhangelsk and CentralTiman in north west Russia. The largest economic deposits have been found in theArkhangelsk region, including the Lomonosov diamond mine run by Alrosa and thehighly diamondiferous Grib pipe. Geological conditions considered necessary for formation and preservation ofdiamondiferous kimberlites occur in the area, states Draig, and the kimberliteshave tapped the diamond stability field of the earth's mantle and have not beenaffected by the diamond destroying processes of high temperatures. Initial work will be at the three Kuusamo kimberlites discovered last year in apreviously unknown cluster and the testing of 45 newly defined targets in thesame area of the Karelian Craton. This will involve ground magnetics, deep tillsampling, and diamond drilling followed by micro-diamond analysis. There isspeculation that the age of some of the Kuusamo kimberlites may be similar tothose found near Arkhangelsk in Russia. Further Information: Patrick Cheetham, Executive Chairman, Tertiary Minerals plc. Tel: +44 (0)1625-626203Ron Marshman/John Greenhalgh, City of London PR Limited. Tel: 020-7628-5518" This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange