First day of dealings on AIM

21 Apr 2005 08:00

Copper Resources Corporation21 April 2005 Thursday, 21st April 2005 COPPER RESOURCES CORPORATION ("Copper Resources" or "the Company") First day of dealings on AIM Copper Resources Corporation (Ticker: CRC) is the ultimate holding company of agroup of companies with the operating rights to the Hinoba-an Porphyry CopperProject in the Republic of the Philippines. Copper Resources is pleased toannounce today the commencement of trading on and the admission of its shares toAIM. At the placing price of 100 pence per share, the Company has raised new money of£3.4 million (after expenses). On admission and at the placing price, the marketcapitalisation of Copper Resources will be approximately £27.8 million. Nabarro Wells & Co. Limited is the Nominated Adviser and ODL Securities Limitedis Broker to the Company. Placing Statistics: Placing price 100p Number of new common shares being issued in the placing 4,000,000Net proceeds raised by the placing £3.4 millionNumber of common shares in issue immediately following the placing 27,756,600Market capitalisation following the placing at the placing price £27.8 millionimmediately following AIM admission Commenting on Copper Resources' successful IPO, Chris Jordinson, ChiefExecutive, stated "We are excited about advancing the Hinoba-an Project to thenext stage of Bankable Feasibility Study and its potential to become a long-termcopper feedstock source for the Philippines and the world copper market." Mr.Jordinson also added "We are also encouraged by the Philippine Government'srenewed emphasis and encouragement of new investment in the mining sector." For further information, please contact: Copper Resources Nabarro Wells & Co. ODL Securities Chris Jordinson, CEO John Robertson Tony Clements +61 2 9327 4011 +44 (0)20 7710 7405 +44 (0)20 7903 6281 Copies of the AIM admission document are available from the Company's website,www.copperresources.com, or from Nabarro Wells & Co. Background Information on Copper Resources Copper Resources is the ultimate holding company of a group of mineralexploration, development and operating companies. The Group effectively has a92.5 per cent economic interest in the Hinoba-an Porphyry Copper Project (the "Project"), subject to a 3 per cent net benefits royalty payable to the originalclaimowner. The Project is located on the island of Negros in the Republic ofthe Philippines, approximately 700 km south of Manila. The Group's interest in the Project is held under an Integrated Mining andOperating Agreement with Colet Mining and Development Corporation, which holdsmining leases over 90 hectares and approximately 2,900 hectares of mineralclaims (collectively, the "Colet Claims"). The Colet Claims cover two knownporphyry copper deposits, the Don Jose deposit and the A1 deposit, whichcomprise the Hinoba-an property. Over the years, a significant amount of exploration and metallurgical testworkhas been performed on the Hinoba-an property with its previous owners havingspent approximately C$14.7 million. The Hinoba-an property has been subject toapproximately 48,000 metres of diamond drilling and 11,000 metres of reversecirculation drilling. Pre-feasibility studies indicate that the two depositsare well drilled and that all due attention has been paid to core handling,sampling and assaying. A scoping study undertaken in 1998 envisioned a 15 year mine life for the ColetClaims based on a geological resource of 254 million tonnes at 0.46 per centcopper at a 0.30 per cent copper cut-off. The study showed that the depositscould be profitably mined by open pit method with the ore processed in aconventional flotation milling operation to produce approximately 2 billionpounds of recoverable copper and other by-products. Annual production wasestimated at 56,000 tonnes of recoverable copper with an average cash cost(including smelting, refining and by-product credits) of US$0.48/lb of copper. The net proceeds of the placing, together with the net proceeds of US$10.5million from a recent private placement, will be applied to additional infillcore drilling on the property and completion of a feasibility study within thenext 18 months. Upon completion of the feasibility study, and assumingfavourable economics, the Group plans to develop a potential 15 million tonnesper annum open pit copper mine on the Hinoba-an property. The development ofthe Project will be dependent on obtaining future financing. In addition, the Copper Resources Group owns 23 unpatented lode claims coveringapproximately 186 hectares in the state of Colorado. The copper deposit on theproperty has historically been mined as an underground operation. The Groupplans to undertake exploration and evaluation on these claims within the nexttwelve months. The exploration and evaluation stage includes a drillingprogramme that will be commenced post listing. 21ST April 2005 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange