Friedland’s Queensland copper/gold company lists tomorrow
www.mineweb.com writes that,
Robert Friedland, the great corporate salesman, flew into Kalgoorlie today to both stun and put some oomph into the Diggers & Dealers Forum who have been absorbing a diet of generally uninspiring to negative news.
Author: Ross Louthean
KALGOORLIE -
The long-awaited copper-gold float for Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe Mines group is due to list on the Australian Securities Exchange tomorrow after having raised $A120 million ($US110.5 M), with 87% of the capital coming from offshore.
It is understood the investors in Ivanhoe Australia (ASX: IAL) will be 80% owned by the parent Ivanhoe Mines Ltd (NYSE, TSX & Nasdaq: IVN).
What was perhaps most stunning for the Ivanhoe Australia announcement was the size of the capital raising, because the slip in commodity prices, some mine closures and share investment disasters in Australia has seen many of the money chests for floats and new capital slammed shut.
The properties are in the Cloncurry region of north west Queensland and take in the Eastern Succession of the Mt Isa Inlier which has produced major iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) discoveries and mines.
Friedland said there were also significant uranium specific targets on some of the tenements, based in part on uranium discoveries made there decades ago by Rio Tinto’s Australian forerunner CRA.
The licences cover 2,540 square kilometres and one of the prime target areas is the Swan Elliott mining leases. Ivanhoe also has a joint venture over 720 sq km held by Exco Resources Ltd (ASX: EXS) which has some advanced discoveries and is talking to Xstata about having its E1 Camp copper-gold discovery treated at the Ernest Henry plant. Xstrata’s Ernest Henry open cut is running out of ore and it is looking to go underground and is known to be keen to acquire a new source of softer oxide and transitional ore to maintain the plant capacity.
When asked about this by Mineweb, Robert Friedland confirmed that Ivanhoe holds a 19.9% stake in Exco. He drew laughter by saying that “acquisition is the best form of flattery.”
An interesting contrast for the north west Queensland region was the announcement today by regional gold explorer D’Aguilar Gold Ltd (ASX: DGR) that its IPO for Mt Isa Metals had closed oversubscribed for the $A7 M ($US6.44 M) target. D’Aguilar will retain a 48% stake in the company which is to pursue nickel, uranium, molybdenum, iron ore and gold targets spread throughout Queensland.
Friedland also told a capacity auditorium about progress being made on the huge Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project in Mongolia, being developed with Rio Tinto Ltd, and on the big coal reserves in that country. He said Australia would need to watch the coal projects under South Gobi Energy Ltd because they were on China’s doorstep and the known deposits were “the Beluga caviar of coal.”
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