Afrikander Lease

Was haltet Ihr von dem Teil ?
Sieht doch verdammt interessant aus ????????

Grüsse, newtechxl

Wie geht es weiter mit Aflease ?

Avgold hat seine Anteile auf 33% hochgefahren + Aflease sitzt auf 11 % der weltweiten Uranreserven.

Was habe ich uebersehen ?

Gruesse, Newtechxl

@ Warren

Warum hat Avgold ihren Anteil hochgefahren ? Irgendeine Idee?

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_04/roffey082604.html

Sections > Gold & Silver

Analyst says Kebbles will not get full control of Aflease
By: Gareth Tredway
Posted: '03-SEP-04 15:40' GMT © Mineweb 1997-2004

JOHANNESBURG (Mineweb.com) -- At Afrikander Lease’s interim results announcement on Friday, CE Neale Froneman told shareholders that the compny had received written assurances from Roger and Brett Kebble that an offer would be made to minorities if JCI and Randgold & Exploration were to gain a controlling stake.

Nic Goodwin a gold analyst at T-Sec, a South African trading house, says the announcement is just a “red-herring”. He believes that minorities are keen on the company’s future uranium prospects and will not except an offer anyway.

Randgold & Exploration and JCI, two JSE-listed mining companies, have loaned Aflease R175 million in share swap deal, which in the end, will give the companies an effective 41 percent stake in Aflease.

Goodwin told Mineweb that the share swap was the only way a struggling company like Aflease could get funding. “A rights issue would have been very difficult,” said Goodwin.

The funds have been used to keep the company going until Aflease starts producing gold again. The company closed its open-pit operation in December last year after costs exceeded a tumbling rand gold price. A deal to buy the Kalgold mine from Harmony later fell through, leaving Aflease without an operating asset.

Almost a fifth of the R44 million capex needed to start production at the small Bonanza South project has been spent, with production expected in the second quarter of next year. Bonanza is next door to Aflease’s property near the town of Klerksdorp.

Froneman says samples that have been taken are in line with the original mine plan which claims a reserve of 150,000 ounces of gold, mined at a cash cost of R64,000/kg.

Goodwin, who attended the results announcement, said he was not too keen on the company’s gold prospects. Nevertheless he believes: “The uranium thing is very good.” The spot price of uranium has almost doubled in the past 18 months, currently selling at 17-year highs.

“Aflease has a big advantage, holding one of the world’s major reserves,” said Goodwin. Aflease’s uranium resource, originally mined by Anglo American in the 1980’s is said to hold more than half of South Africa’s “near available uranium.”

According to Aflease, the project could cost as much as R1 billion depending on which method is used to extract the uranium. Goodwin said the company had a problem of funding such a transaction, but said Friday’s announcement that end-user financing could be used, was very encouraging. He said that if capital expenditure is financed by a power utility in exchange for a cheaper uranium contract price, then money would sooner be available for dividends.

For now the company will need to maintain its expenses until its postulated fruitful future pans out. For the quarter to end-June, the cash loss was down at R6.3 million, compared to R8.6 million in the quarter before. About R11 million was spent on capital expenditure in the quarter.

Kebble's performance to win shareholders over a highlight at AGM

Randgold gives Aflease new life
September 27, 2004

By Nicky Smith

Johannesburg - Thursday's general meeting of the listed gold and uranium company, Aflease, was a vigorous affair, where 95 percent of shareholders voted in favour of the Randgold & Exploration rescue package, which gives Aflease about R175 million and the Brett Kebble-run company 33 percent of Aflease.

Before the meeting, 41 percent of shareholders had already backed the deal, so no surprises were expected.

The fireworks were caused by Theo Botha, a shareholder in Aflease, who holds 100 shares in the company.

Botha, a self-styled shareholder activist who has had run-ins with executives from Sage, Nedbank, Bidvest as well as Aflease, took flak at the meeting for his hostility to the deal.

The highlight, perhaps, was the performance given by Kebble. He made a point of not belittling the size of Botha's holding, applauded his participation and then went in for the kill.

He said while Botha's participation was commendable, it was only fair that he disclose where his real interests lay and what his agenda truly was.

Kebble said he had been told by Peter Skeat, the former chief executive of Aflease who left under a cloud, that Botha was "his hit man".

"If you are here batting for Pete Skeat, rather let him come here and bat for himself," Kebble said.

He said to Botha if he was acting on his own behalf he should go home and buy more shares.

A three-page letter to shareholders was posted on Aflease's website last week by Neal Froneman, the chief executive of Aflease, detailing allegations that Botha was trying to damage the company at a time when Aflease was trying to raise money.

Froneman said: "Aflease's opinion is that Mr Botha's conduct amounts to a malicious effort to undermine the business of Aflease and that he has no intention to improve the corporate governance standards of Aflease.

"Aflease, therefore, questions his intentions as the perceived economic benefits that Mr Botha anticipates realising from his small shareholding bear no resemblance to his extensive and malicious efforts.

"He is acting to the detriment of small and larger shareholders alike while probably being paid a fee for doing so."

The meeting had to be brought to order a couple of times with various shareholders calling Botha "a stirrer" and more than one person offering to buy Botha's shares from him.

Botha refused to say publicly whether or not he was being paid by Skeat to represent Skeat's interests.

After the meeting, he said: "I am helping Pete, but at arm's length." He said Skeat was not paying him nor had he given him direction. He complained: "It's like the OK Corral in here with everyone taking pot shots at me."

All but a couple of the shareholders present at the meeting applauded Kebble's performance.

The share closed 2c weaker at R1.78 on Thursday. The gold mining sector was 0.97 percent lower.

Auf der Homepage von AFLEASE findet Ihr ein Interview mit dem CEO.

http://www.aflease.com

Mehr Infos über Uran :

http://www.aflease.com/articles/04-09-02_DougCasey.doc

Lesenswert !!

http://www.aflease.com/articles/04-07-01_Mining_weekly.pdf

Uranium
September 24, 2004

While we wait until after the elections for the gold price to rally, two other metals warrant a look.

I wrote about silver last month, noting that the silver price is much more volatile than the gold price and so astute speculators should be able to make a mint trading it.

A rally in the gold price usually brings buyers into the silver market as well, and because the silver market (in dollar terms) is so small, even a modest amount of speculative buying can significantly drive up the silver price.

It happened recently when the silver price rose from $4.50 to $7.50 an ounce, only to collapse again to $5.50 earlier this year. But that's the nature of the silver market. If you're comfortable with volatility, and you remember to sell when the price runs up, the silver market should treat you well.

The other metal you should be paying attention to is uranium.

Annual uranium demand for power generation is about 170 million pounds. The big expense in a nuclear power plant is the capital cost to actually build the plant. Because the price of uranium accounts for a small portion of the cost of generating electricity, the utilities can not afford to run out of fuel: they have to keep operating. So they are likely to start hoarding uranium at the first sign of a potential supply shortage -- it won't be the first time.

The uranium price peaked in 1979 at more than $43 a pound on fears of production shortages and increasing commodity prices. Since then nuclear power generating facilities have been hoarding uranium to protect themselves from price volatility and supply disruptions. However, the supply disruptions never materialized and the price of the metal declined to less than $8 a pound by 1992.

By 1996 the uranium price had recovered to $16.50 a pound. Then the combination of excess inventory held by utilities (that reduced the demand for uranium), additional supply coming from the dismantling of Russian warheads and the strength in the dollar caused the uranium price to decline from $16.50 to only $7.10 a pound in 2000.

Uranium is currently trading for $19.65 a pound -- a significant increase from where it was only four years ago, but it could still go higher.

Primary uranium supply from mining is only 75 million pounds a year, compared to the 170 million pounds of annual demand. The balance comes from secondary supply such as the drawdown of excess inventory still left over from the Seventies, dismantling of Russian nuclear warheads, re-enrichment of spent reactor fuels and, more recently, the enrichment of uranium tailings.

Most of the secondary supply, with the exception of weapons-grade uranium being procured from Russia, is not expected to last for much longer than a few more years.

Cameco, the world's largest uranium producer, has been talking about a production shortfall for years. And for years the imbalance between primary supply and annual demand seemed benign. The most recent rise in the uranium price, however, might be an indication that the days of cheap uranium are over. That opens the possibility of another Seventies-style uranium price-shock, when the price increased almost seven-fold in less than ten years.

Paul van Eeden works primarily to find investments for his own portfolio and shares his investment ideas with subscribers to his weekly investment publication. For more information please visit his website (http://www.paulvaneeden.com) or contact his publisher at (800) 528-0559 or (602) 252-4477.

Uranium Part II
October 1, 2004

In response to last week's column on uranium I received several emails asking which uranium stocks people should invest in. I appreciate the emails but frankly, it's quite silly to think that I can give you specific investment advice for your portfolio based on an email that says: "Which uranium stocks should I buy?"

Answering that question would be irresponsible of me as I don't know anything about the requestor's financial position, age, employment, risk tolerance, etc. And even if I did answer the question with a simple "XYZ Corp.", it would hardly be of any benefit without an explanation of why I like the company.

I will say that there are very few high-quality uranium companies out there today. Most of the so-called uranium companies are nothing more than unsuccessful gold, or silver, or copper, or nickel, or platinum, or palladium ambulance chasers that have found a new ambulance to chase, and are therefore on their way to a crash-site.

That is not to say that one cannot make a lot of money tagging along for the ride, but you have to know when to let go and jump off; and such advice is not within the scope of this column. As I have said many times in the past, you can read what I think for free in this column; however, if you want to know what I do with my own money, you will have to subscribe to my newsletter. Details can be found at http://www.paulvaneeden.com.

What I will tell you is that the six-hundred-pound-gorilla in the uranium business is Cameco Corporation* (CCO on the Toronto Stock Exchange and CCJ on the New York Stock Exchange).

Cameco's shares have risen more than sixty-seven percent since May this year and the stock can hardly be called a bargain. It was a bargain four years ago when I recommended it (a copy of the article is on my website at http://www.paulvaneeden.com in the Library Section) because it was trading for thirteen times earnings, four times cash flow, fifty-five percent of book value and paying a three percent dividend. Since then the stock has increased by almost six hundred percent, so it's fair to say that the easy money has been made.

Nonetheless, I do think the uranium price will continue to rise for the foreseeable future, barring any nuclear "accidents". And that implies that the share price of Cameco should continue to do well. So if you want some exposure to the uranium market without doing any more due diligence than the free advice you can get on the Internet, which, by the way, is usually worth just about what you pay for it, then Cameco might be all you need to know.

In addition to being the world's second largest uranium mining company it is also one of the few companies involved with the downstream processing of uranium, which means that it will not only benefit from a higher uranium price but also from the potential increase in the beneficiation of uranium before it can be used by utilities to generate electricity.

There is a growing global realization that it will be impossible to meet the requirements of the Kyoto Agreement without resorting to a major shift towards nuclear power generation. Nuclear power is not only a clean source of energy, it is an abundant source of energy. And it might be a more prevalent source of energy than what many people realize.

There are four hundred and forty nuclear power plants currently operating in thirty-one counties. Sixteen percent of global electricity production comes from nuclear power plants and thirty nuclear reactors are currently under construction in eleven countries.

In addition to these commercial reactors, there are two hundred and eighty research nuclear reactors in fifty-six countries with more under construction. And over one hundred and fifty ships are being propelled by more than two hundred nuclear reactors. Indeed, nuclear fuel is more prevalent than what most people realize. And it just shows you that nuclear power generation is not only clean, it is also a lot safer than what certain special interest groups would like the world to believe.

The massive increase in the uranium price that we saw during the Seventies was caused by fear that the market would not be able to supply utilities with sufficient fuel to power their commercial reactors. In response, the utility companies started stockpiling uranium and this only added to the current demand, which drove the spot price of uranium through the roof.

Current annual demand for uranium is approximately one hundred and seventy million pounds while mine production is only about seventy five million pounds. If utilities panic again, and it is quite likely that they will since the cost of uranium fuel is a very small part of the cost of running a nuclear power plant, then we could easily see the current demand for uranium increase dramatically.

Given the tight supplies, a further increase in demand from the utilities would blow the lid off the uranium price and we'll see a replay of the Seventies, when the uranium price exceeded forty dollars a pound.

But it would be dangerous to assume that the uranium price will continue to rise without interspersed gut-wrenching corrections. Keep that in mind, because the uranium price has increased almost three-fold in less than four years without a correction -- one is overdue.

As with any market, and all speculations, we have to try to keep our wits about us. It's not always easy: greed and fear are both powerful motivators. But it is fun.

Paul van Eeden