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Fluormin, Mwana Africa, Rare Earths Global news briefs

Contributed by Fox-Davies Capital

Fluormin PLC has released its 1H'13 report to the 31st December 2012.

In this news:
- Attributable loss £1.3M (£4.3M 1H'12)
- Net assets £20.3M (£22.4M 1H'12)
- Cash £7.9M
- Disposed of Buffalo Fluorspar project and the 20% interest in Kenya Fluorspar Company Limited
- Witkop placed on care and maintenance.

FD Comment:
Global fluorspar prices had a torrid time in 2012 forcing Fluormin to put Witkop on care and maintenance. Despite having a healthy cash balance the Company will hope the recent recovery in prices is sustainable if Witkop is to come back into production, however we have no guidance on current operating costs to predict when this is likely to be.

Mwana Africa PLC announced the total combined JORC compliant Gold resource now stands 2.6Moz (based on a cut-off grade of 0.5 g/t), a 30% increase to the February 2012 resource statement. This includes a maiden resource of 442,903oz for the newly discovered Lelumodi deposit and at Kodo Main the indicated gold resource increased by 22% to 547,838oz. The Kodo Main inferred gold resources increases by 8% to 1,023,292, at an average grade of 3.51g/t. Metallurgical test work and preliminary mine design studies continue in parallel with on-going drilling to define additional mineral resource at Lelumodi and the Kodo area.

Rare Earths Global Ltd announced the following trading update. The Rare Earth industry both domestically in the People's Republic of China and internationally is going through a period of rapid change and development. The uncertainty this has caused, coupled with a fall in rare-earth prices (up to 60% since the beginning of 2012), has meant that REG will not meet market expectations for the financial year ended 31 December 2012 and as a result expects to report a normalised loss for 2012. The change in the PRC Government, the Chinese White Paper on Rare Earth and subsequent statements from The Ministry of Commerce in 2012 have created significant uncertainty in the PRC and their implications with regard to rare earth production and exports continue to be interpreted. This uncertainty has led to significant delays in REG receiving its production quota and not receiving an export quota at all in 2012. This has severely hampered the ability of the Group's separation plant and trading divisions to carry out its strategy. In addition, given the current uncertainty, the Board has not been able to progress its discussions with Credit Suisse regarding its proposed US$50M debt facility.