Reefton Mining technical director Garry Hemming is in Antwerp this week following the Perth-based exploration company’s compliance listing in London.
Monday morning Perth time, just hours before Reefton’s listing on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market, the tantalite and diamond explorer’s price bounded 25 per cent as London-based brokers picked up some stock.
In Antwerp, centre for diamond merchants and buyers, managing director Vladimir (Roger) Nikolaenko, technical director Garry Hemming, and consultant Robert Barras will place Reefton’s Namibian Skeleton Coast territory under the spotlight, before Europeans for whom the former German colony remains a popular holiday haunt.
Widespread European interest in Africa, Namibia’s peace and stability, and Australian investor attention on gold explorers, have combined to prompt Reefton to try its luck in larger Northern Hemisphere markets.
Reefton is due to commence a bulk sampling program on Skeleton Coast beaches, north of the area De Beers has mined since 1920, within two months.
The company, which purchased a dense media separation diamond processing plant last quarter, is now expecting to transform itself from a relatively unknown junior explorer into a producer of some of the most desirable diamonds in the world.
Namibian diamonds are of high gem quality rounded and 57 per cent white goods, and Reefton is confident of attracting buyers.
Hoping to be the first to mine exclusively for tantalite in the region, Reefton has already had a measure of success with its Erongo-Sandamap tantalite leases this year.
Bulk sampling last quarter significantly boosted the company’s tantalite grade, with some samples recording up to 310 grams per tonne of tantalum pentoxide.
Other prospects the company has sampled have returned results of up to 241 grams/t.
Tantalite, used in electrical equipment and mobile phones, is in high demand, and Reefton says there are plenty of buyers looking for stable long-term supply.
