Tertiary Minerals PLC
02 June 2005
The following announcement was made by our 26.5p.c. owned associate Sunrise
Diamonds Plc earlier today.
'SUNRISE FOR DIAMOND FLOAT
AIM LISTING TO FUND EXPLORATION OF
CLUSTER OF KIMBERLITES FOUND
IN 'DIAMOND WINDOW' OF FINLAND
• Spin-Off From Tertiary Makes Its Debut On June 6
• Main Prospects Include Three Kimberlites And 45 Untested Targets
• Chairman Has 8p.c Interest In Company
• Karelian Craton Favoured As One Of Best Areas For Diamonds In World
________________________________________________________________________________
Sunrise Diamonds is to test a new cluster of kimberlites discovered in the
'diamond window' of Finland. The spin-off from Tertiary Minerals plc, which
lists on AIM on June 6, has raised just over £700,000 to fund its search of the
Karelian Craton which experts regard as and one of best areas in the world for
diamonds. A total £400,000 was raised mainly from Tertiary shareholders on a
'seedcorn' subscription basis at 1p per share and a further £307,500 last week
from institutions and investors at 2p per share with a half warrant to subscribe
for additional shares at 3p per share in Year 1 or 5p per share in Year 2.
Tertiary retains a 26.53p.c. stake in the company which with 75.37m shares on
listing has a capitalisation of £1.51m at issue price.
Sunrise chairman, Mr. Patrick Cheetham (who also chairs Tertiary) and his wife
have jointly bought 6m shares at 1p and the two non-executive directors have
also each bought 500,000 shares.
Published geochemical data on indicator minerals suggest that the 'diamond
window' beneath central Finland may be 90km or more thick - on a par or greater
than other cratons in the world containing economic diamond deposits because of
its situation within a thick, cool continental crust. Kimberlites are widely
distributed in the Karelian and a higher-than-average percentage contain
diamonds.
Project manager of Sunrise is Andrew Dixon, 45, a mineral processing engineer,
who has held plant supervisory and management positions with De Beers, Argyle
Diamond Mines, Trans Hex and Ashton Diamonds. Non-executive director Neil
Herbert is currently finance director of Kalahari Diamonds, and formerly CFO of
AIM-listed Brancote Holdings until its US$368m takeover in 2002, and Patagonia
Gold from listing in 2003 to its sale nine months later. Fellow non-executive
Francis Johnstone is currently commercial director of AIM-listed Ridge Mining
and a non-executive director of Brazilian Diamonds Ltd which is actively
exploring a number of diamondiferous kimberlites in Brazil.
SUNRISE - 2
Draig Mineral Developments, the independent expert, reporting on Sunrise
prospects say its main Kuusamo project area is on the southern margin of a
province that stretches for over 1,000km from Northern Finland through the
diamond bearing regions of Kandalaksha, Terskii Bereg, Arkhangelsk and Central
Timan in north west Russia. The largest economic deposits have been found in the
Arkhangelsk region, including the Lomonosov diamond mine run by Alrosa and the
highly diamondiferous Grib pipe.
Geological conditions considered necessary for formation and preservation of
diamondiferous kimberlites occur in the area, states Draig, and the kimberlites
have tapped the diamond stability field of the earth's mantle and have not been
affected by the diamond destroying processes of high temperatures.
Initial work will be at the three Kuusamo kimberlites discovered last year in a
previously unknown cluster and the testing of 45 newly defined targets in the
same area of the Karelian Craton. This will involve ground magnetics, deep till
sampling, and diamond drilling followed by micro-diamond analysis. There is
speculation that the age of some of the Kuusamo kimberlites may be similar to
those found near Arkhangelsk in Russia.
Further Information:
Patrick Cheetham, Executive Chairman, Tertiary Minerals plc. Tel: +44 (0)
1625-626203
Ron Marshman/John Greenhalgh, City of London PR Limited. Tel: 020-7628-5518'
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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