Companies: CON    GFM    GVM    HAWK    URA    URU   

Speculative minnows such as volatile Uranium Resources, perking up at 4.75p on encouraging drilling results from Tanzania, and depressed Lithic Minerals, rallying to 6.75p on uranium mineralisation in Zambia, are two of the features. Punters might now consider Niger Uranium, spun out of high-flying UraMin when it was taken over by French giant Areva.

With ex-UraMin chief executive Ian Stalker as executive deputy chairman and serious sector players among its backers, the company is poised to explore 1.7 million acres in the West African state’s Tim Mersoi basin – a recognised uranium province – subject to Government approval. Floated in September at 50p, the shares have plunged to 24p, at which price the company, with £14 million cash, is valued at a modest £20 million. They are clearly a gamble, but one that has at least a chance of paying off handsomely.

Red-hot coals
Burning coal may be frowned on by carbon-emission vigilantes, but GVM Metals has so far rewarded Growth Company Investor’s confidence with progress at coal projects in South Africa. Based in Western Australia and chaired by entrepreneur Richard Linnell, the company tapped AIM in April for £13.7 million to acquire Africa and Asia-focused Kelso Resources and has recently raised the equivalent of £53.5 million in two placings. The fundraisings, at the much higher prices of 65p and 75p, will help develop its projects at Mooiplats and Baobab and fund further exploration.

Managing director Simon Farrell has produced an initial geological evaluation of two of Baobab’s properties, Tanga and Fripp, showing a measured resource of 39.7 million tonnes and suggesting further resources of 44 million tonnes ‘indicated’, 236 million tonnes ‘inferred’ and a ‘reconnaissance’ resource on top of 366.4 million tonnes. A competent person’s report from ubiquitous consultant SRK has provided an interim coal resource and reserve estimate of 25.7 million tonnes at Mooiplats, 48.8 million tonnes at Klipbank and 28.6 million tonnes at Adrianople.

Growth Company Investor recommended GVM at 14p early last year and again at 39.5p three months ago. Now 74p, the shares value the company at £160 million and, though partial profit-taking might be prudent, more action could be on the cards at some point.

Stepping on the gas
US-focused Nighthawk Energy is moving into production at its Cisco Springs gas project in Utah, which the AIM-quoted company suggests could hold 75 billion cubic feet of gas, with a potential net present value of £96 million. Headed by entrepreneurial David Bramhill, Nighthawk expects test production to start shortly at the Devon oilfield in Kansas. The company has met with success at 37 of the 50 wells drilled so far.

Followers highlight encouraging seismic surveys at its 50 per cent-owned Jolly Ranch oil project in Colorado and bulls suggest they could hold more than 500 million barrels. Floated by Hanson Westhouse in March, Nighthawk shares offer speculative potential.

Crunch time for zinc
Zinc prices have halved over the past year and heavy selling from China ahead of the New Year termination of that country’s five per cent export rebate has not helped. Former AIM star Griffin Mining, whose shares powered from 23.5p in 2004 to 122p last April, has suspended sales of zinc concentrate from its Caijiaying zinc and gold mine in China and issued a stern profit warning.

Prospects should improve when the rebate is removed and the sales rush abates, though the shares, now rallying at 89p, may take longer to regain previous momentum. By then, Irish entrepreneur John Teeling’s Connemara Mining (35p) might have a better idea of whether its high-grade zinc find in Limerick could be the start of something big.