Companies: ALD    BRM    KAH   

Former Lonrho spin-off Brinkley Mining has formed a joint venture to develop high-grade uranium deposits in the Congo.

AIM-quoted Brinkley has 75 per cent of the new venture, with the Democratic Republic of Congo's CGEA agency holding the rest. The objective is to explore and exploit five uranium deposits, one of which, Shinkolobwe, was a rich producer up to the 1960s, having supplied the raw material for the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Brinkley, which expects to spend £2.5 million by December and up to £6 million by the end of 2008, suggests a bankable feasibility study, leading to funding of production, could be ready by mid-2009. The company, which is also enthusiastic about its other projects in South Africa, still suffers in the stockmarket from memories of pre-float profit taking, and at 25.75p is well below last year's float price.

If these projects look like coming right, the shares should be due a recovery.

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Meanwhile, a new uranium find by at Gwabe in Zambia has AIM-quoted Albidon's shares up 9p to 140p, with scope for more gains. Elsewhere, another AIM counter Kalahari Minerals has moved 1.75p higher to 29p on an additional zone of uranium mineralisation at its 36 per cent-owned New Camp prospect in Namibia.