Saturday, 14 April, 2007

by Cameron England
Adelaide Advertiser

ADELAIDE'S newest share float showed yesterday there was still strong investor interest in uranium stocks when it debuted at a 136 per cent premium.
Crossland Uranium Mines shares opened at 59c and rose to 72.5c before closing at 61c.

The company issued $5.67 million worth of 25c shares before listing on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).

There was never much doubt the stock would start strongly, with Crossland's final trades on the National Stock Exchange (formerly the Newcastle Stock Exchange) closing off at 55c per share.

Crossland executive director Geoff Eupene said the company was now keen to get started on its Kalabity uranium prospect in South Australia's Curnamona province.

The Kalabity prospect is only about 60km from PepinNini Minerals' Crocker Well project, which PepinNini hopes to turn into a $160 million mine within three years. Crossland's tenements are ringed by PepinNini land.

Mr Eupene said the firm was in a queue for an aircraft to do airborne exploration work and could get started as early as later this month.

He said the projects, just north of Olary, were targeting hard-rock-style uranium deposits, rather than deposits which are amenable to treatment by in-situ leach mining.

"We already have some mineralisation of that type in outcrops in the area and I'm expecting we'll follow that up and expand it," Mr Eupene said.

He said that some delays caused by administrative issues transferring from the NSX to the ASX had been frustrating but had been used by the company to ensure it could "hit the ground running" when it eventually did list.

Crossland also has two Northern Territory projects and a joint-venture partner in Canadian firm Centram, which will spend up to $8 million to earn up to half of the projects.

The Crossland-Centram joint venture will also establish a joint-venture firm, in which each partner will initially invest $2 million and hold equal shares, to acquire uranium properties in other countries.

Crossland's management team includes Bob Cleary, former chief executive of Energy Resources of Australia, Mr Eupene, former mine geologist with Geopeko, and Bob Richardson, Geopeko's chief geophysicist.