| Fri 28 May 2010, 8:00 | | AEA - African Eagle Resources plc - Grant of Share Options |
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AEA
AEA
AEA - African Eagle Resources plc - Grant of Share Options
African Eagle Resources plc
(Incorporated in England and Wales, registered number 3912362)
AIM share code: AFE AIM ISIN: GB0003394813
JSE share code: AEA JSE ISIN: GB0003394813
GRANT OF SHARE OPTIONS
News Report
28 May 2010
African Eagle Resources plc ("African Eagle" or "the Company", ticker AIM: AFE,
AltX: AEA) today announces that it has granted 9,408,000 share options on May
26, 2010 at an exercise price of 6.5p to employees and directors under the
Company`s share option scheme. The exercise price is 67.5% above the closing
price of the Company`s shares on May 25, 2010. The share options will become
exercisable after May 26, 2011 and will expire on May 26, 2015.
The grant to directors included:
New Options issued Total Options
held
Mark Parker Managing Director 1,380,000 2,588,000
Christopher Davies Operations Director 1,284,000 2,492,000
Bevan Metcalf Finance Director 900,000 1,931,000
Euan Worthington Non-executive Chairman 720,000 1,638,000
Geoffrey Cooper Non-executive Director 420,000 1,306,000
Under the rules of the scheme, the options may not normally be exercised before
the first anniversary of the date of grant and may not in any event be exercised
later than the fifth anniversary of the date of grant.
A total of 21,706,000 share options are outstanding which is equivalent to 7.31%
of the Company`s shares in issue.
Bevan Metcalf
Company Secretary
African Eagle Resources plc
For further information:
Mark Parker
Managing Director
African Eagle
+44 20 7248 6059
+44 77 5640 6899
Nicola Marrin
Seymour Pierce Limited, London
Nominated Adviser
+ 44 20 7107 8000
Charmane Russell
Russell & Associates, Johannesburg
+ 27 11 8803924
+ 27 82 8928052
Ed Portman / Leesa Peters
Conduit PR, London
+44 20 7429 6607
+44 77 3336 3501
About the Company Share Option Scheme
The Scheme was introduced in 2001 and revised in June 2006. Options can be
exercised only between one and five years from date of grant. Under the revised
rules, options normally lapse if an employee leaves the Company by choice or is
dismissed.
The aggregate number of shares subject to options granted under the Scheme or
any other scheme cannot exceed 10% of the Company`s shares in issue.
About African Eagle
Since discovering major nickel laterite deposits at Dutwa in northern Tanzania,
African Eagle is in transition from a diversified explorer into a nickel mining
company. The Company completed a positive scoping study on the Dutwa deposit in
July 2009, and is now working towards a full feasibility study.
African Eagle is evaluating a second promising nickel laterite deposit at Zanzui
in Tanzania, 60km south of Dutwa.
The Company also holds a 49% interest in the Mkushi Copper Mines joint venture
in Zambia, for which a draft feasibility study was completed in Q4 2008. In
addition, it holds a half million ounce gold resource at the Miyabi project in
Tanzania, and a portfolio of gold and base metal exploration assets, including
two projects in the Zambian Copperbelt.
The Company is seeking partners or buyers for its "non-core" copper, gold and
uranium projects.
More information may be found on the Company`s website, www.africaneagle.co.uk
African Eagle`s oxide nickel projects
The Dutwa oxide nickel project, discovered in mid-2008, consists of two deposits
within blankets of laterite or weathered rock on the tops of low ridges. African
Eagle believes that the deposits together contain around 500,000 tonnes of
nickel with by-product cobalt. Because the deposits lie at surface, mining costs
will be very low.
The deposits lie 100km east of the railhead at Mwanza and close to the main
Mwanza-Nairobi trunk road, a major power line and the shore of Lake Victoria.
The Company holds a 90% interest in the main Dutwa deposit, with option to
acquire 100%, and is earning up to 75% of a second nickel deposit at Ngasamo,
6km to the west.
Since discovering the deposits in June 2008, African Eagle has explored the
project very quickly and cost-effectively, completing within 9 months an interim
JORC-compliant resource estimate based on the drilling to September 2008 and
laboratory metallurgical and mineralogical tests which showed that the deposit
can be processed efficiently by sulphuric acid leaching.
In July 2009, the Company announced the results of a "proof of concept" scoping
study by GRD Minproc, which indicated that the project would be profitable if it
were in production today. At current nickel prices (
$10 to $11/lb), earnings
over the life of mine would be of the order of $3 to 4 billion on an EBIT basis,
giving an internal rate of return around 30%, after tax. African Eagle has now
begun work towards a definitive feasibility study.
The economic viability of any nickel laterite deposit depends on its metallurgy,
its resource geology and its location. Metallurgical tests have shown that the
Dutwa ore is unusually, perhaps uniquely, amenable to acid leaching, with very
low acid consumption and a very fast leach reaction compared to other nickel
laterites around the world. These characteristics should allow the ore to be
processed at atmospheric pressure using straightforward heap or tank leaching.
In addition to the Dutwa deposits, African Eagle holds the Zanzui nickel
project, which is only 60km from Dutwa and offers potential economies of scale.
Zanzui is possibly as large as Dutwa and preliminary metallurgical tests suggest
that it shares the same fast, low-acid leaching characteristics. The Company is
aware of at least two other, similar deposits in Tanzania.
Date: 28/05/2010 08:00:03 Produced by the JSE SENS Department.
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