Several spectacular hits with intersections of up to 52 metres at 4.5% copper in hole BKRCD72 and 44 metres at 4.5% copper in hole BKRC66 have enhanced the possibility of a dedicated copper production facility being established in the Balcooma area.

These holes, together with results released in September, have now established a coherent shoot of wide copper mineralisation extending an additional 150 metres to the north and although the drill out of this ore body is still incomplete, it is likely that the recently completed drilling will result in a substantial increase in tonnage within the main primary copper resource at Balcooma. This resource, which currently stands at 1.978 million tonnes at 3.3% copper is also expected to increase in grade.

With regard to production and development, we are pleased to announce that the Dry River South underground ore body has been accessed on four levels and 6,300 tonnes of development ore grading 10.2% zinc has been stockpiled ready for treatment. Dry River South underground ore will be blended with Balcooma open pit polymetallic ore and processed at Mt Garnet when the current campaign treating supergene copper from Balcooma is completed. This campaign, which commenced on 15 September 2005 has produced approximately 7,400 dry metric tonnes of copper concentrate at an average grade of 27.5% copper from 28,461 dry metric tonnes of supergene copper ore at a grade of 8.6% copper.

As Bob Besley, managing director of ASX listed CBH Resources puts it very modestly "We are now on the way to becoming a reasonably sized mining company." He certainly put his foot on the accelerator today with simultaneous announcements that the company has raised A$30 million by rejigging its sales of zinc concentrate from the Endeavor mine at Cobar in New South Wales, and is making a recommended all paper offer for Triako Resources.

The current arrangement with the concentrate is that until the end of December 2008 50,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate goes to Zinifex and the balance to Toho Zinc. Now Toho is going to buy all the concentrate from 2009 onwards at the same price which applies now, namely the annual prevailing Asian benchmark price. As a result Toho Zinc is going to pay CBH A$15 million in a 'soft' unsecured five year loan at 2% interests. The balance will be a 5 year unsecured convertible note at the same rate of interest. Toho already owns more than 20 per cent of CBH equity so is limited under the Australian Takeover Code to increasing its holding by 3 per cent /year. This presents no problem and the deal itself is a strong sign of Toho's commitment to the future of the company

The A$30 million will be added to the cash flow which should be spinning off the Endeavour mine in the current quarter and will enable CBH to accelerate development of the Sulphur Springs zinc-copper deposit in Western Australia and the Broken Hill zinc-lead-silver project in New South Wales. At the end of March CBH reported that mine production was at approximately 30 per cent of normal production capacity at Endeavour which is 300,000 tonnes per quarter. This resulted from the problems accumulating at the end of 2005 from a rock fall and a switch from using contractors to having its own crew at the mine. As a result there is an additional 23,664 tonnes of stockpiled ore which will be treated this quarter and full and profitable production should be restored by the third quarter though backfilling is proving slightly slower than expected.

The acquisition of Triako means that its principal asset, the Hera project, can be integrated with the Endeavour mine which is 150 kms to the north west. Hera's latest resource estimate shows 1.94 million tonnes grading 6.7 g/t gold, 2.8% zinc, 2.5% lead, 0.2% copper and 14 g/t silver and Bob Besley reckons it can be mined economically and trucked to Endeavor. This would save Triako having to build a plant of its own and will only require a small upgrade at Endeavor to recover free gold. Meanwhile successful drilling has been taking place in the upper 100 metres of the Sulphur Springs zinc-copper deposit which is only 160 kms by road from Port Hedland in Western Australia to which the concentrate will be trucked for shipping. A new resource calculation based on open pit cut-off grades has substantially increased the total resource estimate for the deposit to 13.8 million tonnes grading 3.7% zinc, 1.4% copper and 21 g/t silver and it contains a large high-grade component of 8.5 million tonnes 5.2% zinc, 1.9% copper and 25 g/t silver

The final feasibility study for Sulphur Springs should be completed next month and it is based on an open pit, the design for which will be included. Bob Besley is confident that the economics will prove very robust so the decion to go ahead with development is a foregone conclusion. Site preparation should start in the second half of this year and production should be underway by the end of 2007 or early in 2008. The project design is for a 1.25 million tonne per year ore throughput to generate 65,000 tonnes per year of copper concentrates (25% copper) and 75,000 tonnes per year zinc concentrate (53% zinc). The capital cost is expected to come in at just below A$100 million and payback should take place in less than a year at current metal prices.

And then there is the Rasp mine project where CBH is at an advanced stage of planning an underground operation and processing facility on the Western Mineralisation zone of the Broken Hill line of lode where the company holds title to the central 3.8 kilometres. A resource has now been modelled in the upper part of this mineralised zone totalling 9.2 million tonnes assaying 4.1% zinc and 2.8% lead. The overall Western Mineralisation zone as drilled to date extends from 100 metres to 800 metres depth and has a strike length of 1.7 kilometres. The initial development of the Rasp Mine is focussed on the section between 200 metres and 420 metres depth which will be accessed by a decline from the base of the Kintore pit. A faulted extension of the Western Mineralisation, the Centenary Mineralisation, lies between 800 metres and 1300 metre depth. Both the Western Mineralisation and Centenary Mineralisation are open-ended and provide significant upside potential for the Rasp Mine project which is within the central mining leases at Broken Hill so all infrastructure is available.

Small wonder Bob Besley is optimistic about the future growth of his company which is reflected in a number of experts he has recently recruited. By 2008 there should be three mines in operation and there is plenty of exploration potential to boost resources at all of them. In addition the concentrate shiploading facility at Newcastle should be benefiting from increased activity in the Broken Hill region of New South Wales.

The United Kingdom may have 115 mining companies listed on AIM and it may play host to the head offices of some of the world's largest mining companies, but it no longer ranks among the world leaders in terms of domestic mine production. Alba Minerals is planning to remedy that, in some small part, with the development of a nickel-copper-PGE project in Scotland. Alba is the holding company of Aurum Mineral Resources (AMR), a private mineral exploration company that was incorporated in Ireland in June 2003.

Alba has recently entered into a joint venture with Inco Europe, under which Inco has the right and option to earn a 60% interest in Alba's Arthrath project by funding £2.5 million (US$4.7 million) over a four-year period.

Alba listed on AIM on April 4 2005 (AIM ticker symbol ALBA, market capitalisation £6 million or US$11 million) and is peopled with a young team. The exploration director, Wilson Robb has a track record in developing exploration programmes as does Technical Director, Dr. Sandy Archibald. The chairman and CEO, Lance O'Neill and Nigel Duxbury, come from the world of finance. Alba has assets in Scotland, Ireland and Scandinavia and is targeting the Appalachian-Caledonide trend, focusing on the search of gold and nickel, copper, cobalt and the platinum group elements.

The corporate mission is to research and develop opportunities for potential new prospects and licences and to enter into joint ventures where appropriate. The company currently has seven exploration targets of which four are in Scotland and three in Ireland. These are at different stages of development from conceptual exploration targets to more advanced drill ready projects. Six are gold prospects, but the most advanced project is the Arthrath, which is an advanced drilling target with nickel-copper mineralisation analogous to that of Inco's Voisey's Bay in Labrador, Canada. The joint venture with Inco is thus particularly apposite. At a similar stage of development is the Loch Tay mesothermal lode-gold project. Both have been tested by previous explorers and are believed to have significant potential.

Arthrath is located roughly thirty kilometres to the north of Aberdeen in the east of Scotland. A previous limited drilling programme (36 holes) by Exploration Ventures (a joint venture between Rio Tinto – then RTZ – and Consolidated Gold Fields) intersected weakly mineralised intervals of nickel-copper sulphides over an extensive area, near to surface. In one hole, for example Rio's reported 32 metres averaging 0.34% nickel and 0.28% copper from 19.6 metres depth. Another intersection amounts to 150.5 metres at 0.12% nickel and 0.15% copper, with higher grades including 0.5% nickel and o.3% copper over 10.0 metres for a depth of 102 metres. A further section returned 1.42% nickel and 0.9% copper over 0.5 metres from a depth of 134 metres. A 7.8 metre intersection returned 0.51% nickel, 0.54% copper, 0.033% cobalt with 169 parts per billion platinum, palladium and gold, plus 4.1 g/t silver from a depth of 103.2 metres. Further drilling suggests continuity and down-dip extension of the mineralisation to at least 350 metres from the surface and the deposit is open at depth.

Recent drilling by Alba has intersected extensive near-surface, disseminated magmatic nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation, including 109.7 metres at 0.26% nickel, 0.29% copper and 0.019% cobalt from 17.3 metres. This is comparable with other recently reported nickel. Alba believes that such grades over extensive intervals (of up to 170 metres) indicate the likelihood of a large system that may contain higher-grade, potentially economic zones. Mineralisation is present over a strike-length of 4.5 kilometres.

The deposit has what the company describes as important affinities with Voisey's Bay and Alba therefore intends to use the interpretation techniques that were applied in the exploration of Voisey's Bay and which are substantially different from previous techniques when it comes to the interpretation of mineralisation controls for magmatic deposits.

The programmes will include deep-penetrating, large-loop ground electro-magnetic geophysical surveying and specialised partial leach shallow soil sampling techniques.

As well as the four-year £2.5 million programme, Inco can earn a further 10% by conducting a feasibility study at its own expense. If Inco does exercise this option then either party may maintain its interest in the joint venture by contributing according to its participating interest in the venture. Alternatively either party could elect to dilute its interest to 10%, at which point the interest would convert to a 10% Net Smelter Return royalty.

While this is still very early stage, the presence of Inco makes a tangible difference and it will be interesting to monitor the progress of this programme.