JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim-listed Stratex International continues to evaluate potential acquisition opportunities and its management was optimistic that it could use its cash balance of £17-million to provide further growth for the company.

Nonexecutive chairperson Christopher Hall noted in a statement to shareholders on Tuesday that, since announcing the company’s revised strategy at the end of January, the board had had a number of opportunities to acquire assets from other companies that were finding the equity markets challenging.

“The board continues to evaluate these and other opportunities, where careful and selective investment could transform a discovery into a resource, or an early stage resource into a project which has clear economic potential. Stratex is well-funded and appears to be in a unique position among its peers,” he said.

Meanwhile, in East Africa, Thani-Ashanti had met its commitment to vest a 51% interest in the Ethiopian and Djibouti Afar project licence portfolio and was able to earn up to 70% of any one of Stratex’s eleven licences by spending a further $4-million on each licence.

Follow-up drilling at the Megenta project, in Ethiopia, and initial drilling of the Oklila Licence, in the Republic of Djibouti, was planned for the second half of the year. Stratex’s board continued to be encouraged by exploration results at Oklila, while, at its 95%-owned Blackrock project, in Ethiopia, a 5 km drill programme had been completed with the results expected to be announced by the end of June.

"In West Africa, a 30 km rotary air blast drilling programme is nearing completion at the Dalafin licence, in Senegal. Work has also begun at the North Suehn property, in Liberia, under option from BG Minerals, and a systematic search for new exploration opportunities in this region is under way,” Hall indicated.