Altona Resources - Coal & CTL (ANR)

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Aim miners power ahead like the big boys

By Ben Bland
Last Updated: 12:06am GMT 17/12/2007


.............."The mining sector is structured for acquisitions from top to bottom level," he said. "The plan for many Aim companies is to develop a project up to a size or scale where they have to get taken over - that is what they view as success." Many of the large-cap miners cut back on their exploration programmes in the 1990s as they tried to reduce their costs because metal prices were weaker. Now, the small independent miners - of which there are more than 200 listed on Aim - take on much of the exploration risk, hoping that they will be snapped up if they strike gold, so to speak.

"The big problem in the mining industry is the time it takes to develop a large mineral deposit into the production phase - about 10 years," Mr Williams said. "Life is too short and Chinese growth is not going to stand around and wait for you. So the big boys wait until someone else has developed the project and there's little risk and then go for it...............

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/12/17/ccaimmkt117.xml