Amoil to step up its exploration in N.Z.

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32634, 16 June 1971, Page 18

Amoil to step up its exploration in N.Z.

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, June. 15.

Australian Mining and Oil Investments, Ltd (Amoil) is to place more emphasis on active mineral exploration in New Zealand.

This is made clear in the first annual report of the company, released today.

The company now has an exploration programme in hand covering scheelite and gold prospects at Glenorchy, nickel and copper at Anita Bay, in Milford Sound, manganese at Waiheke Island, and rock phosphate in Otago and South Canterbury.

• The chairman of directors (Mr R. A. Brierley) said in the report that the commencement of operations by Amoil in June, 1970 had coincided with a generally more difficult phase on the Australian share market. It was an inevitable consequence of the inherently speculative purpose for which the company was formed that its performance in this sphere was largely dependent on the trend of the market as a whole, and scope for improvement in a downward moving market was limited.

Options, warrants

The board had taken the opportunity to review its policy. A major consideration was the resurgence of interest in New Zealand’s own mining prospects; Amoil planned to increase its commitments in this area.

The company proposes to budget for an annual exploration expenditure in New Zealand of an amount at least equal to income from other sources. It is also in the course of establishing its own geological department. Application has been made

for prospecting waramts over some 21,000 acres in the Glenorchy area. An option has been negotiated over the major part of the alluvials of the Buckler Bum, which drains the richest known deposits in the area. A pilot operation to investigate the possibility of economic extraction of scheelite and gold is planned to begin shortly.

Milford Sound

Options are held over land and seabed at Waiheke Island, covering a belt of known high grade manganese deposits. A geochemical soil sampling programme has also delineated a series of copper anomolies. An extensive exploration

programme for economic rock phosphate has been recommended by Amoil’s geo-iogi-al consultants in various parts of Otago and South Canterbury. Applications have been filed for areas totalling 47,000 acres in five separate areas including the Waikouaiti and Waihao Downs.

Amoil also holds an option over 18,000 acres at Anita Bay, Milford Sound. The area has similar geology to nearby nickel and copper prospects. The-accounts show that investments in shares of listed companies at cost valued at $322,960, but the market value of these, as at March 31, was $268,324. Mineral prospects investment at cost is $40,216. Current assets of $593,629 include deposits at call of $453,143 and sundry debtors $115,459. Intangibles amount to $110,955, including $64,032 premium incurred in overseas funds “switching”. Shareholders’ funds are $1,067,760, which includes $1,000,000 capital and $B9BO unappropriated profit. The previously reported $B9BO profit was after total revenue of $33,058. Included in the income receipts were $29,014 in interest, $476 in dividends, and $2678 in profit on the sale of investments.