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WH Ireland is nominated adviser and joint broker to Shanta, whose projects include Mgusu, near the established Geite mine and Singida in the middle of gold rush territory in central Tanzania.

Headed by former South African stockbroker George Bennett and boasting a board replete with heavyweight mining credentials, Shanta should command an AIM value of some £20 million if the float goes to plan, though the issue share price has yet to be finalised.

Early backers, including Swiss-based South African investors and Tanzania’s powerful Patel business dynasty, have already put around £2.6 million into Shanta. Bennett claims these connections, particularly the Patels, have steered the company onto desirable properties ahead of the competition.

Mgusu already sports a resource estimate of 750,000 oz and could be in production in two and a half to three years, he maintains. By then, it seems, independent consultants have suggested its resource estimate could have doubled to 1.5 million oz.

Other Shanta prospects around Tanzania, including a joint venture with the Placer Dome mining group, potentially also hold several hundred thousand oz of gold on top of that. Bennett argues the ‘blue sky’ is provided by Singida, in a ‘new greenstone belt’, which has been the focus of a gold rush by local ‘artisanal’ miners for several months and where the Patels’ intelligence network enabled Shanta to beat the rush.

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