Wesizwe Platinum announced during May that it is planning on spending R210 million on platinum exploration and studies over the course of 2007. A sizeable portion of the funding will be put towards taking Wesizwe's Pilanesberg project through the bankable feasibility stage, along with development of new properties. Chief Executive Michael Solomon explained that the company has a number of new properties on which to undertake exploration work and is expecting to be granted more prospecting permits in the near future.

Jubilee Platinum has revealed that it plans to fund its latest round of platinum exploration efforts through the sale of shares. The firm announced early in May that it had made an application to the London Stock Exchange for 1,662,500 new shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and on the JSE. Jubilee is hopeful that the extra funding raised from the additional shares will enable the company to speed up its exploration and drilling programme at its flagship Tjate project.

Anooraq Resources has announced that its Ga-Phasha project may have increases in the mineral resources available compared to the previous estimates. The latest resource estimate carried out by Anooraq's joint venture partner, Anglo Platinum, on the UG2 reef deposits indicates increases to the mineral resources in measured, indicated and inferred categories.

Eastern Platinum's Spitzkop project is also looking promising, the firm's President and Chief Executive has reported. Ian Rozier has announced that more high grade platinum and rhodium has been discovered on the site on the eastern limb of the Bushveld complex in South Africa. Announcing the results of the third and fourth batches of assay results received from the infill drilling programme, Mr Rozier confirmed the high pgm grade potential of the site at the UG2 reef. The company announced that the figures continued to affirm the high platinum (56 per cent) and rhodium (eight per cent) content found at the UG2 reef at the Spitzkop project. It also revealed that the widths in the reef were found to be consistent with work carried out previously by Eastern Platinum and Impala Plaitnum.

Mr Rozier welcomed the results, saying: "These results are important in that they greatly increase our confidence in the overall continuity of the UG2 Reef across Spitzkop as well as confirming its general high grade and high platinum-rhodium content."

Away from South Africa, Eurasia Mining has announced that it has completed an exploration drilling programme in the Urals, Russia. The project, which was fully funded by Eurasia's joint-venture partner, Anglo Platinum, was carried out on a portion of the West Kytlim licence area and it forms the first stage of mining at the West Kytlim site. Completion of the drilling represents the first major step in the bankable feasibility study.

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