JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim-listed gold company Avocet Mining, which owns operations in Burkina Faso, Indonesia and Malaysia, would apply for a secondary listing on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE), and has appointed an adviser in relation to the application for the secondary listing.

The London-headquartered company said in a statement on Thursday that as a result of the acquisition in June, of Wega Mining ASA, which was listed on the Oslo Axess, part of the OSE, about  35% of the shares of the company were now held by former Wega shareholders, mainly Norwegian investors.

Following the acquisition, a number of these investors have increased their holding in Avocet, and the board believed that enabling these investors to trade on their more-familiar Norwegian trading platform, and access to a local information source, would assist the further development of the Nordic investor base, and would benefit all shareholders.

It was expected that Avocet would be eligible to join the OB Match index, which is the main index on the OSE, qualifying as a large cap miner and one of the 50-largest companies in the index.

Avocet would be the second-largest mining company on the OSE with a target to become the preferred gold exposure stock.

The company has now appointed Arctic Securities ASA and First Securities ASA to assist in the preparation for an application to list its shares on the OSE.

The application for the secondary listing was likely to be ready by late 2009, and the listing was expected to occur before the end of the financial year, or shortly thereafter.

Avocet Mining owns the Inata gold project in Burkina Faso, where it expects to start production in January. The first gold pour was initially expected to take place in the October to December quarter, but has been delayed after the mine made changes in its plant design.

The company also owns Malaysia’s largest gold mine – the Penjom operation – and the North Lanut gold mine on the north arm of the island Sulawesi in Indonesia.

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