Junior explorer Amani Gold (ASX:ANL) wants to prove it can be more than just explorer and that it can actually generate cash flow quite quickly.

The company, which is developing its flagship Giro project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has a near-term goal of bringing in cash as soon as possible by starting small-scale mining.

Managing director Jacky Chan told Stockhead that Amani brought in Klaus Eckhof, who was this week named chairman, to help execute a change in strategy.

Amani’s plan of attack is two-pronged: first it wants to start small scale mining this year to bring in cash, second it wants continue to develop its core deposits, acquire new ground and eventually become a 5-10 million ounce gold producer.

“We would still want to develop, but at the same time I believe that in this era of the mining industry, we couldn’t just be a junior … and just keep exploring and issue new shares,” Chan said.

“That is not in the best interest for all the shareholders.

“What I propose is still in discussion: that we should get into small scale mining at least to get some cash flow very quickly.

“We hope to get into some reasonable sustainable cash flow as soon as possible this year together with continuing with studies to make a JORC-compliant resource.”

Amani’s Giro project already has a defined resource of 3.1 million ounces of gold across two deposits.

“Of course we are going to mine it for sure, but we need to finish the JORC-compliance with these studies, and also we would like to do more acquisitions to grow the resource base hopefully to another world class deposit like what Klaus did for Moto,” Chan explained.

Back in 2003, Eckhof helped build Moto Goldmines up to 11 million ounces and then sold the company to Randgold Resources for $485m.

>>Read about Eckhof’s plans for Amani and how he thinks it could be a much bigger gold play.

What about the share price?

With its new two-pronged strategy, Amani hopes its share price will get a bit of a pick-me-up.

Amani, which has a market cap of $7.4m at a share price of 0.2c, has struggled to gain market traction.

In the past year, it has lost over 92 per cent of its value, trading as low as 0.1c. Even though most small caps suffered through the volatile market in the second half of 2018, Amani has been on a downhill slide since late 2016.

“I believe that, including myself, all of the shareholders may be disappointed by the share price,” Chan said.

Chan’s goal is to lift Amani up to a “reasonable market value”.

“Just doing a peer review for all the relevant companies in the market, I think $70m to $100m will be a fair market value for Amani with the current resources,” Chan said.

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