Managing director Malcolm Bird is not at all fazed by the company's size - a market capitalisation of under $8 million.

Indeed, Central West has already shown investors what it is capable of when market activity earlier this year saw the stock hit a peak of 41c.

Given the company's current exploration activity, attaining those heights again or even higher, is considered an achievable goal by many market watchers.

Central West is a pure grassroots explorer with a portfolio of projects covering a range of commodities, including those that are currently red-hot market prospects such as uranium, cobalt and tin.

"Though most of our projects are an early stage, they are well located and extremely prospective," Bird said.

"What this means is that investors in Central West are able to gain a relatively cheap exposure to a range of commodities and a range of projects with tremendous blue-sky potential.

"So for investors prepared to back our knowledge, experience and expertise, there are potentially exceptional rewards."

With a market capitalisation of $7.7 million, $1.6 million in the bank and $650,000 worth of shares in a listed silver spin-off, the market is currently attributing very little value to the company's portfolio of projects, which are located in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.

Some of these already have already attracted the attention of major mining companies looking at the possibility of joint venture deals.

One of the company's flagship projects is the Pulganbar copper-gold-cobalt field, about 36km northwest of Grafton in NSW.

Central West's ground covers about 2km of the contact between granite and sedimentary-acid volcanic sequences in what is known as the New England fold belt.

Early stage exploration at Pulganbar, consisting of a dozen drillholes, has already shown significant copper-gold-cobalt mineralisation and highlighted the existence of at least 18 narrow but rich lodes.

In particular, the cobalt values received from the first assay results have proved encouraging, including one intersection showing 3.67% cobalt (0.1% is considered economic) as well as up to 1.82% copper and 1.65 grams per tonne gold.

These results have considerable significance, especially given the global cobalt price is now an astounding $83,000 a tonne.

"We are excited by what we have seen so far," Bird said.

"It is probably fair to say though this may not be a world-class project, it nonetheless has the potential to be a medium-sized but rich ore body and at current world prices Pulganbar could be a company maker."

What the Central West team is still not sure about is the extent of the Pulganbar ore body. So far about $300,000 has been spent on drilling and constant results are flowing in.

Another $200,000 had been approved by the board with the results expected to build a better picture of the potential of the project, most significantly outlining a central, higher grade zone of some size.

"We don't even know which way the lodes are going and we are still building a picture, but it is fair to say we are very encouraged by it," Bird said.

So encouraged in fact that Central West has now extended its exploration licence north to cover possible extensions of the mineralisation already discovered.

In the first instance, Central West is considering flying radiometric surveys over the new area, where repeats of the existing mineralisation should be clearly highlighted and help pinpoint fresh drilling targets.

Central West has another cobalt project at Bungonia near Goulburn, also in NSW. Previous drilling has outlined a moderate but high-grade resource that appears amenable to chemical leaching and Central West is now looking to carry out further exploration drilling with the aim of increasing that resource.
Another of Central West's prime projects, and one that has the market interested, is the Mary Kathleen uranium project in Queensland.

Companies with uranium interests have been gaining a lot of market attention recently given the value of the nuclear fuel continues to soar to record levels.
And with political debate hotting up and potential policy shifts regarding the mining of uranium, the market is wise to the fact that Australia could host a sizeable uranium mining industry.

The Mary Kathleen project is a JV with Goldsearch, which is earning a 75% interest. Central West holds the remaining 25%.

As announced to the ASX on April 11, various reports relating to the drilling at the Elaine Dorothy prospect (6km south of the Mary Kathleen mine) in the mid-1950s and 1970s have been located.

These reports indicate that uranium mineralisation extends in a northwesterly direction for at least 500m with a downdip continuation of at least 100m.

Mineralised intersections in (cored) drilling include: EP2 2m at 0.260% uranium oxide, EP4 9.5m at 0.036% uranium oxide, ED11 1m at 0.143% uranium oxide, and ED14 2m at 0.134% uranium oxide.

The recent five-hole reverse circulation drill program by the Central West-Goldsearch JV (in which a 4m intersection at 0.47% uranium oxide was obtained) was cited at the southern end of the mineralised zone.

Further drilling will be carried out in the coming quarter at both Elaine Dorothy and the Macgregor project (20km southwest of Mary Kathleen), where two holes by the JV intersected a wide zone of anomalous uranium.

First pass exploration will also be initiated at various regional targets in this period.

The company's other uranium project is Ooloo in South Australia in a region known for its uranium mineralisation.

Further work in this area involving geophysics, as well as mapping and sampling with the aim of delineating targets for drilling have outlined significant structures with associated gravity and radiometric features, which considerably enhance prospectivity for hard rock uranium mineralisation.

Being in an area surround by uranium activity, this is a project that is already attracting the attention of other companies keen to possibly get involved in a JV on the ground.

Another string in Central West's bow is the Ottery tin mine, 7km northeast of Emmaville in NSW.

The Ottery mine was the biggest hard rock tin mine in northern NSW with production of about 2700t of tin oxide between 1883 and 1938.

This production came from four narrow but rich lodes that were mined to a depth of just 60m.

A small resource of around 20,000t grading 3% tin oxide has already been inferred from underground sampling and Central West has drilled a further eight holes to test for bulk mineable resources, coming up with a potential 1.5 million tonnes, averaging at least 0.26-0.38% tin.

Central West believes that with the current high price for tin, further drilling is warranted.

Central West also has the Mount Hope gold project located in the Gilgunnia district of NSW where early stage resources totalling about 40,000oz have been defined, but where further exploration work is planned to fully delineate the resources.

* This report, first published in the July 2007 edition of RESOURCESTOCKS magazine, was commissioned by Central West Gold.