JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South African exploration company Aquila Steel has started legal proceedings in the Pretoria High Court against Mineral Resources Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi to protect its security of tenure.

The company was seeking a judicial review of the Minister’s decisions to set aside Aquila’s Avontuur prospecting right, in the Northern Cape, as well as not to award the company a mining right for the Gravenhage manganese project.

Since being granted the Avontuur prospecting right in October 2006, Aquila had spent in excess of R150-million progressing Gravenhage, delivering a 112-million-ton manganese ore resource, a 20.2-million-ton reserve and a completed feasibility study indicating positive development potential.

In late 2010, Aquila submitted a mining right application for Gravenhage, which had been accepted by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR).

However, in 2013, Aquila received documentation from lawyers representing Pan African Mineral Development Company (PAMDC), a company incorporated in November 2007 and owned by the governments of South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, alleging that PAMDC was the holder of an overlapping prospecting right.

The alleged overlapping prospecting right appeared, from the documentation, to have been executed on November 19, 2011, which was five years after a prospecting right over parts of the same areas was granted to Aquila.

“The alleged grant was also almost one year after Aquila’s mining right application was accepted by the DMR, on December 22, 2010,” the company said in a statement.

Following discussions between the company, its black economic-empowerment partner Rakana Consolidated Mines and the DMR, Aquila started an administrative appeal process in October 2013 to have the DMR set aside the overlapping prospecting right and decide on Aquila’s application.

In July, Aquila was informed that the Minister had dismissed the Aquila appeal and rejected its mining right application, upholding the grant of the overlapping prospecting right to ZIZA, a company that appeared to be connected with PAMDC.

“Regrettably, Aquila has now been left with no alternative but to commence legal proceedings seeking a judicial review of the Minister’s decisions,” the company said.