Little-known Imperial gets ‘lost' iron-ore rights, private-sector in on commodity rail channels, TWP to own, operate Zimbabwe gold plant

The iron-ore mineral rights that ArcellorMittal ‘lost' at the Sishen iron-ore mine have been awarded to the little-known Imperial Crown Trading, described on the company's website as a commodity broker and trader, with iron-ore at the top of its list.

Read on page 18 of this edition of Mining Weekly that the JSE-listed Kumba Iron Ore is understood to have met with the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) on the awarding of the rights to ‘third party' Imperial Crown and that a notice of appeal has been directed to Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu and DMR director-general Sandile Nogxina and a review the department has decided to review the award..

Kumba associate company Sishen Iron Ore Company, which mines iron-ore at the Sishen mine in the Northern Cape, had informed ArcelorMittal earlier that it would no longer be supplying iron-ore to the steelmaker at the agreed cost-plus-3% price as a result of its right to a 21,4% undivided stake of the operation having been lost.

State-owned freight logistics utility Transnet is optimistic that Cabinet will endorse a framework for private-sector participation (PSP) in a R93,4-billion project pipeline before the end of 2010, and expects that the first major PSP projects will be developed along its main commodity export channels and involve partners from the coal, iron-ore and manganese sectors.

Read on Page 6 of this edition of Mining Weekly that smaller deals, such as the introduction of privately owned chemicals wagons and the concessioning of some branch lines, could even be concluded before the end of the group's upcoming financial year, which begins next month.

Project house TWP is building a gold plant in Zimbabwe on a build, own and operate (BOO) basis as part of a toll treating agreement with African Consolidated Resources. Read on page 14 of Mining Weekly of TWP CEO and Basil Read executive director Nigel Townshend's remarks about the plant being set up by midyear to treat 4,5-g/t gold-dump material at a rate of 20 000 t/m.

TWP Investments, the company directly involved, is headed by Dean Cunningham and TWP is now part of the JSE-listed Basil Read group. Townshend says that TWP has two other projects on the horizon, one a copper project in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the other a manganese project in South Africa.

To watch a video of TWP CEO Nigel Townshend on the Zimbabwe gold plant, go to www.miningweekly.com and click on ‘Multimedia' and then on ‘Video Clips', or watch it on the Mining Weekly App on your iPhone.