Junior miner Nkwe Platinum on Friday reported that it had appointed South African investment banking group, Nedbank Capital, to act as its exclusive investment bank, corporate adviser and sponsor for its inward dual listing on the JSE, which was anticipated to take place by July 2008.

The listing of Nkwe on London's Aim market would be conducted simultaneously this year.

The miner reached a settlement in February, following a dispute over the prospecting rights of five farms, after Anglo Platinum threatened legal action when the rights were awarded to Genorah, a major shareholder in Nkwe Platinum.

Nkwe was currently conducting an expedited exploration programme and a bankable feasibility study (BFS) in the Garatouw farm in the north, and the Eerste Geluk farm in the south, on the eastern limb of the Bushveld Complex, with a view to developing two mines with a combined annual production of one-million ounces a year of platinum group metals.

The BFS was expected to be complete in the north of the eastern Bushveld Complex by 2009, with completion in the south of the region expected in mid-2008.

The challenges hindering the BFS to date included the delays in turnaround times at the metallurgical plant facility and the availability of rigs.

Once the BFS was completed, the process would begin to establish the design of the mines, and construction of the mines was expected to start in 2010, with production expected to begin by 2013.

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