JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – JSE- and TSX-listed Buffalo Coal has been granted immediate relief to allow mining operations to continue after the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) last week withdrew its Aviemore anthracite mine’s mining right.
The South Africa-focused coal miner’s 2013 Mining Right 301 (MR301), as well as the approval for the Environmental Management Plan, for its KwaZulu-Natal-based colliery was retracted on the back of “procedural issues” relating to an earlier objection by Avemore Trust over the award process.
Buffalo had applied for an urgent application and planned to pursue legal action to obtain a declaratory order to enable the continuation of mining in terms of MR301 and to review the Mineral Resource Minister’s decision.
The urgent application would now be heard on September 14 following Avemore Trust’s request for a postponement from Tuesday.
Buffalo, which acquired the right through Zinoju Coal from Leeuw Mining & Exploration in 2013 had, in the interim, relocated the mining operations to an adjacent mining right area, with sufficient stock on hand to service customers in the short term.