Photo by: Duane Daws
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – As JSE- and TSX-listed Buffalo Coal prepares to contest the Department of Mineral Resources’ (DMR’s) decision to withdraw its Aviemore anthracite mine’s mining right, it is moving to obtain an urgent interdict to ensure the right is not awarded to another company.
The South Africa-focused coal miner on Friday announced that the 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Right 301 (MR301), as well as the approval for the Environmental Management Plan, for its KwaZulu-Natal-based colliery was retracted on the back of “procedural issues” relating to an earlier objection by Aviemore Trust over the award process.
Buffalo applied for an urgent application, which would be heard next week, 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 company was confident of a successful outcome.
Buffalo, which acquired the right through Zinoju Coal from Leeuw Mining and 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.