Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The share price of ASX-listed Syrah Resources spiked 28% on rumours that it had become the takeover target of mining major Glencore.
Speculation arose on Thursday that Glencore had made a $2-billion takeover offer for Syrah, which was advancing its Balama graphite project, in Mozambique.
While Glencore was not willing to comment on the speculation, Syrah told the ASX in response to a price query that the company from “time to time” received informal, confidential and nonbinding enquiries from various parties.
However, Syrah said that none of these enquiries had progressed to formal discussions or resulted in any indicative offer.
A scoping study for the Balama West graphite project placed a $91.6-million price tag on the development of a 1.2-million-tonne-a-year mine in Mozambique. The operation would have an initial seven-year mine-life.
Syrah recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with global supplier Asmet UK for an offtake of between 100 000 t/y and 150 000 t/y of graphite from the Balama project, over an initial five years.
An MoU was also signed with Chalieco for a further 80 000 t/y to 100 000 t/y offtake.
Syrah shares were trading at a high of A$5.61 on Thursday, up from a low of A$4.80 a share and the previous day’s closing price of A$4.29.