MC Mining to negotiate EPC package with Chinese group

6th September 2018 By: Marleny Arnoldi - Deputy Editor Online

Coal miner MC Mining has signed heads of agreements with Chinese construction group China Railway International Group (CRIG) to negotiate an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the Makhado project, in Limpopo.

Under the terms of the agreements, MC Mining and CRIG will negotiate a package that comprises the EPC for Makhado’s coal handling and processing plant, financing for  85% of the EPC costs and contract mining operations.

This will be conditional upon the finalisation of terms and conditions by June 2019.

These terms include completion of the Makhado project’s front-end engineering and design study and agreement on the EPC contract price by both parties, as well as appropriate funding provided on acceptable terms.

MC Mining reported on Thursday that offtake discussions for hard coking and export thermal coal production from Makhado were ongoing with various parties.

Earlier in the week, the Limpopo Department of Economic Development and Tourism amended MC Mining’s environmental authorisation, permitting the company to transfer coal by road instead of rail as originally scoped in the project.