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PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Coal hopeful Resource Generation (Resgen) on Wednesday alerted shareholders that its Boikarabelo mine, in South Africa's Waterberg region, would be delayed by between three and six months.
The miner reported that construction and engineering firm Protech Khuthele, which was undertaking the earthworks and rail link, as well as all site infrastructure and roads for the Boikarabelo mine, would be placed in liquidation.
Protech Khuthele has removed all staff from the mine site and have terminated all activities at Boikarabelo.
Resgen said that this development would result in the delay of first coal production from December 2015 to the first half of 2016.
Stage 1 of the mine was targeting a saleable coal production of some six-million tonnes a year, based on a probable reserve of 744.8-million tonnes of coal.
Resgen said that based on the previous competitive tender process for the Boikarabelo earthworks contract, the company did not expect to have any difficulty in appointing an alternative contractor, at similar cost, to complete the project.
Meanwhile, funding negotiations still continued with proposed debt financiers for the mobile equipment, the coal handling and preparation plant and the rest of the site infrastructure.