Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Iron-ore developer Sundance Resources has signed a rail and mineral terminal concession for its Mbalam-Nabeba project with the government of Cameroon.
The concession paved the way for the ratification of the Mbalam Convention by the Cameroon Parliament later this year.
In November 2012, the government of Cameroon entered into the Mbalam Convention, requiring that two key agreements be signed, including a mineral terminal agreement and a rail agreement.
The two agreements would regulate the rights and obligations of Sundance and the government, in relation to the construction and operation of key infrastructure assets servicing the Mbalam and Nabeba mines, as well as detailing the procedure for the eventual transfer of these assets back to the government of Cameroon.
The agreements also outlined third-party access to the infrastructure, a pathway to expand the infrastructure once built, and the mechanism to easily facilitate changes to the legal ownership of the infrastructure in the future.
ASX-listed Sundance recently appointed construction company Mota-Engil Africa as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for its $3.5-billion port and rail infrastructure for the Mbalam-Nabeba iron-ore project.
The EPC contract would include a 510 km railway from the Mbarga mine, in Cameroon, to the mineral terminal facility at Lolabe, as well as 70 km of rail spur from the Nabeba mine, in the Republic of Congo, to the Cameroon railway.
The contract also included the construction of a 35-million-tonne-a-year deep-water mineral terminal facility, which would include stockyards capable of loading China-max vessels.