El Pilar, Mexico
Photo by: Mercator Minerals
TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Vancouver-based Stingray Copper, a subsidiary of insolvent Mercator Minerals, announced this week that it would sell its El Pilar copper development project, located about 15 km south of the US border in Sonora, Mexico.
Stingray on Monday announced that it had started a sales process to sell El Pilar.
The company and its subsidiaries had negotiated a mutually acceptable forbearance arrangement and funding with their creditor, RMB Australia Holdings, to allow Stingray to complete the sale process.
Mercator filed for creditor protection in late August, with its Mercator Mineral Park Holdings unit filing for bankruptcy protection, listing debt of as much as $500-million. It listed assets of less than $50 000.
Stingray and its subsidiaries were not party to proceedings involving Mercator under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.
Early last month, Mercator’s entire executive leadership team resigned from the company.
Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov’s diversified Russian resource company Intergeo in December last year announced plans to buy Mercator in a reverse takeover that would have gained it exposure to the TSX.
However, Russian regulators delayed the transaction, prompting Intergeo to cancel the deal in July.
Mercator’s stock fell considerably last year from a high of C$0.63 to C$0.04 a share.
The El Pilar oxide copper project currently had a compliant proven and probable reserve of 1.73-billion pounds of copper and 2.23-billion pounds in the measured and indicated categories. It was expected to produce copper at $1.34/lb over its 13-year life.