PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The South African Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) has given ASX-listed Universal Coal approval for the transfer of ownership of the Glisa and Eerstelingsfontein mining rights.
Universal, through a 49%-owned subsidiary North Block Complex Proprietary (NBC), in March entered into an agreement with South African coal miner Exxaro to acquire the North Block Complex assets, in Mpumalanga, for A$18.6-million.
Universal on Wednesday said that the acquisition was progressing well, and has already received regulatory and statutory approvals, while a number of conditions were still outstanding, including the transfer of the Paardeplaats prospecting right, and the confirmation of the renewal of the Glisa mining right and the Paardeplaats prospecting rights, as well as the associated environmental management programme reports.
“The S11 approval is an important milestone in Universal securing the North Block Complex and it brings us a step closer to completing the acquisition,” said Universal CEO Tony Weber.
“As we have stated previously, NBC will add materially to Universal’s growing production profile and will give the company greater exposure to high margin export markets in the long-term. These are outstanding assets, and we are looking forward to completing the transaction.”
The North Block Complex is an opencast operation located in proximity to South African State-owned utility Eskom’s Arnot, Tutuka and Komati power stations. It has historically achieved average run-of-mine production of about 3.5-million tons a year over the past four years with sales of about 2.7-million tons a year.