TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – East Africa-focused gold exploration and development company Nyota Minerals on Tuesday said one of its most significant shareholders, Centamin Holdings, had further reduced its stake in the company.

ASX- and Aim-listed Nyota said it had noted the Form 604 that Centamin had directly filed with the ASX on Monday, stating that Centamin had sold a total of 16-million Nyota shares over November 7 and November 14.

Following the disposal of shares, Centamin now held 111-million shares, or 12.6%, of the company's issued share capital, down from 17.2% in early October.

Nyota shareholders recently voted against an attempt by Centamin to remove the company's CEO, Richard Chase, the latest development in an ongoing dispute between Nyota and its shareholder.

Centamin had been in talks with Nyota about its future, but started reducing its stake after Nyota signed a sales agreement with another exploration company. Centamin had tabled a resolution to remove Chase in an attempt to try and salvage a deal for itself.

Nyota on October 17 announced that it was in discussions with a potential new development partner for the potential sale of a 75% stake in the Tulu Kapi gold project, in Ethiopia. The announcement were reported to have valued the Tulu Kapi project at £6-million with the buyers offering £1-million in cash and £3.5-million worth of listed stock in the new partner at an agreed price.

Earlier this month, Nyota said talks were progressing well with its new, unnamed, development partner.

Nyota recently announced the renewal of the Tulu Kapi licence until May 2014, with the ability to renew for a further year after that. The licence renewal would be based on the work programmes and budgets being put forward.

These have been submitted jointly with their new development partner with whom negotiations were ongoing on funding arrangements.

The deal was subject to funding by the new partner, confirming that the new proposed work programme would be acceptable to the Ethiopian Ministry of Mines and other conditions and approvals.

The company in June announced the results of the Tulu Kapi gold project optimisation. 

The company expected an assumed $1 050/oz gold price to “provide a robust case in a changing gold price environment”.

Grades were estimated at 2.4 g/t for the first five years of the mine, raising gold output from the pit to 133 000 oz, up from 105 000 oz, representing $30-million to $50-million a year in revenue in the first five years.

Combining the openpit with the underground mine could produce some 70 000 oz/y to 80 000 oz/y.

Capital expenditure was projected at $221-million, with assumed operating cash costs of $600/oz.

Market analysts at SP Angel, in London, said it was interesting to see the market take up so much stock being sold.

“The optimisation plan announced back in June sounded ‘robust’ but we note the company noted at the time it needed to do further work to redesign the pit and its scheduling, review the operating costs for inclusion into the feasibility study and update the resource model. The company had just under $1-million in June and may not have afforded to complete the work for the publication of a new net present value at the lower gold price,” analyst John Meyer wrote in a note to clients.