JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – European lead-zinc explorer Ferrum Crescent will sell its Mauritian-based subsidiary Batavia, which holds its South African assets.
The triple-listed company said the A$1 000 sale to NPSPL Africa Holdings and its Ngwenya Capital black-economic empowerment partner, includes the Moonlight iron-ore project in Limpopo.
The decision to sell the assets was based on the depressed iron-ore market and the Moonlight project’s high capital cost and infrastructure requirements.
NPSPL would now assume responsibility for all of Ferrum’s iron-ore assets; its South African subsidiaries; and all of the associated corporate, audit, fiscal and environmental responsibilities and costs, effective immediately.
“This disposal of Batavia was considered to be a more cost effective and expeditious means of withdrawing from the Moonlight project, rather than pursuing the alternative of an orderly winding-up of the group’s Mauritian and South African subsidiaries and relinquishment of the Moonlight mining right and prospecting right application to the South African Department of Mineral Resources with the concomitant requisite actions, including environmental rehabilitation requirements,” Ferrum said in a statement.
The miner would now focus its efforts and capital deployment on the development of its Spanish lead-zinc assets.