PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Swiss-listed Glencore has lost its bid to appoint a replacement nominee to the board of ASX-listed Ironbark Zinc.
The two companies earlier this year entered into arbitration following the resignation of Glencore nominee David Kelly from the Ironbark board in October of last year.
Glencore had been seeking a replacement nominee to the Ironbark board, a request which Ironbark failed to heed.
Glencore, which is both a shareholder in Ironbark and an offtake partner for its proposed Citronen zinc project, in Greenland, has maintained that it had a contractual right to appoint a director to the Ironbark board.
The mining giant referred the matter to arbitration, seeking a declaration to the effect that it was entitled to nominate a person as director. However, the arbitration tribunal has now dismissed the company’s claim.
Ironbark is working towards the development of the $514-million Citronen project, which is expected to produce up to 200 000 t/y of zinc metal over a mine life of 14 years. The project is considered to be one of the world’s largest undeveloped zinc/lead resources, with more than 13-billion pounds of contained zinc and lead metal.
Glencore and fellow Ironbark shareholder Nyrstar have both inked offtake agreements for 35% each of the proposed production from Citronen. Glencore also has a marketing agreement with Ironbark for all the zinc and lead concentrate produced from Citronen.