Mvelaphanda to Spend $110 Mln on Mining in Congo (Update3)
(Adds detail on Sexwale, Mvelaphanda Resources from sixth
paragraph.)
Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Mvelaphanda Holdings Ltd., a closely
held Johannesburg-based mining company, said that together with
partners it plans to spend $110 million developing copper, cobalt
and gold mining projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The company, led by former freedom fighter and politician
Tokyo Sexwale, along with an unidentified South African partner,
plans to buy the Ruashi copper and cobalt project. They plan to
begin processing a 4-million-metric-ton stockpile of ore by the
end of 2004, while assessing ore reserves and the cost of building
a plant. The projects may cost $100 million.
Separately, Mvelaphanda and Afriminerals Holdings Group plan
to spend $10 million on a venture with the Congolese government's
Okimo mining company to develop gold assets at Kilomoto in the
country's east, Mvelaphanda said in an e-mailed statement.
Mvelaphanda Holdings said it may sell its stake in the venture to
its publicly traded unit, Mvelaphanda Resources Ltd.
The investment is one of the biggest in the Congo since a war
that cost more lives than any conflict since World War II. The war
ended in 1999 after 3.3 million people had died, according to the
New York-based International Rescue Committee. The central African
country has the world's biggest reserve of cobalt and some of the
world's richest copper deposits.
Conflict in many parts of the country has continued.
Gold Assets
The agreements were signed by Sexwale in the Congolese
capital, Kinshasa, as he accompanied South Africa's President
Thabo Mbeki on the first state visit to the country by a South
African president in a decade.
The gold assets may be sold to Mvelaphanda Resources, a
company that holds interests in South African platinum and diamond
mines, because it focuses on precious metals and minerals, said
Mark Wilcox, Mvelaphanda Holdings's chief executive, in a separate
e-mailed statement.
``If it wants the DRC assets, these will be made available at
the same cost paid by Holdings,'' Wilcox said.
Shares in Mvelaphanda Resources rose 70 cents, or 2.9
percent, to 25 rand in Johannesburg, giving the company a market
value of about 1.72 billion rand ($243 million).
The Democratic Republic of Congo was formerly known as Zaire.
--Antony Sguazzin in the Johannesburg bureau (27) (11) 286-1934,
or asguazzin@bloomberg.net, through the London newsroom. Editor:
G. Reynolds, King, Morris, Taylor. |
