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Gold/Mining/Energy : Lundin Oil (LOILY, LOILB Sweden) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tomas who wrote (2568)	6/23/2001 3:09:06 PM
From: Tomas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2742

Lundins go where others fear to tread. Family successful at acquiring properties in risky areas, later selling at a premium The Globe & Mail, June 22 PETER KENNEDY VANCOUVER -- There aren't many people in the global resources business with the tolerance for risk that has been shown by the Lundin family. Headed by patriarch, Adolf, with his Vancouver-born sons Lukas and Ian, the Lundins are known for going into risky areas, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, grabbing huge mineral/oil deposits at discount prices and later selling at a premium to international companies. The strategy paid off again yesterday, when one of the family's stable of companies, Lundin Oil AB,agreed to sell oil and gas operations in the North Sea and Asia to Talisman Energy Inc. for $529-million. It's the third time in six years that the family has been able to attract a big international bidder to one of its properties. In 1999, Homestake Mining Co. of San Francisco bought Argentina Gold Corp. and its Veladero gold project in Argentina for $300-million. In 1995 Rio Algom Ltd. and North Ltd. of Australia paid $510-million (U.S.) for the Lundins' International Musto Explorations Ltd., which controlled the Bajo de La Alumbrera copper deposit in Argentina. "These are people who take big bets on countries that others are more wary of," said Catherine McLeod-Seltzer, president of Vancouver-based Pacific Rim Mining Ltd. "They don't always pay off, but when they do the payoffs are big." Having entered the oil business in the early 1970s, Adolf, 69, is running the family oil operations from Geneva with his youngest son, Ian, 40. Lukas, 42, heads up the family's Vancouver-based administrative office, which oversees 12 mining and oil companies, including Tenke Mining Corp., Santa Catalina Mining Corp., International Curator Resources Ltd. and Atacama Minerals Corp. Now that Talisman has agreed to buy the assets of Lundin Oil, analysts say the big question is what will the family do next. In an interview, Lukas Lundin said he plans to focus on Lundin Petroleum, a new, Stockholm Exchange-listed firm that will contain the family's oil operations in Russia and Sudan not being acquired by Talisman. For example, it hopes to have its 42,000-barrel-a-day Thar Jath discovery in Sudan in production within the next 18 months. Meanwhile, Tenke Mining is in discussions with the Congolese government in hopes of renegotiating a contract that will allow its huge Tenke Fungurume copper/cobalt project to go into production. Tenke is hoping the political situation will stabilize in the country, the former Zaire, under the new government of Joseph Kabila, son of former president Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated in January. Having operated in Congo for about four years, Tenke has moved to spread its risk by cutting its stake in the project to 18 per cent by selling off options to buy a controlling interest in the deposits to BHP Ltd. of Australia and U.S. mining giant Phelps Dodge Corp. "They will carry us to production if we can get the deal done," said Lukas Lundin, who hopes to be in a position to make an announcement by mid-July. Mr. Lundin agreed that the family's strategy doesn't always work. For example, International Curator recently walked away from a large copper/cobalt project in Mexico following a dispute over the contents of a mine feasibility study. "I spent $60-million on the property and I couldn't make it work so I gave it back to them." International Curator has since changed its focus to gold exploration in northern Manitoba.