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Gold/Mining/Energy : Mining News of Note -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LoneClone who wrote (37528)	5/22/2009 8:04:00 PM
From: LoneClone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 194794

Pan African buys Phoenix Platinum, appoints operations manager miningweekly.com By: Esmarie Swanepoel 21st May 2009 JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Junior miner Pan African Resources has exercised its option to buy Phoenix Platinum from JSE-listed Metorex a month ahead of schedule, it announced on Thursday. Pan African acquired the UK-based Phoenix, which owns rights to platinum group metals (PGMs) from tailings dumps and from some operating mines in South Africa’s Bushveld Complex, for R71,25-million in cash. By exercising the option earlier and paying an upfront cash amount of R44,8-million, Pan African received a 5% discount on the original purchase price of R75-million as well as credit terms to pay the balance of R14,5-million on a pro-rata basis over 12 months. Pan African accelerated its option after detailed sampling indicated that grades were better than expected from an earlier prefeasibility study conducted by Metorex. The re-evaluation of 360 000 oz of PGMs tailings sources indicated four element grades ranging from 1,11 g/t to 4,18g/t. Initial results showed that a recovery of 55% was possible. The total cash cost anticipated for the project was less than $350/oz. In assessing the financial viability of the project, a basket price of $1 366/oz has been used over the life-of-mine, which was estimated to be seven years on current surface tailings, and 14 years, including current arisings. Meanwhile, Pan African has also appointed of Ron Holding as operations manager. Holding, who has over 35 years of experience in the mining industry, was instrumental in the development of the first chrome tailings recovery plant in the Kroondal area, and has more recently been responsible for managing the Phoenix platinum project on behalf of Metorex. "Making this acquisition now and strengthening our team will enable us to bring the project into production sooner to accelerate our cash flow in line with our stated aim of focusing on near-term, high-yield, low-cost assets," commented CEO Jan Nelson. "We anticipate that at full production, we’ll recuperate the capital expenditure for this asset within 14 months." Metorex, which acquired Phoenix at the end of 2007 for £7,92-million, said disposing the company formed part of its strategy of selling noncore assets to generate sufficient liquidity to pay near-term debt, while funding its flagship Ruashi project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “Metorex continues to advance its asset disposal strategy while remaining keenly focused on the Ruashi project and ramping up our copper and cobalt production. This sale is one of several fundamental steps in our strategy, as we build momentum in turning the company around," commented CEO Terence Goodlace.