Resources round-up: Mercury Recycling, Highland Gold Mining, Mariana Resources

It sounds like something from a Sherlock Holmes novel, but a letter from a lawyer claiming to be acting for a South African tribe has caused a big drop in the share price of iron ore explorer Mercury Recycling. Mercury is buying a site owned by Sylvania Platinum in the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Complex in South Africa. The Tribesman claim they have occupancy rights over the land. Mercury says its lawyers think the claim is a load of nonsense. The market is not impressed. Russia focused precious metal company Highland Gold Mining said combined production of gold and gold equivalents from the MNV Novo site, in which it has a 97.5% interest, and Belaya Gora totalled 101,900 oz, a 9.5% increase compared with the same period in 2011. The fully unhedged averaged gold sale price was 13% higher at $1,641 per ounce. The firm is set to produce between 200,000 and 215,000 ounces of gold by the end of the year. Its Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) compliant resource estimate has been increased 16% to 12.9m ounces. Mariana Resources the resources company focused on Argentina and Chile says in the first half of the year it made a consolidated loss of £2.0m, compared to £2.2m in the same period of 2011. The company is still waiting for test results from one of its sites near Santa Cruz in Chile, with delivery expected in August. If the results are positive it may be able to upgrade its resource estimate. BS