13 Dec 2010 07:00
Berkeley Mineral Resources Plc
("BMR" or "the Company")
Update on Kabwe acquisition
Berkeley Mineral Resources Plc, the AIM listed resource company, presents an update on its proposed acquisition of tailings dumps at Kabwe.
Completion of the acquisition is not now expected to take place until early in 2011. Discussions with the vendor, Sable Zinc Kabwe Limited, and Dorset Solutions Limited, which assisted the Company in securing the original option to secure the tailings dumps, are continuing and meetings to progress the transaction are due to take place in South Africa before Christmas.
The vendor is in the process of securing new licences and permits under Zambian mining law as a renewal of the previous small scale mining licence held by the vendor which expired, as did all such licences, in July 2010. The process of obtaining these licences and permits has been one of the reasons for the delay to the completion of the acquisition.
Further updates will be made in due course, including at the Company's AGM on 17 December 2010.
Contacts:
Masoud Alikhani, Chairman, Berkeley Mineral Resources 020 7408 1181
Stewart Dickson / Jonathan Wright, Seymour Pierce 020 7107 8000
Michael Padley / Gary Middleton, Lothbury Financial Services 020 7868 2010
Notes to editors
BMR is a minerals company with a primary strategy of investing in tailings processing. By accessing dump deposits with known grades and metallurgy, it avoids exploration or mining costs, has a secure licence and fixed environmental criteria, and can produce concentrates according to viability at current market prices.
The Kabwe deposits, located approximately 110km north of the Zambian capital Lusaka, were discovered in 1902. From 1906, Kabwe was a significant mine. By the time it closed in 1994, due to depletion of the massive sulphide mineralisation and lowered metal prices, it had produced about 1.8m tonnes of zinc, 800,000t of lead, 7,800t of vanadium pentoxide and lesser quantities of cadmium, silver and copper. After closure, most of the mine complex was sold off on a piecemeal basis. BMR's project is part of an overall plan to re-assemble the Kabwe site into a single entity operating under a single Large Scale Mining Licence.
The waste dumps at Kabwe cover an area of about 1km² and contain over 7m tons of various waste residues with an estimated combined metal content of 455,000t zinc and 368,500t lead.
BMR benefits from the existing infrastructure at Kabwe, including processing plant, good roads, water supply, ample power, local labour and direct on-site sidings connection to overseas markets via international railways to South Africa and to Indian Ocean ports.
For further information please see the Company's website at http://www.bmrplc.com
The directors of Berkeley Mineral Resources accept responsibility for this announcement.