Weatherly International Plc Regulatory News (WTI)

12 Jun 2006 16:01

Weatherly International PLC12 June 2006 12 June 2006 Weatherly International plc Chairman's AGM Statement and Result of AGM At today's Annual General Meeting, Chairman Dr. Wolf Martinick gave thefollowing update: "The proposed acquisition of Ongopolo Mining and Processing Company, theNamibian copper group, is currently the main focus of management attention,although I have also been very actively attending to our Luanshya project inZambia. Completion of the Ongopolo acquisition will immediately establish Weatherly as asignificant and fully integrated participant in the copper industry of southernand central Africa. On 26 April 2006, Weatherly assumed management of Ongopolo under an interimmanagement agreement. Since then there has been encouraging improvement inproduction results. As a result of severe financial constraints there had been asubstantial decline in Ongopolo's production, especially from its mines and hadaffected the commitment and motivation of the workforce. Weatherly's intervention has been welcomed by the vast majority of employees,secured and unsecured creditors and the Namibian government. There is no doubtthat morale has improved greatly over the past month, and the workforce hasembraced the ownership changes with enthusiasm. Importantly, captive copper production for May, at 593 tonnes smelted, was morethan twice that of the previous month. A further 697 tonnes of copper weresmelted from copper concentrates from third parties mining in the Zambian CopperBelt and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). We are in the final stages of completing due diligence and formalising thenecessary documentation to complete the acquisition. Chief Executive Officer,Rod Webster, and a legal, financial and technical team is in Namibia to completethis. We have almost completed negotiations with unsecured creditors to repay themover a five year period. We are recruiting additional key technical andfinancial staff to strengthen the existing team and to help develop strategiesand action programmes to rapidly and efficiently increase the considerablemineral potential and resources owned by Ongopolo. The overall objective is torapidly establish a cash flow positive and economically sustainable operationwith substantial long term upside. A Competent Person's report on the Ongopolo group and assets will be publishedin a new Admission Document that we expect to submit to the London StockExchange in late June 2006. Trading in Weatherly shares is expected torecommence when the Ongopolo acquisition has been approved by shareholders at anExtraordinary General Meeting scheduled for late July 2006. Weatherly's main focus will be to transform Ongopolo into a successful mid-tiercopper producer. With the acquisition of Ongopolo, Weatherly will become a fully integratedcopper producer, with its own mines, copper concentrate plants, smeltingcapacity and excellent mineral exploration potential and known targets. It willalso allow Weatherly to take advantage of very attractive prices for copper,silver, gold and pyrite. Ongopolo's various operations in central (Windhoek region) and northern (Tsumebregion) Namibia are located along a well established and strategically importanttransport route in south-west Africa stretching from the port of Walvis Bay onthe Atlantic coast to the substantial copper producing regions of Zambia andDRC. This provides the opportunity to develop Ongopolo into a regionallyimportant mining and smelting centre serving nearby mineral resource richcountries of Botswana, Zambia, DRC and Angola. Ongopolo is a key acquisitionthat can be readily integrated with our proposed operations in Luanshya, Zambia. Also, in acquiring Ongopolo, Weatherly has gained a very sophisticated andtechnically sound team and workforce, numbering about 1200. A workforce of thisquality would be difficult to assemble in the current economic climate and is avery valuable asset. Luanshya Weatherly recently completed a drilling and assay programme of part of thetailings volume located on Puku's Prospecting Licence Large Scale (PLLS) 240tenement. The tenement is estimated to contain 150 million tonnes of tailingswith an average total copper content of 0.27%. Thirty-three million cubic metresof "old" tailings were drilled and assayed; they had an average total coppercontent of 0.37% of which 62% was acid soluble. This was undertaken as a preludeto a feasibility study to re-treat some or all of these tailings. The results appear to confirm the potential to re-treat tailings, possible as astand-alone operation whilst undertaking studies to recommence mining of theclosed underground workings. The ore remaining in the underground workings isknown to contain at least 1.4 million tonnes of copper. Discussions continue on securing surface access rights to PLLS 239 which coversthe entire closed Luanshya operation, complete with the remains of its 28shafts. We remain confident that access related problems will be resolvedshortly, allowing Puku Minerals Limited, our wholly owned Zambian company, tocommence detailed drilling and feasibility work later this year. Funding In early May Weatherly raised an initial and unconditional placement of £9.1million gross at 10.5p per share. This was required to help fund the Ongopoloacquisition. I referred to this in the Annual Report of 2005. Further fundsrequired to complete the Ongopolo acquisition have been committed. We have been very encouraged by the level of support from all of ourshareholders and investors and I sincerely thank them all for their support andongoing interest reflected by frequent enquiries of progress." In addition the Company announces that at the Annual General Meeting held onMonday 12 June 2006, all the resolutions were duly passed. Enquiries Weatherly International plcJohn Norris +44 207 917 2989 First City FinancialAlan Piper +44 207 436 7486 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange