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Con Fauconnier, CEO Kumba Resources Posted: Wed, 08 Feb 2006 [miningmx.com] -- KUMBA Resources CEO, Con Fauconnier, was next in line to speak to Miningmx, attending the Indaba Mining Conference. We quizzed him on the firm's iron ore plans. [Note: Kumba is completing a restructuring with shareholder, Anglo American, of which one part is to split out and separately list its iron ore assets on the JSE Securities Exchange]. MININGMX: Mr Fauconnier, thank you for agreeing to this interview. First off, there have been developments in the Northern Cape’s iron ore industry with African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) expanding its production through the now delisted Assmang. How does this development affect Kumba’s iron ore assets there? CON FAUCONNIER: We signed a deal with Transnet [state-owned freight company] last year in which we negotiated a 11.5 million ton increase to our contract to 35 million tons/year. Whatever ARM produces in iron ore in the Northern Cape is over and above that. MININGMX: There was speculation at one stage linking Kumba and ARM’s iron ore assets. Is anything going on there, or have those talks broken down? CON FAUCONNIER: No, I don’t think talks have broken down completely. But we have not been able to reach a deal that suits both parties. When you start mining next door to each other, there are invariably some synergies that come to the fore. At one stage, we were looking towards whether we could buy them or maybe do a swap of reserves. I trust that in the future we can work together. MININGMX: Has Kumba got any expansion projects in iron ore offshore? CON FAUCONNIER:We are busy looking at the agreements that need to be put in place in Senegal with the Faleme project. We are busy with exploration work. At the moment, we are negotiating with the entity that owns the project there to see whether we can come to an arrangement that suits both us and them. There are one or two projects that I can’t talk about yet that look interesting. But we have not taken steps. MININGMX: Can you give us a hint about where they might be? CON FAUCONNIER:Apart from South Africa, you’ve got Brazil, India, Australia, and Russia. We actually keep a watch on all of those to see if there are actually projects that are of any interest to us. MININGMX: Back to the Faleme iron ore deposit in Senegal. Do you have any figures on the size of the resource? CON FAUCONNIER: We have a resource which we think will sustain a 12 million ton/year operation. What I’d like to see is if I can’t maybe just stretch it a bit. Infrastructure needs to go in and we look forward to that. But the bigger you make the project, the more feasible it becomes. At the moment, our aim is to try and see whether we can stretch the size of the resources as large as possible. MININGMX: How much bigger would you like to see the Faleme project? CON FAUCONNIER: Well, as I say we’re kind of working on a minimum of 20-year life. We are looking at the moment at a 12 million ton a year operation. We would like to go bigger than that if we could.
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