[miningmx.com] – MIRANDA Mineral Holdings (Miranda), armed with a
new major shareholder and a recapitalised balance sheet, declared itself over its
troubles, and said it would start generating revenue from coal prospects in KwaZulu-
Natal in the current calendar year.
“It is expected that Miranda’s long-awaited move into active coal mining will take
place during calendar year 2012,’ said Lelau Mohuba, Miranda’s newly elected
chairman, in the firm’s integrated report published on Wednesday.
Mohuba said that Miranda was currently negotiating off-take agreements for its
Sesikhona coal deposits which, once finalised, would set “… the stage for the
company to begin production in fields contiguous to, or near, this primary site’.
Miranda, an exploration company that once had ambitions for diamond as well as
coal mining, has been through “the mill’ over the last few years. Things culminated in
a R98m investment by none other than Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Prime Minister
of Thailand, through his Dubai-based investment firm Global PS Mining Investments
Company.
Thaksin was forced to flee Thailand in 2006 amid a military coup.
Amid the progress of this investment, there was an attempt by former Miranda CEO,
Ron Nel, who had already been forced off the company’s board in return for Miranda
receiving a financial bailout, to apply business rescue procedures for Miranda
Minerals.
This is tantamount to declaring the company insolvent and freezing its assets; a
move that Nel launched in an attempt to extract a better termination agreement from
Miranda, it has been speculated.
However, in January this year, Incubex Minerals, which has former AngloGold Ashanti
executive Alan Smith at its helm, negotiated a settlement with Nel and Global PS
Investments which subsequently exited the business, selling its shares to Incubex.
“Incubex [has] agreed to settle outstanding financial issues on behalf of the group
and to provide interim working capital and funding to ensure Miranda’s sustainability
going forward,’ said Mohuba.
“The availability of capital to fund interim working and capital requirements,
expenditure items and other necessary expenses relating to Miranda’s day-to-day
operations and expenses will ensure that the group approaches 2012 in a considerably
stronger position than 2011,’ he said.
The Sesikhona coal deposits – in fact only one deposit is called Sesikhona – number
10 properties in total and are all situated near Dundee and Glencoe in KwaZulu-Natal
province, with two nearby sidings.
By way of example of their prospectivity, Miranda has a mining right over 884
hectares of Sesikhona property which, according to a TWP study, would yield first
phase reserves from an opencast mine of some 1.5 million tonnes (Mt) and total, all
in resources of 22.8 Mt. According to the Miranda Minerals website, and based on a
2010 estimation, Sesikhona was initially planned to produce at a rate of 40,000 tpm.
