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We were caught by surprise - Ras Myburgh, CEO, Kumba Iron Ore
In an interview on ClassicFM @ 18:00 on Friday, 23 February, 2007
[miningmx.com] -- KUMBA Iron Ore conceded it was caught flat-footed by an announcement on February 23 from steelmaker Mittal that it was to develop the Faleme iron ore deposit in Senegal.
"Yes, we were caught by surprise with the news this morning," said Ras Myburgh, CEO of Kumba Iron Ore. "It’s unclear to us exactly what the situation is - other than the press statements from Mittal and what we’ve heard from the press in Senegal."
Myburgh was speaking on Classic Business, a week nightly radio programme.
The company had attempted to get clarity, without success, from the Senegalese government. But the announcement completely blind-sided the company.
"We had been in specific discussions with them just a fortnight ago, and we were doing some clarification discussions on some of the proposals that we’ve made on how speed up the project, how to make it more inclusive and
even improve on the previous positions that we had. This is an outcome that we didn’t expect," said Myburgh.
One analyst said, in an earlier Miningmx report, that the surprise should not deal Kumba Iron Ore a bad blow because the company had no experience developing non-South African iron ore projects in any event.
"I’m not sure exactly what the foundation of that position is. The company has experience of developing projects," said Myburgh.
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