[miningmx.com] — Central African Mining & Exploration Co Plc (CAMEC), which has accepted a $955 million takeover offer from ENRC, swung to an annual loss of $343.1 million after copper and cobalt prices collapsed last year.
The London-listed junior mining firm, which posted a profit of $75 million the previous financial year to end March, also said on Friday a new processing facility was almost completed.
Low prices during the global financial crisis forced the firm to suspend cobalt production and curtail copper output at its operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but operations resumed in March.
The company, led by former England cricketer Phil Edmonds, said revenue rose 20 percent to $233 million and it had $19 million in cash at the end of March.
“For CAMEC, as with most other resource companies, 2008/9 was a traumatic year with the global economic meltdown particularly affecting the mining sector,” Edmonds said in a statement.
“CAMEC is emerging from the downturn relatively robustly and … has now attracted a bid from a major mining company.”
Kazakh group ENRC said on Sept. 18 that it gained approval from CAMEC for a 20-pence-per-share offer and had bought or had agreements for 55.2 percent of shares.
CAMEC said the construction of a SX/EW processing facility its flagship Luita copper-cobalt operation in the DRC was expected to be completed by the end of October.
When it is at full production by next February, it is due to produce 28,000 tonnes of copper cathode and 3,200 tonnes a year of cobalt cathode.
