EASTERN Platinum (Eastplats) booked a $3m net loss for the third quarter of which $1.2m related to foreign exchange losses. This compares to a $2.1m net loss in the third quarter of the previous financial year.
However, the company said December was the month in which it would be supplying ore to a chrome re-treatment plant which has been under construction for most of this year. Although commissioning hitches could not be discounted, the company anticipated its first revenue in the fourth quarter of its financial year.
In terms of an agreement with its technology partner, Union Gold Offshore Solutions, Eastplats’ subsidiary, Barplats is to spend R42.2m constructing, mine, and process chrome-bearing tailings at the Barplats Zandfontein UG2 facility. First production was initially planed for the third quarter.
“The company and UG are focused to ensure the Retreatment Project is brought into full operations as quickly as is reasonable. Other projects have been placed on hold and all appropriate resources have been authorized and allocated to achieve revenue-producing operations as targeted in Q4 2018,” Eastplats said in a statement today.
Eastplats said on November 9 that it would form a special committee of three non-executive directors to review a petition filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia relating to an agreement between the firm and Union Goal Offshore Solutions.
This was after a petition in the court sought leave “… to commence a derivative action on behalf of the company against certain of its current and former directors in relation to the approval of the transactions (with) Union Goal Offshore Solutions Limited”.
Eastplats is involved in legal action of its own.
In June it lodged two civil claims in the British Columbia Supreme Court one of which was against ” … certain former officers and directors of Eastplats”. The claims related to black economic empowerment (BEE) buyout transactions totalling about $13m.
