African Minerals Limited, a mineral exploration and development company with significant iron ore and base metal interests in Sierra Leone, West Africa, has announced that China Railway Materials Commercial Corporation's (CRM) proposed investment in African Minerals has received approval from the regulatory authorities in China and is now completed.
On April 1, African Minerals announced the reaching of an agreement on the sale of a 12.5 percent stake or 33,579,474 common shares in the company to China Railway Materials Commercial Corporation for the price of £167.8 million to be used for the development of the Tonkolili project in Sierra Leone's Northern Province.
Admission of the new common shares to London Stock Exchange's AIM is expected on June 18, 2010, totalling 268,685,793 common shares in issue, African Minerals said, adding that CRM now has the right to appoint one non-executive director to the board of the company and to retain this position unless CRM's shareholding falls below five percent.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, African Minerals announced on June 9 that an aggressive exploration program is underway to define additional hematite mineralization to underpin the expansion of Phase I from 8 million mt per year of direct shipping ore (DSO) product to 25 million mt per year of DSO and hematite concentrate products at the Tonkolili project. The company said that it is currently on schedule to commence production and shipping of 8 million mt of DSO hematite product in Q1 2011 in the context of Phase I.