Sale of Tolukuma asset is on track:Emperor

By FRANK ASAELI
THE divestment process for the Tolukuma mine in Central province is on course, with a number of parties expressing interest in acquiring the asset.
The interested buyers were conducting due diligence investigations, including site visits, with preliminary negotiations expected to be completed early this month.
Emperor Mines Ltd also announced in its quarterly report ending Dec 31 that at the beginning of the quarter, its major shareholder, DRDGold Ltd (DRD), successfully completed the sale of its 78.7 % stake in Emperor to a range of domestic and international institutions and sophisticated investors.
Chief executive officer Brad Gordon said this followed the company’s announcement that DRD intended to re-focus its attention on opportunities in South Africa and was seeking to realise its investment in Emperor in an orderly manner.
The Brisbane registry of the federal court last Dec 19, ordered a meeting of Emperor shareholders to be convened to consider the scheme of arrangement to effect the merger of Emperor and Intrepid Mines Ltd, and approved the explanatory statement to accompany the notice of meeting.
The notice of meeting and explanatory memorandum was dispatched to shareholders middle of last month, and the current timetable proposed to complete the merger by Feb 28 for Emperor’s scheme meeting and March 25 for the allotment of new Intrepid shares.
Mr Gordon said that as previously reported, the company signed an alliance agreement last Aug 19 allowing it to earn up to a 70% economic interest in the gold-silver-copper project.
“Good progress was being made on exploration activities at the Tujuh Bukit project in eastern Java,” he said.
Emperor also maintained over 5,000km2 of exploration tenements in the country.
During the last quarter, exploration was focused on on-going mine extension activities.
No regional fieldwork was undertaken during the quarter while tenement renewals were sought and NI43-101 compliant technical reports were completed.
Also during the quarter in review, the focus of activity was within ML 104 on mine extension exploration and at near mine prospects.
Regional exploration was limited to mining wardens’ hearings, tenement renewal activities and completion of NI 43-101 technical reports.