Lumina Gold secures ‘slightly better’ Ecuador terms with Cangrejos mining permit, analyst says
The contract includes $25 million in advance royalty payments to the government split into four stages.
Cyprus-based investment firm Sycamore Mining on Tuesday signed a pact with Guinea’s government to redevelop the Kiniero gold mine in the country’s east, the minerals minister said.
Sycamore and three other mining companies had made takeover bids for the mine, which has been out of production since Canada’s Semafo placed it under care and maintenance in 2014 and sold it to New Dawn Mining.
“Sycamore’s was the winning bid, and we signed an outline agreement today,” Abdoulaye Magassouba, Guinea’s minister of mines and geology, said late on Tuesday.
The deal requires Sycamore to set up a Guinea entity to deliver a feasibility study within 180 days, after which the government will grant a mining licence.
It also requires Sycamore to immediately inject $5 million into the Guinea entity, and eventually invest $35 million more towards exploitation and potential extension of the mine.
“We aim to redevelop this plant as fast as possible, by restarting the mine with the strongest possible production,” Sycamore Mining Chief Executive Matthieu Sharples said as he signed the agreement in the capital, Conakry.
Sycamore Mining did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
Kiniero lies 591 km (367 miles) east of Conakry.
(By Saliou Samb and Helen Reid; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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