Modern Mining July 2019

MINING News

Strategic loan to manganese producer time with Otjozundu that may be in the best mutual interests of both parties.

tance and guidance Premier will progress to this point as well.” The Otjozundu project is located some 150 km north-east of Windhoek and is in a well-known and established manganese district that has been largely consolidated under Otjozundu, whose tenements cover an area of approximately 1 367 km 2 and more than 114 km of strike, of which only 14 km has been explored to the point of declaration of a JORC resource. Otjozundu operations are continuous from a number of open pits in an owner- miner environment. Processing to the extent necessary is through a crush, screen and jig plant. All plant and equipment are owned by Otjozundu. Otjozundu is wholly owned by MNH, which acquired the project from Shaw River Manganese Limited for A$4,95million in 2018. Otjozundu is currently exporting 4 500 tonnes of lump ore per month at bet- ter than 35 % Mn, equivalent to not less than 150 000 dmtu (dry metric ton units) per month. Current monthly gross revenue generated exceeds US$750 000. 

AIM-listed Premier African Minerals has announced a strategic loan toMNHoldings Limited (MNH), the owner and operator of the Otjozondu manganese mining project in Namibia, and the appointment of two key mining executives as consultants to Premier. Premier, whose assets include the RHA tungsten mine and Zulu lithium and tan- talum project in Zimbabwe, and Cambrian Limited have jointly agreed to loan to MNH US$1,35 million with an annual inter- est of 10 %. George Roach, CEO of Premier, com- mented:“Otjozundu is a producing revenue generating manganese mine based in Namibia currently involved in an expan- sion programme. The loan to Otjozundu will enable it to conclude the purchase of significant additional plant and equip- ment from the nearby Purity mine to allow Otjozundu to steadily increase production and revenues. I sincerely expect that this loan may lead to a closer relationship in

“An additional immediate benefit to Premier is the appointment of Neil Herbert, the Chairman of Otjozundu, and Peter Cunningham as consultants to Premier. In due course, Premier intends to invite both Neil and Peter to join the Board of Premier, subject to the satisfactory completion of standard regulatory checks in compliance with the AIM rules. These initial appoint- ments are part of the process of enhancing the company’s executive team and creat- ing opportunities to assist Premier in the restructure and diversification of country and commodity risk I have been discuss- ing and have alluded to for some time now. “Premier must move from a company dependent on continuous funding through shareholder support to one that can be rev- enue producing and start to return value to shareholders. Both Neil Herbert and Peter Cunningham have a demonstrable history of just this and I hope that with their assis-

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