Cameroon Mining Sector: Talbot Sells Stakes In Sundance Resources

Yaounde, Cameroon Africa. (Cameroon News) – Cameroon Mining Sector: Mining investment major Talbot Resources have announced the decision to sell of its stakes that amount to around $ 871 million Australian dollars in Sundance Resources.

Mining-investment company Talbot Group has decided to dispose of its shares in iron-ore Australian mining and exploration company, Sundance Resources Ltd.

The investment company recently announced plans to dispose off all of its investments in Sundance Resources that amount to around $871 million Australian dollars (US$865 million) in investments, as Sundance Chairman George Jones told the press on Friday.

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Talbot Group which is privately owned has its funding from the company’s 2009 annual report. The company holds stakes in all kinds of businesses exploration and development sector and comprises of even natural-gas exploration companies in South America and a coking-coal mine in Mozambique.

Mr. Jones said that the major portion of shares in Sundance Resources which is mostly centered on iron ore mining prospects in central Africa was estimated at A$109.9 million. It was these shares, that were owned by the Talbot Group, which had been disposed off recently prior to the close of the Australian Securities Exchange.

“It wasn’t a surprise,” he told a business website, “The trustees of the Talbot Group are looking to monetize all the assets. People from the estate have been consulting with me and they reached the stage where it was time to move.”

When questioned as to whether Talbot Group had sold them completely out Sundance or was also contemplating other share sales, Talbot Chief Executive Shane Edwards said, “We make no comment on our businesses.”

There had been a lot of rumors and assumptions regarding what the future would be holding for the investments of Talbot Group’s mining stakes would be following the sudden demise of their director Ken Talbot.

Investors were apprehensive about the group’s stakes in the mining sector as they were no longer being headed by their non- executive director who was also the executive founder of Macarthur Coal Ltd and proficient investor in the mining sector.

Mr Talbot had lost his life in an air crash along with the board of directors and top executives of Sundance Resources while they were on a visit to the Mbalam Iron Ore Project site along the border of the central African countries of Cameroon and Republic of Congo.

Talbot owner around 16% stakes of the company, which have been taken up for 44 cents a share by Hanlong Mining, a subsidiary of privately owned Chinese infrastructure and mining group Hanlong Group.

Peter Mansell, chairman of Hanlong Mining, said: “We have been interested in Sundance. Our ambition is to be a major iron-ore producer and this stake came up at very short notice.”

Talbot also has other investments in the exploration domain in Australia, and is presently the largest stakeholder of Karoon Gas Australia Ltd. Talbot holds 13.1% stake in the A$1.43 billion company and their stake is estimated at a current market value of A$193.9 million.

Karoon is presently in the process of an Australian natural-gas exploration joint venture with ConocoPhillips and has prospects in Brazil and Peru.

Talbot is also 58.9% stakeholder of the Revuboe River Mine, a coal project in Mozambique which is forecasted to yield 17 million tons a year of coking and thermal coal by 2013, with development costs approximated at US$500 million to US$600 million.

Steelmakers Nippon Steel Corp. and Posco are minority partners, holding 33.3% and 7.8%, respectively.

Revuboe’s project site is strategically located at the mid point of the three major tenements owned by Riversdale Mining Ltd., which is currently being rumored to be thinking of a A$4.0 billion takeover offer from Rio Tinto Ltd.

Talbot Group also holds 19.84% of metals explorer Goldminex Resources Ltd., who has a lot of projects in Papua New Guinea, 11.7% of Indonesia-focused Robust Resources Ltd., and 10.42% of unlisted offshore oil and gas explorer Advent Energy Ltd, as per the information furnished in the company websites and other valid documents.

The company is also a minor stakeholder in various smaller businesses like west African iron-ore exploration company Bellzone Mining PLC, uranium exploration company Berkeley Resources Ltd., and Tiger Resources Ltd., a copper explorer operating out of the southern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Talbot Group had during the previous month disposed off its entire stakes in uranium explorer Marathon Resources Ltd. for about A$13 million.

Sundance had announced on Thursday that the Mbalam iron ore project indicated more than doubled the most-reliable “indicated” measure of hematite iron ore.

This brought up the yield of its Mbalam project to 417.7 million metric tons from an earlier estimate of 169 million tons, mostly owing to the Congolese side of the border being shifted from the “inferred” category which had been less trustworthy.

Sundance said it would announce a definitive feasibility study on the project before the month closes.

The company had also announced plans to construct a 476-kilometer railway and port along the coast of Cameroon to ship the ore from its inland site, projecting a financial requirement of US$3.36 billion in capital to get to its first production which it has projected for 2014.

It is presently in the process of negotiations with investors in China, on the proposal advised by Citic Securities Co. Ltd., but Mr. Mansell said they had received no confirmation from Hanlong regarding their decision to support the development.

“We would see ourselves as being a very supportive shareholder when it comes to funding infrastructure but that is several steps ahead of where we are right now,” he said.