Mining and Minerals Industries Holding has entered into a conditional transaction agreement with Bezant Resources – the UK AIM-listed copper-gold exploration and development company – for its wholly-owned subsidiary MMJV to acquire an 80 per cent shareholding in Asean Copper Investments.

Core sample from the Mankayan copper-gold project. Image source: ©Bezant Resources

Mankayan fly through. Image source: ©Bezant Resources

The Mankayan Project is a major copper-gold porphyry deposit located on the Northern Luzon Island of the Philippines.

Asean Copper holds a 40 per cent shareholding in Crescent Mining and Development Corporation and a 40 per cent shareholding in Bezant Holdings, both incorporated in the Philippines. Bezant Holdings in turn owns the balancing 60 per cent of CMDC over which Asean Copper holds an option.

Mr Ashok Agrawal, Director of Mining and Mineral Industries Holding said that with the inclusion of the Mankayan Project into the planned RTO of China Hongxing, the project will become the Company’s main focus.

“The project will be the most valuable mineral resource in our asset portfolio, the closest to development and about to enter the project feasibility stage,” said Mr Agrawal.

Mankayan has a copper-gold resource estimate completed by Snowden Mining Industry prepared in 2009 under JORC (2004) which defined an indicated resource of 1.1 million tonnes of contained copper and 3.7 million ounces of contained gold; and an inferred resource of 0.2 million tonnes of contained copper and 0.6 million ounces of contained gold.

A 2019 Mining Plus study identified and assessed a number of high-level alternative mining options for the Mankayan project, as well as substantially improving the underlying economics of the proposed operations.

The approximate S$18.62 million consideration payable by MMIH consists of funding of up to US$2.25 million to finance, among other things, the Mankayan Project’s required work program in accordance with the project’s Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) with the Philippine government, and the associated corporate costs of Asean Copper, Bezant Holdings and CMDC.

Further funding of up to S$5.5 million for the conduct of a definitive feasibility study, subject to the project’s MPSA being renewed, at an appropriate time following the completion of the required work program to the satisfaction of the relevant Philippines’ authorities; and the issue of S$10 million of shares in the Listed Company after the successful RTO of China Hongxing, which will hold MMJV on the Singapore Stock Exchange upon completion of the abovementioned RTO Transaction.

The number of shares to be issued will be calculated in accordance with the ListCo listing share price at the date of the Proposed Listing.

Both MMIH and MMJV are private companies incorporated in Singapore and MMIH owns the entire issued share capital of MMJV. On 25 March 2019, China Hongxing and MMIH announced that they had entered into a conditional sale and purchase agreement to acquire MMJV, which will result in an RTO of China Hongxing. MMJV will hold two joint venture companies, each of which will respectively own the following gold and copper mine concessions located in the Philippines.

*Article published in the October-December 2019 issue of The Asia Miner