Kibo Mining (LON:KIBO) has published details of the listing of its Tanzanian gold interests.
A new company, Katoro, will comprise of Kibo’s Imweru and Lubando projects but not Lake Victoria Gold’s Imwelo deposit as was originally intended.
A merger between Imweru and Imwelo did not complete due to LVG’s failure to meet some of the conditions of the agreement said Kibo.
Katoro will reverse into London-listed shell Opera Investments, which will move from the main market to AIM and re-finance through a £1.2mln fund raising at 6p per share.
Kibo will receive 61mln shares in the new company.
Louis Coetzee, Kibo’s chief executive, said the deal was the “most cost effective and quickest path towards realising value in its Northern Tanzania gold portfolio and in particular Imweru”.
Coetzee, who will be Katoro’s chief executive, said the aim is to complete the definitive feasibility study on Imweru and obtain a mining right by the third quarter of next year.
Imweru has a JORC-compliant resource of 550,000 oz of gold with a definitive feasibility study already underway.
Katoro has an initial production target of 50,000 oz annually at Imweru, which it wants to increase to 100,000 oz a year if it can boost the resource to over one million ounces through exploration.
Lubando, meanwhile, is one of a group of projects about 70km from Imweru and has a resource currently of 168,300 ounces.
Subject to funding, mine commissioning may be possible by the second quarter of 2018 said Coetzee.
Mbeya deadline extended
Separately, at flagship project Mbeya, Kibo has agreed an extension of the deadline for signing its new development agreement with Chinese firm SEPCO III due to the amount of work involved.
SEPCO III is carrying out an audit of costs incurred so far on the thermal power plant development, which is also in Tanzania.
It will refund Kibo 50% in return for the right to be sole bidder to build the plant.
Both parties underestimated the amount of work involved, said Coetzee.
The new deadline is 14 October.