JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – After initially indicating that it would procure third-party debt financing to settle its 50% portion of the R50-million owed by the Nkomati anthracite mine to Sentula Mining under an existing loan facility agreement, Miranda Minerals on Wednesday announced that it had instead concluded a share subscription deal with Isle of Man-based company Valinger, raising R95-million through the subscription of 760-million shares.

This followed a March deal that saw, Miranda in conjunction with Mochiba Investments, secure a 60% stake in Nkomati, in Mpumalanga, from Sentula for a total consideration of R150-million.

The May funding deal, which was concluded on Tuesday, remained dependent on Valinger providing Miranda with a bank guarantee to Miranda’s satisfaction for the full amount, which was based on a share price of 12.5c apiece.

Subject to the completion of the transaction, Valinger, which focused on the development of mineral and energy resources, would own 51.66% of Miranda’s issued share capital and would, accordingly, become the company’s controlling shareholder.

Miranda said in a statement that R50-million of the acquired funding would be used towards the acquisition cost of the Nkomati mine project, while R20-million would be used as working capital to ensure that the mine was in full operation and producing marketable product within six months of the closing date of the Valinger agreement.

An additional R5-million was earmarked to be used as working capital to evaluate what was required to develop the Sesikhona mine, in KwaZulu-Natal, and R2-million would be used to similarly evaluate the nearby Burnside coal mine.

The balance of the loan, or R18-million, would go towards administration costs.

Miranda described Nkomati as a “quality asset” with a proven opencast resource of five-million tonnes run-of-mine (RoM) and a 46-million tonne indicated resource.

It produced a niche, high-margin product and boasted existing infrastructure including a rail siding facility and a beneficiation plant capable of processing 60 000 t/m of RoM.