Court dashes miner’s hopes

AUSTRALIAN mining outfit Black Range Mining’s hopes of gaining a foothold in the Namibian uranium business were dealt a critical blow last week when their legal challenge against the awarding of a disputed exploration right was struck from the High Court roll.

Black Range Mining’s local partners Erongo Nuclear Fuel in 2007 filed suit to reverse a ministerial decision to award an Exclusive Prospecting Licence (EPL) for nuclear fuel rights over the farm Hakskeen to rival Ancash (Pty) Ltd. instead.Ancash, the junior partner of Canadian mining outfit Forsys Metals, also holds six such EPLs, including the rights to the Valencia deposit northwest of the Rössing Uranium Mine. Black Range charged that there had been serious irregularities on the part of the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) in the awarding of the Hakskeen rights to Ancash, owned by Zackey Nujoma. Ranga Haikali’s Erongo Nuclear Fuel Exploration however withdrew from the case before it was heard after an earlier interim application also did not go their way. After hearing argument in the matter last week, Judge John Manyarara ordered the application by Black Range Mining to be struck from the roll. Reasons for his ruling would be supplied at a later stage, Judge Manyarara said.Judge Manyarara also awarded costs, including that of the interim application heard late last year, against Black Range Mining (BRM), a subsidiary of the now-defunct Reefton Mining NL of Perth, Australia.Reefton, a Perth-based mining exploration company previously listed in Sydney, Toronto and London alternative investment markets, had entered the Namibian industry in 2002, when it acquired licences to explore for diamonds in the northern Skeleton Coast.While the company kept up a stream of upbeat press releases over the years, it produced very little in terms of tangible results that could prove the Skeleton Coast leases were anything more than very marginal diamond deposits. Reefton also acquired, via Black Range Mining, four licences for prospecting for base and rare minerals, industrial minerals and precious metals and precious stones in the Erongo Region. One of these EPLs covered the farm Hakskeen, situated southwest of Usakos.With a huge rush for uranium starting in late 2004, Reefton’s core activities also appeared to shift in the same direction. On March 18 2005, the company announced that it had made ‘a new uranium discovery’ on the farm Hakskeen – thereby triggering a scramble for Reefton’s shares that drove the company’s market value up dramatically. But it subsequently emerged – as reported by this newspaper – that the ‘new discovery’ had however been known since the 1970s and that Reefton held no rights to explore for uranium in the first place. Citing a material breach of the Mining Act, the MME then subsequently refused Reefton’s post-haste application to amend their licence to include nuclear fuels, in spite of profuse apologies by Reefton’s management.Questioned being posed of Reefton CEO Simon D. Gilbert and MD Viktor Nikolaenka’s share dealings also saw their Perth offices raided by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).Gilbert and Nikolaenka, who both resigned from Reefton shortly after the ‘new uranium discovery’, were in late 2007 convicted of so-called ‘ramping’, an illegal practice of pushing up share prices by spreading false rumours in the market. Reefton’s shares, suspended in late 2005, were de-listed as well. Black Range Mining meanwhile in 2006 had entered into a joint venture with a local Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) group led by Ranga Haikali, whose Erongo Nuclear Fuels then applied for the nuclear fuel rights over Hakskeen at BRM’s behest.This attempt to hang on to their ‘new discovery’ was however turned down by the MME, who ruled that BRM did not have the necessary financial and technical skills to partner Erongo.When these rights were instead awarded to Zackey Nujoma’s Ancash and his Canadian partners Forsys Metals, Erongo and BRM in 2007 filed suit to have this decision set aside.Erongo however abandoned the suit before it got to court, and with legal costs now added to their geological woes, Reefton / BRM’s run in Namibia now appeared to have come to an end. Their four remaining EPLs are set to expire in June.Meanwhile, Forsys Metals in August last year obtained a Mining Licence for its Valencia Mine project, and pending the easing of the credit crisis, is expected to be taken over by Belgian/DRC entrepreneur George Forrest by end of July. *John Grobler is a freelance journalist; johngrob@iway.na