News

October 09, 2008

London Mining’s Global Portfolio Of Iron Ore, Coal And Cash Should Help Keep It Afloat In The Difficult Times Ahead

By Alastair Ford

Over the past couple of weeks here at Minesite we’ve had plenty to say about the legal comings and goings over the partially disputed Marampa iron ore project in Sierra Leone. The convoluted three way argument between African Minerals, Cape Lambert and London Mining has been great fun to watch, as one way or another various aspects of the dispute have involved heroin, cocaine, forged documents, bureaucratic headaches, over-staking, over-confidence, and plenty of other claims and counter-claims. In the end though, as far as London Mining’s concerned at any rate, there’s actually more to life than getting the lawyers fired up over Marampa. Marampa looks nice enough, and London Mining is confident it will win its legal tussle with African Minerals over the disputed part of it. If so, Norwegian broker Pareto Securities reckons the company ought to be ready to move into production by 2010, with a reasonably fast ramp up to the stated goal of three million tonnes per year.

That said, there are plenty of other strings to London Mining’s bow. It’s currently also working up iron ore projects in Mexico, Greenland, and Saudi Arabia, and coal in South Africa, and Colombia. It also has a “potential” joint venture with Wits Basin which may see it move into iron ore production in China. There’s iron ore and coal a-plenty in the company’s portfolio, development potential and near-term production. Not that you’d know it from the way the market is pricing the shares at the...