26th Aug 2015 08:27
LONDON (Alliance News) - Bushveld Minerals Ltd Wednesday said its pretax loss widened in the last financial year and said it will undertake a corporate restructuring to align the company with its new focus on vanadium.
The mining development company operating in Africa reported a GBP2.9 million pretax loss in the year ended February 28, widening from the GBP416,743 loss a year earlier. It was the result of administrative costs more than doubling as the company does not currently generate any revenue.
Bushveld has turned its attention toward vanadium in the period from its other commodities which include tin and coal. On Wednesday, Bushveld said it would "accelerate" the development of vanadium projects and undertake a corporate restructuring to "support prioritisation of the company's vanadium focus", it said.
The company's main focus is its vanadium project in South Africa, which has a vanadium resource estimate of 285 million tonnes, a net present value of around USD264.0 million and an internal rate of return of 24%.
"During the year under review we applied for mining rights for the vanadium project and initiated a search for a brownfield processing plant - a strategy designed to significantly restrain the capital costs of developing the vanadium project and bringing it on stream," said the company.
Within the same area as the vanadium project, the company also has the PQ iron ore and titanium project. That project is covered under the same mining right as the vanadium project, as they are located on the same prospect.
Going forward, Bushveld plans to secure a partner, pre-feasibility study and bankable feasibility study for the vanadium project.
"While our company remains focused on exploration, we are confident that mining is within reach, with the vanadium project as our flagship venture. In the longer term we envisage using positive cash flows from the vanadium project to help finance our other projects. We shall also continue our efforts to find strategic partners for our projects and believe that these projects' qualities are sufficiently attractive to achieve this," said the company.
Bushveld shares were down 4.9% to 3.38 pence per share on Wednesday morning.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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