EMR Capital-led consortium officially owns Martabe gold mine

A consortium led by EMR Capital completed on March 17 the acqusition of PT Agincourt Resources, the owner of the Martabe gold mine in South Tapanuli Regency, North Sumatra.

Agincourt said in a statement Friday that HK-listed G-Resources, which initially owned 95 percent of Agincourt, has now been replaced by the consortium, whose shareholders include Australia?s EMR Capital (61.4%), Farallon Capital (20.6%), Indonesian palm oil tycoon Martua Sitorus (11%), and Robert Budi Hartono and Michael Bambang Hartono (7%), the owners of Djarum Group, one of Indonesia?s largest cigarette makers which has also diversified into property and finance. The owership of the South Tapanuli regency and North Sumatra provincial administrations remains unchanged.

Agincourt said that Martabe mine has started expanding its operations, with installment of secondary crusher scheduled for next year, which will allow the mine to increase throughput of the processing plant up to 5 million tons per year.

The company added that request has been made with the government to allow it to develop the Barani and Rambang Jorang pits. Together with the Pit Purnama, the two smaller pits will increase the mine?s lifetime by another two years. The process of acquisition of 200 hectares land has been started.

The Martabe gold mine is anticipated to produce 260,000 ounces of gold this year, and about 2.3 million ounces of silver, both of which lower than output last year. Capital expenditure for this year is estimated at around US$67 million, while exploration cost projected at $12 million.

According to G-Resources? annual report for the year ended December 31, 2014, the Martabe Mine had a resource base of 7.4 million ounces of gold and 70 million ounces of silver.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak