Gulf Mines agrees to the purchase of a 19.5% interest in AMC
Wednesday, March 27 2013 - 03:07 AM WIB
ASX-listed Gulf Mines Limited reported on Wednesday that it had agreed to the purchase of a 19.5% fully diluted interest in Asia Minerals Corporation Ltd (AMC).
AMC through its 90% owned Indonesian subsidiary of PT Asia Mangan Group is developing a high grade manganese trading operation based in the West Timor region of Indonesia to complement exploration on its highly prospective concession.
Manganese is the fourth most used metal in the world with its primary use being in steel production. The annual global production is 35 million tons of manganese ore containing 11 million tons of manganese metal.
China alone imported 13 million tons of manganese ore in 2010 and with the growing consumption of steel, the demand for manganese has significantly increased.
West Timor has some of the highest grade manganese in the world at 56% compared to other major suppliers with average grades of 46%.
Asia Mangan has established a processing plant in the Wini location of West Timor to consolidate manganese ore from local shallow mining operations into 10,000 ton bulk shipments for transport and export.
Editing by Adianto P. Simamora