African Minerals Forum

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. [link] Man of iron Corporate announcements tend to be drier than the Hebrides once were on the Sabbath. African Minerals has therefore challenged the conventions of the genre with a notice that is freighted with emotion. This depicts chief executive Alan Watling as a good man in Africa, battling bad weather and the Ebola outbreak at a Sierra Leonean mine to meet targets and keep staff healthy. Unusually, given that he has resigned, Mr Watling supplies a quote. Here he thanks executive chairman Frank Timis and praises “tens of thousands of decent, hard working people” for beating “overwhelming odds”. But this is no ordinary resignation. Mr Watling has quit because the mine has been mothballed following a slump in ore prices. The Aim-quoted business lacks the funds needed to resume production. Its shares have been suspended. African Minerals had hoped Shandong Iron and Steel would agree to inject funds. So far, the Chinese group has declined. It is hard to know who else Mr Watling might have in mind when he says he has “lost the respect of — and for — our partners”. Companies generally avoid barbs against collaborators who might support them financially. It smacks of a recklessness born of desperation that African Minerals has done so. [email protected]

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Yuen Low, analyst at Shore Capital, described Mr Watling’s resignation and the decision not to replace him as “as an ominous sign”.

said , Gibril Bangura , boss , owner , deal with Chinese , keep locals employed , (only locals )

The DSO was never taken advantage of because I'd the metallurgy and that is why they failed.

I really feel for everyone that has been burned by this but the course of legal action you are planning to take is destined to fail. Every junior mining company would have done exactly the same thing. Thus a precedent is set. You cannot win by taking that path. The only path you have is why the metallurgical work was never done correctly in the first place

Oluniyi Robbin-Coker, an economic advisor to Koroma, told Ambassador Cheshes January 27 that African Minerals’ activities were, “of course, speculation.” He noted that the company’s share value in London had jumped twenty-fold over the year 2009 (from 20 pence to 405 pence), although the company had no track record for taking a large mine to full production. He admired Frank Timis as courageous and clever at marketing. Everything African Minerals had done in Sierra Leone to date was based on an exploration (versus mining) contract. Robbin-Coker said that there was a widespread perception, “to which there is some reality,” that Sierra Leone’s mineral assets were in the hands of exploration companies. He anticipated that Timis, having raised large sums of money and made a vast profit on the stock market in 2009, would now “cash out” in favor of a “reliable mining company.” In fact, Robbin-Coker said that he was actively looking for a top-notch company to buy out Timis and asked if DCM knew of any interested American “big boys.” Instead Mr Timis is still there as chairman at African Minerals, which is hoping to refinance its debt before cash runs out. He has survived an internal investigation this year into claims, neither proven nor unproven by the hired sleuths at G3, that he personally benefited from a $50m payment he authorised without board approval to a Cypriot company. (No approval was necessary, said the company in its report on the affair. Mr Timis declined to comment.) The Ambassador also chanced to hear from David Keili, Sierra Leonean Managing Director for London Mining Ltd, and chipped in twopence (in bold): He said that iron-ore reserves in Tonkolili were indeed on the order of billions of tons, as Delco had known many decades ago and as a reputable surveying company had confirmed for African Minerals, but no mining company had heretofore believed that the ore was of sufficiently pure quality to be worth mining, on top of the huge infrastructure costs. The idea that such infrastructure could be put in place in a mere year or two was, Keili believed, not credible. (Note: Post concurs with this assessment.) During a road trip to Lunsar January 28, DCM observed the dilapidated state of what had once been a vast mining community (replete with a golf course and separate clubs for senior, intermediate, and junior officials). The rail tracks have been largely pulled up. An official from London Mines who guided DCM through the ghost town said that the railcars, railroad, and port at Pepel had — amazingly — remained in useable condition until the previous two years, when African Minerals had taken control of them; he said that the rails, railcars, and port infrastructure had now all been dismantled, cut up, and sold for scrap

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After some journalistic investigations in several European countries ( with the support of perhaps the European secret services , we find that there is a Romanian citizen who has opened account at HSBC bank , abroad, not less than 800 ( eight hundred ) of million dollars !!! CASH ! In addition to the late Frank Timis or Patriciu do not see any other novel that could justify this amount ! even Ion Tiriac .

In urma unor investigatii jurnalistice din mai multe tari europene (cu sprijinul, probabil, al unor servicii secrete europene, aflam ca exista un cetatean roman care are in contul deschis la banca HSBC, in strainatate, nu mai putin decit 800 (OPT SUTE) de milioane de dolari!!! CASH ! In afara de Frank Timis sau raposatul Dinu Patriciu, nu vad pe niciun alt roman care sa poata justifica aceasta suma! Nici macar pe Ion Tiriac. Cred ca Serviciile trebuie sa ne lamureasca de urgenta si nu poate fi deloc greu din moment ce niste ziaristi au reusit sa descopere aceste conturi. In plus, acesti bani ori au fost virati, cu tiriita, prin conturi bancare, ori au fost dusi cu valizele! In prima varianta e simplu de aflat, via BNR! Dar daca banii au fost scosi cu valizele si Serviciile nu au stiut, atunci e cumplit de grav! Nu poti sa misti 10.000 de euro de sub nasul autoritatilor, fara ca sa stie toata lumea, daramite ditamai purcoiul de 800 de milioane de dolari! Cred ca aici avem doar 3 variante: 1. Serviciile nu au stiut! 2. Serviciile au stiut si se fac vinovate de concubinaj! 3. Banii sint ai Serviciilor! OAU! E grav in toate cele 3 variante! Sa fiti iubiti! Radu Moraru