China approves $10.5 million investment in Meridian Minerals
Northwest Mining and Geology Group has received Chinese government approval from the National Development and Reform Commission for the investment of $10.5M into Meridian Minerals (ASX: MII).
The investment will be made through China-based NWME’s wholly owned Australian subsidiary, Northwest Nonferrous Australia Mining.
Shares in the Meridiaan are trading around 9.7c.
NWME will now register the transaction with the Foreign Exchange Bureau so the investments funds can be provided to its Australian subsidiary.
The $10.5M in funds are expected to be available to Meridian before the end of November, with the company's planned 20,000m drill program and feasibility study at the Kapok and Kapok West mineral resources expected to commence as soon as practical following receipt of the investment funds.
Meridian managing director Jeremy Read said having the NWME investment approved by both FIRB and NDRC was an extremely satisfying and positive outcome for Meridian.
“Meridian and NWME signed a placement agreement on 22 July 2009 and the NWME investment can now be settled, allowing both Meridian and NWME to crystallise the relationship which we envisaged back in July,” Mr Read said.
“Meridian is looking forward to having NWME as our major shareholder and working with NWME closely as we undertake our assessment and exploration programs on the Lennard Shelf Zinc project and in particular, the Kapok/Kapok West feasibility study.”
Meridian will issue to NWME 131,250,000 ordinary shares, raising $10.5M, at a share price of $0.08.
The Lennard Shelf region is one of the world’s premier Mississippi Valley Type
zinc-lead provinces containing pre-mining zinc-lead resources of 41 million tonnes @ 7.9% zinc and 3.2% lead.
BHP Minerals commenced exploration of the Lennard Shelf region in the late 1970’s and shared the exploration risk through a series of joint ventures. After several years of extensive exploration the Cadjebut deposit was discovered in 1984, Goongewa in 1987 and Kapok in 1989.
