And another one:
Indochine denied licence
March 09,2016, 02:23 am
NON-COMPLIANCE was a factor that had led to miner Indochine Limited’s Papua New Guinea subsidiary, being denied first right over the renewal of the exploration licence it held.
This was Mineral Resources Authority response in relation to a market report released by Indochine’s administrators-Ferrier Hodgson- in a report it released had released to the Australian Securities Commission (ASX).
MRA’s managing director Philip Samar said MRA was concerned at the purpose, veracity and accuracy of the comments, claims and statements that had been made by the firm’s administrators.
Ferrier Hodgson had in the market report released on March 2, expressed its client’s disappointment in learning that its application for renewal of EL 1093 over Mt Kare had been refused.
Further that another company had registered an application on the newly created licence and that they had not been advised of the Mining Minister Byron Chan’s decision until January 18.
It had advised that it had filed an application with the national court seeking a judicial review on the minister’s decision and also a fresh application for the grant of an exploration licence over Mt Kare.
Mr Samar had in his 21-point response- also attentioned to the ASX, that the regulator was concerned that the administrator was using the ASX process in appropriately and for its own purposes.
Some of the points in response were:
- Summit Development Limited-the PNG subsidiary-had not been in good standing in relation to its mining tenement, being non-compliant on several occasions during the final term of tenement;
- There was a sum of outstanding compensation owed by Summit to landowners of Mt Kare, which subsequently were paid by its administrators in mid-2015;
- It had not registered as a user of Flexicadastre despite extensive promotion for ease of tracking leading to it not finding out in a timely manner of the minister’s action. Hence this was not a matter for MRA;
- Only funds that had been availed by Indochine by virtue of the Deed of Company arrangement were for support for Summit on an interim basis and not for an extended work program; and
- MRA had yet to be served court documents as claimed by the administrator.
