Former type Public Area served Africa Founder Phil Edmonds Ceased operations November 2009 | Defunct November 2009 Headquarters London Founded 2002 | |
The Central African Mining and Exploration Company (CAMEC) was a mining company active in the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and in other parts of Africa. It was acquired by ENRC in 2009.
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Early years
CAMEC listed on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market in October 2002. It pursued an aggressive and successful program of acquiring and developing projects, finding little difficulty in gaining funding based on its strong track record. The company developed operations or undertook exploration in Mali (bauxite), Mozambique (coal), the DRC (copper and cobalt), South Africa (fluorspar) and Zimbabwe. In July 2007, CAMEC said it planned to make an offer for the Canadian copper company Katanga Mining in exchange for shares in the combined company. CAMEC withdrew the offer in September 2007, citing uncertainty due to a review of mining licenses being conducted by the DRC government.
Mukondo
The Zimbabwean businessman Billy Rautenbach controlled Boss Mining, which owned 50% of the Mukondo resource. In a February 2006 deal, Rautenbach gained about 17% of the CAMEC shares when CAMEC bought Boss. In 2007 CAMEC and Prairie International, the owner of Tremalt, decided to combine their Mukondo assets into a new holding company. Billy Rautenbach would be excluded from ownership in the new company due to the hostile relations that had developed between him and the DRC government.
In November 2007 CAMEC and Prairie International announced plans to form a joint venture to extract cobalt from Mukondo, to reopen Kakanda concentrator and to control the copper cobalt SX/EW facility at Luita. In February 2008 the two companies announced that the Mukondo Mountain operations had restarted. In July 2008 CAMEC said the Luita facility, due to be completed later that year, would be the largest of its kind in the world. The target was to produce 100,000 tonnes per year of copper cathode. In July 2009 CAMEC announced a long term agreement under which CAMEC would deliver its entire annual production of cobalt in concentrate from Mukondo Mountain to Zhejiang Galico Cobalt & Nickel Materials of China.
Other projects
CAMEC had a stake in the Copper Resources Corporation but it was "disenfranchised", giving Metorex of South Africa an effective economic interest of 99.99%. In May 2009 CAMEC said it had found bauxite on a property in Mali with an inferred resource of 439 million tons. In July 2009 CAMEC said it was conducting a feasibility study at the Bokai platinum prospect in Zimbabwe, due to be completed by September. It expected to start production in 2012.
In September 2009 the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) of Kazakhstan made a £584-million cash offer for CAMEC. The chairperson Phillippe Edmonds and CEO Andrew Groves both resigned when the deal was closed in November 2009.