Friday, 30 October 2015

Mirabela is a single-asset company that operates the Santa Rita nickel mine in Bahia Brazil, one of the world’s largest open-pit nickel sulphide mines. The mine has significant ore reserves and resources with an estimated mine life of 14 years in the current nickel environment.

Mr Langdon said the intention is to allow normal operations at Santa Rita while the Receivers run a sale process to realise value for the mine.

“We have commenced a worldwide sale process for the Brazilian nickel mine. Interest has already been received and anticipate strong competitive tension for this unique nickel asset,” Mr Langdon said.

Mr Langdon advised that offers to purchase will be due by Christmas.

He said the company had been under pressure because of a 60 per cent drop in nickel prices since a capital restructure was completed under an earlier appointment of administrators last year.

“Mirabela is a world class asset producing a high quality metal product with a state of the art processing plant. The recent depreciation of the Brazilian real means the business is well positioned to capitalise on the forecast recovery in the LME nickel price,” Mr Tucker said.

He said Mirabela had been rationalising costs over the last 12 months and that C1 cash costs were USD 4.49/lb versus realised nickel price of USD 5.42/lb (including prior period adjustments) in Q2 of CY15.

The Receivers have begun an immediate sale campaign for the business. Expressions of interests are requested and enquiries should be made to  [email protected].

The primary duty of the receivers is to the secured creditors to recover their debt. The duty owed to non-secured creditors is to take reasonable care to sell property for not less than market value or the best price reasonably obtainable.
 

Media contact: Scott Langdon. +61 407 233 099