Petra Sells South Africa Mine for $14

RAPAPORT... Petra Diamonds has offloaded its Helam mine in South Africa fora total price of ZAR 200 ($14). Petra put the asset on care and maintenance in 2015 after failingto find a suitable buyer, and hasn't carried out any mining there since. It hasnow sold it to Lindleys Mining to support a South African government program toprolong the lives of deposits facing closure, Petra said last week. The disposal is also part of Petra's streamlining of assets,with care-and-maintenance costs for the mine coming to about $2 million per year.Petra will offload $1.7 million of related environmental obligations to Lindleys,while retaining shared access to the processing plant, which it has been using forsampling work for its other projects. Petra's former technical director, Jim Davidson - whoretired from the company in June - has taken a 49% stake in Lindleys, Petra added. Petra last week completed the sale of its majority interestin the Kimberley mine in South Africa to Ekapa Mining for ZAR 300 million ($22million) as part of the efforts to shed unprofitable assets.Image: Rough diamonds. (Shutterstock)