Will be good.The acquisition is expected to complement the present gold production, exploration and other activities of the Company in Peninsular Malaysia. Monument presently has over 180 staff and workforce employed operating its Selinsing gold producing and exploration assets in Malaysia and plans to expand this workforce in the future to facilitate growth of the company.
President and CEO Robert Baldock stated ? ?This is an open pit mining project and our Selinsingtrack record and in-country knowledge leads us to believe we have a good understanding of local operating conditions, cost structures, and Federal, State and local government requirements and social obligations. If the Company proceeds with the Project, it would bring substantial benefits to the Malaysian community as a whole through payment of government royalties and long term employment for potentially over 500 people once it is operating, plus significant ongoing purchase of goods, contract services and other community services requirements.
?Together with the upgrade to over 1,000,000 tons per year treatment rate and increasing gold production presently being undertaken at the Selinsing Gold Mine, its large and increasing exploration initiative, large land position and resulting product pipeline being developed, the Company will have a significant presence in Malaysia, producing precious and base metals as well as the potential for sale of other by products. This will diversify the Company against fluctuating metal prices over the long term while maintaining an increasing gold production profile and create a more robust long-term focused multi-listed producer?.
Background
The Project was previously owned by MMC, a Malaysian Government owned company. MMC drilled 58,000 meters of core into the Project and over a 10 year period spent approximately US$40.0 M in producing the economic and resource assessment. Normet Engineering Pty Ltd. Australia was engaged in the this assessment who in turn engaged James Askew and Associates from Perth, Western Australia to complete the ore reserves and resources section. The results were published in October 1990 named as ?Definitive Feasibility Study? (the ?Study?). The Study was comprehensive, including sections on capital and operating cost estimates, marketing, viability, economics and other important aspects of a bankable document.
In and around 1992, the Malaysian Government decided to leave the mining industry and become a diversified engineering group in the oil and gas and general consulting, contracting area. The Project was subsequently acquired by Malaco through its wholly owned subsidiary CASB, the present vendor to Monument?s wholly owned Malaysian subsidiary.
Monument?s CFO and VP, Corporate Finance Cathy Zhai advised ?Monument has been in discussions and studying this opportunity for much of the last year and has been upgrading its administrative capacity to be able to meet the internal and market requirements of a multi-jurisdiction listed company. At the same time, the Company has been increasing its technical depth both in-house and in terms of outside consulting arrangements in order to undertake this large project.?
Michael Andrew, Geol, MAusIMM at Snowden, is the qualified person who has, on behalf of the Company, reviewed the technical information summarized in this news release.