Gold producer Oxus Gold (OXUSF-O, OXS-L) has a final deal with affiliate Marakand Minerals (mrkmf-o, mkd-l) that will allow it to complete a sale agreement for Oxus’s putative interest in the Jerooy gold project, in Kyrgyzstan.
KazakhGold Group (KZG-L) has agreed to take over Oxus’s two-thirds stake in Talas Gold Mining, the joint venture with Kyrgyz state gold mining agency Kyrgyzaltyn, which formerly held a licence to develop Jerooy. KazakhGold issues 3.5 million of its shares to Oxus, which Oxus will convert to London-tradable Global Depository Receipts and issue to its shareholders as a dividend. The shares are valued at around US$82 million.
Should KazakhGold recover Talas’s interest in Jerooy — currently the subject of legal action in Kyrgyz courts — Oxus gets an additional US$80 million. Currently Kyrgyzaltyn and an Austrian company, Global Gold Holding, have a licence from the government to develop Jerooy. Talas’s licence was cancelled in late 2005 over Kyrgyzaltyn’s insistence that Oxus was in default of the project scheduling clauses in their agreement.
KazakhGold also gets the 50% Oxus holds in Romaltyn, a company holding some gold assets in Romania, and Turkish assets held by Marakand. Oxus, which holds an 86% shareholding in Marakand, is paying its subsidiary US$950,000 for the Turkish assets, which include Marakand’s option on the Karakilise copper-gold project, near Antalya, and a 25% interest in Turkish exploration company Hatay Madencilik, which holds the Hatay copper-gold project near Antakya, in the country’s extreme south.
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