www.emed-mining.com
The principal activity of EMED Mining is to explore for and develop natural resources, with a focus on copper and gold. The Company's region of interest spans from Europe to Middle East which includes many past centres of mining and under-explored potential for many styles of mineralisation such as volcanogenic-hosted massive sulphide copper-gold, epithermal gold and porphyry copper-gold.
EMED Mining should benefit from tougher govt stance over Spanish regional finances – Fairfax
Fairfax analyst John Meyer believes that tough action by the Spanish government to reign in regional budgets should benefit EMED Mining’s Rio Tinto copper project
Fairfax analyst John Meyer believes that tough action by the Spanish government to reign in regional budgets should benefit EMED Mining’s (LON:EMED, TSE:EMD) Rio Tinto copper project and others like it.
Spain’s national debt and the increased cost of managing it has led to the central government announcing it may intervene in the finances of several regions which are failing to fulfil their commitments under the current austerity drive.
A government official told the Wall Street Journal: "The way things are going, the regions themselves will request the intervention. There are regions with no access to funding, no way to pay bills. That's why we are going to have to intervene."
Andalusia, Spain's most populous and one of the poorest regions - where EMED is developing the Rio Tinto project -, has already presented a budget outline for this year that has been rejected by the budget ministry, as it does not meet deficit reduction criteria, the official said.
Fairfax’s Meyer believes the tougher government stance should be good news for projects such as Rio Tinto which can bring much needed employment and revenues in depressed regions such as Andalucia.
“This type of action should help EMED push through the project in the long process of achieving its administrative standing,” he said.
Securing the administrative standing permit would allow the company to start a process of compulsory land purchase for the parts of the Rio Tinto mine property that it does not already own, clearing the last significant hurdle in the way of the mine restart.
In its update on its first quarter earlier this month, EMED said it has made very good progress during the period on all key fronts: permitting, project planning and financing.
The company had also noted that all political parties of Andalucia, which held a regional election in March, committed to full permitting targeted for the third quarter of 2012 and the earlier possible restart of the mine.
