Mining company New Century Resources took time out from the serious business of getting zinc out of Century Mine to grab some Hollywood glamour.
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Some of the top secret Superbowl ad campaign was filmed last year at nearby Lawn Hill and the cast and crew flew into the region using the mine’s airstrip.
New Century Resources said it was very proud to have played a small role in Tourism Australia’s Crocodile Dundee Ad Campaign when mega-stars Chris Hemsworth and Danny McBride took advantage of the Century Mine Airstrip, close to their filming location at Adels Grove.
In other New Century news, the company has emerged out of a temporary trading halt to announce it had executed first long term offtake agreements with established commodity traders Mercuria Energy Trading SA and Transamine Trading SA.
The company said the highly attractive terms of the deal underpinned strong demand for Century zinc concentrate and there were further offtake contracts under development with other shortlisted customers with strong participation from smelters and traders in New Century’s concentrate tender.
New Century said the offtake agreements had been competitively negotiated, with terms reflecting the strong zinc market fundamentals and current scarcity in supply of large tonnage zinc concentrate offtake available around the world.
New Century Managing Director Patrick Walta said the agreements with Mercuria and Transamine represented an exciting milestone for New Century as they progress toward production in the third quarter of this year.
“New Century is very pleased with the strong demand shown by smelters and commodity traders in its tender process, which is a clear demonstration of the quality of New Century’s concentrate and the current strong fundamentals of the market zinc,” Mr Walta said.
There were 11 tenders offered by zinc smelters and commodity traders and New Century has now shortlisted preferred offtake customers for further agreements.
The total tender was for up to 1.5Mt of zinc concentrate, representing three and a half years of production and the Mercuria and Transamine agreements have taken half that total.
New Century also said it had received a request for arbitration concerning a claim by Nyrstar Sales & Marketing AG – one of the unsuccessful tenderers - about the purchase of zinc concentrate under legacy zinc supply agreements entered in 2007 with then owners MMG.
New Century said these agreements were terminated long before their acquisition of the mine in 2017.
“New Century was not aware of the existence of any such agreements with Nyrstar when it acquired its interest in the Century Zinc Mine and copies of those agreements were not provided to the Company at that time of the acquisition. Nyrstar also alleges that MMG Australia Limited is the current guarantor to these agreements,” the company told the ASX.
“New Century believes that the opportunistic claim by Nyrstar has no merit and that any historical agreements with Nyrstar were terminated well before the Company acquired its interest in the Century Zinc Mine.”
New Century said they would “vigorously defend the claim” in court.
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
