Updated 3 hours agoTEXT SIZE TORONTO (miningweekly.com) ?
The Japanese nuclear crisis has not affected China Guondong Nuclear Power Corp?s (CGNPC?s) ?756-million bid for London-based Kalahari Minerals, a spokesperson for the uranium junior said on Friday.
?There has been absolutely no indication that anything has changed,? Kalahari spokesperson Susie Geliher told Mining Weekly Online.
?As far as we?re aware the possible offer is still in place.?
CGNPC announced the bid on March 7, a week before Japan?s most powerful earthquake and the subsequent tsunami severely damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Since then, investors have capitulated on uranium shares, causing the market values of many companies in the sector to nearly halve over the past week.
Kalahari Minerals, which has a 43% in Australia-based Extract Resources, has shed just under one-third of its market capitalisation since March 14, to trade at ?2,09 on Friday afternoon in London.
CGNPC, one of China?s two large state-owned nuclear power companies seeking to secure supplies for the new reactors it is building, offered to pay ?2,90 a share in cash for Kalahari.
Extract owns the Husab uranium project in Namibia, which ranks in the top six biggest undeveloped resources of the nuclear fuel, and is next door to Rio Tinto?s Rossing mine.
Geliher said that, as far as Kalahari was aware, CGNPC was busy working to meet the regulatory conditions to its bid.
DEALS UNCERTAIN
Earlier this week, Russia's Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ) said it was reconsidering its $1-billion-plus bid for uranium junior Mantra Resources, which is developing a project in Tanzania.
ARMZ said the Japanese nuclear crisis meant that conditions for the takeover couldn?t be met, though it was still keen on doing an alternative deal with Mantra.
The disaster caused a 10% drop in uranium spot prices and had governments around the world saying they would reconsider their nuclear plans to make sure plants were safe, including China, which is building more nuclear reactors than any other country.
A spokesperson for CGNPC was not immediately available for comment.
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