Mail & Guardian reports that creditors have applied to the court to liquidate Vantage Goldfields-owned Lily Mine in Mpumalanga.  

In April last year, three workers working in a metal container were buried alive after the surface of the mine caved in when an underground pillar collapsed.  After the collapse, mining stopped, and maintenance, salary and expenses for the search-and-rescue operation almost drained the mine’s financial resources, resulting in it being placed under business rescue.  In its initial rescue plan, the company said it required R300m to pay for maintenance and settle its debt.  A number of potential rescue deals have since fallen through.  The mine’s fate will be decided at a liquidation application on 29 January in the Mpumalanga High Court, where lawyers for the creditors will argue that liquidation should have taken place long ago.  Deysel Attorneys formally brought the application on behalf of Rock Mining Machines.  Business rescue practitioner Rob Devereux apparently intends to oppose the application.  A liquidation will not affect Vantage’s Barbrook Mine, only a few kilometres from Lily Mine, where the company plans to direct its remaining investment.

• Read this report by Govan Whittles in full at Mail & Guardian

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