Bittar ponders funding pill

Aussie banker-turned-mining company boss Greg Bittar aims to ‘tap into the London market’ to take his company Batavia Mining’s Roper River iron ore project in Australia’s Northern Territory to production by 2012.

Trained at the London Business School, Bittar, who chalked up a succession of corporate deals with Peabody Coal and others while at Morgan Stanley, is close to bringing out a formal, industry-standard Joint Ore Reserves Committee resource estimate for this project, for which Batavia has set an initial target of 500 million tonnes holding 40 per cent iron ore.

Along with the estimate, Bittar expects Down Under-listed Batavia to launch a funding and/or a joint venture to take Roper River into production. First, the company must exercise its option to buy Roper River from Chinese metals trader Jerry Ren, who acquired the project from its two original prospectors. That will involve giving Ren £6.2 million cash and a half-share in Batavia, valuing the project at around £40 million.

Surrounded by other iron ore and mineral projects, Roper River is well placed for transport and other infrastructure. Fans suggest that it would cost about £31 million to take it into production, starting at two million tonnes a year and rising to five million, and estimate operating costs of barely a third of current market prices.

Anglophile Bittar says an AIM listing could be an option for Batavia, but the board has taken no such decision as yet. His one regret on visiting the City is that hospitable well-wishers keep pressing familiar Australian wines on him when he wants to take the opportunity of sampling French, Spanish or Italian vintages for a change.