概述：三个月前的一场空难几乎让澳洲矿企Sundance Resources失去整个董事会，经过三个多月的恢复，Sundance Resources重新启动其西非的铁矿石项目：Mbalam。

New dawn rises on devastated Sundance

THREE months after losing its entire board in an air crash, Perth-based miner Sundance Resources has staged a spectacular recovery pushing ahead with its Mbalam iron ore project in West Africa.

Sundance stock peaked at 30 cents this week, its highest in two years, gaining 74 per cent in five days after leaping 150 per cent from its 12c low at the time of the air crash 12 weeks ago.

At close on Friday Sundance had settled at 24.50c and the company’s market capitalisation has almost doubled to $800m from its value in June.

Sundance’s share price surged this week after the company announced it had signed an initial accord with China Harbour Engineering Co and China Rail to study construction of a $2bn port and rail facility in West Africa to service their $3.4billion Mbalam project in Cameroon and the Congo.

Sundance chairman Geoff Wedlock, chief executive Don Lewis, company secretary John Carr-Gregg, non executive directors John Jones and Craig Oliver, along with Queensland mining magnate Ken Talbot, had been visiting the project when their plane crashed in June, killing all eleven people onboard.

George Jones was subsequently appointed chairman of the company, Peter Canterbury chief executive, with effect in November, and a new board was named including director Michael Blakiston and non executive directors Adam Rankine-Wilson, Barry Eldridge and Fiona Harris.

Since the crash Jones has visited Africa three times, the first time to repatriate the bodies of his colleagues and friends and later to keep Mbalam on track.

He said the project would be a fitting legacy to the pioneering Sundance executives who were so passionate about Mbalam and lost their lives pursuing it.

“I think the people looked and saw what we are doing. Most significantly how we could build a $1.5bn rail line and port facility,” Mr Jones said of the market’s reaction this week.

Previously, the only high-profile Australian company to lose its entire board in an air crash was Independent Resources Ltd, during the 1980s and the miner slid into liquidation.

“On that occasion nobody stepped up to the plate. Fortunately I was formerly the chairman of Sundance. There are a lot of good people working for the company along with stakeholders and government people involved in Mbalam,” Mr Jones said.

Mr Jones said the company’s first task was consolidating their relationship with Congolese and Cameroon government officials, while stabilising Sundance and providing leadership, to keep Mbalam moving forward.

“As a former chairman of Gindalbie I had developed similar projects. I have been able to put my experience to good use establishing a number of building blocks.

“Infrastructure, rail and port, was a key component of that. Now we are looking for a joint venture, steel mill partner as a precursor to securing financing. Hopefully we will make a significant breakthrough by the end of the year.

“We would like to start construction of the project in the middle of next year and be in production in the first quarter of 2014,” Mr Jones said.

While Sundance are buoyant about their share price, Mr Jones said he felt the company had been “seriously underrated and undervalued” due to cynicism about their ability to finance and build the project.

“It is only early days and by no means over. Considering the company is still only valued, at its current share price, at nearly $800m, considering it has resources of about 2.7 billion tons or iron ore and high prospectivity, I think we are undervalued,” he said.

（来源：PerthNow）