{"id":1140843,"date":"2019-09-27T12:10:35","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T17:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1003077"},"modified":"2019-09-27T12:10:35","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T17:10:35","slug":"canadas-banro-halts-congo-mines-declares-force-majeure-on-ongoing-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1140843","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Banro halts Congo mines, declares force majeure on ongoing violence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Canada\u2019s Banro Corporation has once<br \/>\nagain halted operations at several of its mines in Democratic Republic of Congo<br \/>\nfollowing repeated attacks from armed rebels that has made it impossible for<br \/>\nthe gold producer to keeps staff and assets safe. <\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Banro, present in eastern DRC since the 1990s, has had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/banro-halts-gold-mine-congo-due-violence-shares-collapse\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">a challenging run that nearly ended in bankruptcy<\/a> two years ago. The government confiscated its licenses during a civil war that killed five million people, returning them in 2002 as the conflict drew to a close. <\/p>\n<p>In the following years, Banro built its Twangiza and Namoya mines. The latter, in particular, was the target of multiple attacks, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/banro-resumes-operations-namoya-militia-violence-prompted-halt\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">kidnapping of employees<\/a>, which led <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/banro-halts-gold-mine-congo-access-road-blocked\/\" >the cash-strapped company to halt operations<\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>A Canadian court approved a rescue<br \/>\nplan in early 2018, enabling the company\u2019s main creditors \u2014 Chinese<br \/>\nstate-controlled Baiyin International Investments and Connecticut-based Gramercy<br \/>\nFunds Management \u2014 to become its senior shareholders. <\/p>\n<p>The move allowed Banro to resume operations. Fresh attacks, including the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/web\/gunmen-kidnap-two-workers-at-banros-east-congo-mine\/\" >kidnapping of four employees in July<\/a>, disrupted mining activities and ended up with the company signing an agreement with the leader of the Mai Mai militia.<\/p>\n<p>The deal, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"La Libre Afrique reports (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/afrique.lalibre.be\/41439\/rdc-banro-suspend-ses-operations-sur-3-sites-miniers-suite-a-linsecurite\/\" ><em>La Libre Afrique <\/em>reports<\/a>, allowed artisanal local miners to temporarily extract gold from Namoya\u2019s site in exchange for the release of the abducted workers.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, the company declared <em>force majeure<\/em> arguing that the violent and unpredictable events that have hit its operations justified the move. <\/p>\n<p>The legal clause, when invoked, can free an entity from meeting contractual obligations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Miner says relentless attacks, including the kidnapping of four employees in July, disrupted mining activities and forced it to suspend operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2648,2849,369,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1140843"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1140855,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140843\/revisions\/1140855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1140843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1140843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1140843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}