Anchor Resources' Malaysian mining sites face delayed return of China staff

TRAVEL curbs imposed amid the global Covid-19 epidemic have delayed the return of some Chinese workers at Catalist-listed miner Anchor Resources' gold and granite mining operations in Malaysia, the company disclosed in a bourse filing on Wednesday.

While all the Chinese workers for its gold mining tailings operation reached Malaysia before the travel restrictions kicked in, some underground tunnelling workers were unable to do so.

Otherwise, in the granite-mining segment, some of wholly-owned subsidiary GGTM's contractors could not enter Malaysia because of the restrictions.

The board added: "The delay of the return of these Chinese contractors has delayed the deliveries of granite dimension stones, for both local and overseas customers.

"The group has informed the affected customers on such delay and will endeavour to deliver the backlog orders as soon as practicable when the contractors return to work."

This is on top of a delay in quarry aggregate sales to a company in Brunei, which have been pushed back to June 2020 on what Anchor said was "the delays by the project owner in Brunei".

"As the situation on the Covid-19 outbreak remains uncertain, the group will continue to monitor the financial impact," the board said.

Separately, Anchor's wholly-owned Angka Alamjaya, which exports gold concentrate ore to China from Terengganu, earlier this week got in-principle approval to produce gold concentrate ore in Kelantan in a joint venture with the Land and Mineral Director Office, said the group.

Anchor shares closed flat at 0.8 Singapore cent on Wednesday before the announcement.