Buffalo Coal’s urgent interdict against the Department of Mineral and Energy Resources to withdraw its Aviemore anthracite mine’s mining right was postponed yesterday in the High Court, Pretoria, to September 15.

The postponement was at the request of Aviemore Trust who had objected to the mining operation.  The DMR withdrew the mining right last week on the  back of “procedural issues” relating to an earlier objection by Aviemore Trust over the award process.

It was agreed that in the meantime, mining would continue, which comes as a relief to the 180 employees at Aviemore.  Aviemore is now the flagship operator for Buffalo Coal and fears are that should that mine be forced to close, it may leave Buffalo Coal ‘dead in the water’.

Buffalo had planned to pursue legal action to obtain a declaratory order to enable the continuation of mining in terms of MR301 and to review the Mineral Resource Minister’s decision. The company was confident of a successful outcome. Buffalo, which acquired the right through Zinoju Coal from Leeuw Mining and Exploration in 2013, had, in the interim, relocated the mining operations to an adjacent mining right area, with sufficient stock on hand to service customers in the short term.