Reuters quoted the London listed metals explorer and developer said African Minerals Ltd will start exporting iron ore cargoes to China and Europe from its Tonkolili mine in Sierra Leone at the end of this month.

The company commenced mining iron ore in Sierra Leone in December 2010 and has since stockpiled material. Iron ore exports will start this month and African Minerals expects to export about 1.2 million tonnes of iron ore during the current fourth quarter.

Mr David Tucker its head of sales and marketing said "We have three cargoes programmed for China and one cargo programmed for Europe. He said that we are selling some trial cargoes, but really the intention is from those trial cargoes to cement long-term off-take agreements with partners."

He said that African Minerals is currently in talks with European Chinese and Asian steelmakers to sign more off take agreements. He added that we are not tied to a specific index but our initial contracts reference the Platts index."

He also said "We are talking about something which is linked to the China CFR price, but the actual pricing mechanism is a bit of secondary importance to us."

Shandong Iron & Steel, the world ninth largest steel group has already agreed to pay USD 1.5 billion for a 25% stake in African Minerals' flagship iron ore project and will take 25% of its production. Mr Mike Jones head of corporate development and investor relations said to go ahead, the deal still requires Chinese government approval, which is expected by December 31.

China Railway Material a company involved in steel trading and the railway products business has 12.3% in African Minerals and an agency agreement to sell part of its production to the Chinese market.

The rest of the iron ore available is being marketed directly by African Minerals based on a cost and freight China price index.

(Sourced from Reuters)