No confirmation has come from the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) on an application by Otago diatomite miner Plaman Resources to expand its mine footprint in Middlemarch.
Overseas-owned Plaman Resources purchased the mine and land near Middlemarch for more than $A5 million ($NZ5.4 million) in March 2015, from a start-up company which had been unsuccessful in producing diatomite for fertiliser.
Plaman intends to mine several hundred thousand tonnes of diatomite annually for processing near Invercargill and export it as a stock food supplement.
The company has applied to the OIO for permission to expand the mine’s 42ha footprint, by purchasing an adjacent 400ha of land.
The OIO this week released its decision summaries for April, but Plaman was not named among the nine separate decisions. However, two of the nine decisions were redacted by the OIO, citing sections of the Official Information Act, removing company names and details which may have identified the deals.
The information was withheld because no announcements had been made on public market transactions, the OIO said.
Plaman Resources, trading as Plaman Global Corp, is majority owned (50.95%) by listed tech company Iris Corporation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Burleigh Nominees (49.05%) in the Isle of Man, United Kingdom.
