DRC: Ivanhoe Mines obtains a credit of 420 million USD for the Kamoa-Kakula project
Ivanhoe Mines Co-Chairs Robert Friedland and Yufeng “Miles” Sun announced on Tuesday, December 1 that Kamoa Holding Limited, the joint venture holding company for the Kamoa-Kakula copper project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has secured a financing facility. up to € 176 million (approximately US $ 211 million), as well as a down payment facility of US $ 9 million. The two facilities will be used by the project to purchase underground mobile mining equipment and services from leading Swedish manufacturers Sandvik AB and Epiroc AB, and Finnish manufacturer Normet Oy, the company notes in a press release.
Additionally, Gold Mountains (HK) International Mining Company, a subsidiary of Zijin Mining Group, provided Kamoa Holding Limited with a US $ 200 million limited recourse line of credit secured by the project’s pre-production ore inventories. to finance the Phase 2 concentrator. According to Ivanhoe Mines, this US $ 200 million is enough to cover the cost of the second 3.8 million tonnes per year (Mtpa) concentrator module at the Kakula mine – doubling the capacity of mine treatment from 3.8 Mtpa to 7.6 Mtpa.
The combined funds from the credit facilities will be used to accelerate the overall development of the Kakula Phase 2 module, including the plant and associated infrastructure, as well as to accelerate mining activities in the Kakula and Kansoko deposits to to keep the two concentration plants operating at full capacity. The additional funding is expected to accelerate the completion of the Phase 2 plant expansion from Q1 2023 to Q3 2022.
“Kamoa-Kakula remains firmly on track to begin Phase 1 copper production in July 2021, and these two non-dilutive project-level credit facilities allow us to raise funds as needed to run the plant. Concentration of Phase 2 of the expansion project well ahead of our previous schedule. We share this vision of optimization and advancement of the project with our partners in the Kamoa-Kakula project, ”commented Mr. Friedland.
He added: “Collectively, we have a very positive outlook for copper prices in the years to come; we therefore want to ensure that the operation reaches its short-term production capacity as quickly as possible, while maintaining our strong balance sheet. Given today’s uncertain macroeconomic environment, we view these credit facilities as sound and timely, with an amortization schedule that matches well with the expected start of the Kamoa-Kakula Phase 2 expansion, which should considerably increase the cash generation capacities of the project ”.
The Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project is a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines (39.6%), Zijin Mining Group (39.6%), Crystal River Global Limited (0.8%) and the government of the DRC (20 %).
