TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Vancouver-based Baja Mining has finalised and signed $858-million of financing facilities for the construction and development of its flagship Boleo project, in  Mexico, the firm announced on Wednesday.

The facilities include $823-million of project financing facilities, as well as a $35-million equity cost overrun support facility.

The closing of the facilities means full-scale construction activities at Boleo can get under way  “imminently", CEO John Greenslade said in a statement.

Baja, which agreed in April 2008 to sell a 30% stake in the Boleo project to a consortium led by Korean State-owned Korea Resources Corporation. has now secured the entire debt financing portion of the project funding.

The project finance facilities will be provided by the US Export-Import Bank, Export Development Canada, the Korea Development Bank and by a group of commercial banks comprising Barclays Capital, Standard Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, UniCredit Bank AG and WestLB AG.

One of the requirements from the lending banks was that Baja sign an offtake deal for part of its production, so the firm has agreed to sell at least 70% of both copper and cobalt production on commercial terms to Louis Dreyfus for the first ten years of production.

The company is targeting commissioning at Boleo in 2012.

Shares in Baja Mining edged up 1% on Wednesday, to C$0,98 a share by 16:37 in Toronto.

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