TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Vancouver-based Western Canadian Coal (WCC) has agreed to make a loan facility of up to $36-million available to a subsidiary of Aim-listed Cambrian Mining, the firm announced on Friday.

Cambrian will use the funds, which will be available immediately, to repay a loan from Investec Bank (UK).

The loan agreement follows an announcement by the two firms on December 24, that WCC had reached an agreement in principle on the main points of a plan to buy Cambrian.

The proposed acquisition, which could be through a scheme of arrangement or a takeover offer, would result in Cambrian shareholders receiving 0,75 of a WCC share for every Cambrian share they own, the companies said at the time.

Cambrian, which mines coal, gold and antimony, has hard-coking and thermal coal operations in West Virginia, as well as assets in Western Canada, Wales and Australia. WCC produces metallurgical coal from mines in British Columbia, Canada.

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