PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior Northern Minerals on Thursday told shareholders that it had secured A$6-million in interim funding from Macquarie Bank, providing the company with short-term working capital.
The funding would be done through a drawdown facility offset against Northern Minerals’ 2013/14 research and development (R&D) rebate, and provided access to short-term working capital ahead of the rebate being finalised.
The total funds received from the federal government rebate were expected to secure the company’s funding requirements through to the completion of the Browns Range heavy rare earths feasibility study in the first half of 2015, Northern Minerals said.
This facility from Macquarie Bank would be extinguished once the R&D rebate was received, which would likely be before the end of 2014.
Under the government’s R&D tax incentive scheme, eligible companies are entitled to a cash rebate of 45c in the dollar for all R&D expenditure incurred in Australia. In 2012/13, Northern Minerals received A$6-million of R&D rebates as part of this scheme.
MD George Bauk said that the Macquarie finance facility added to Northern Minerals' funding flexibility and would allow the company to move Browns Range through to the completion of a full feasibility study.
“It provides further confidence for our work programmes over the next six months, and maintains our pathway to production by 2016.”
A prefeasibility study into the Browns Range project found that the project could deliver some 279 000 kg/y of dysprosium, over a mine life of ten years.