TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX- and ASX-listed Alacer Gold has secured a $250-million senior secured project finance facility with lending consortium BNP Paribas (Suisse), ING Bank and Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking.
Alacer Gold has an 80% interest in the Çöpler gold mine, in Turkey, where the corporation continues detailed engineering and procurement of long-lead-time items for the Çöpler sulphide project.
Alacer president and CEO Rod Antal said in a statement on Monday that the facility represented yet another step forward in derisking the sulphide project and further strengthened Alacer's balance sheet, enabling increased flexibility to advance growth. "We are extremely pleased to have closed the agreement on very competitive terms with this lending syndicate,” he commented.
The facility had a seven-year term, with interest rates of Libor plus 2.5% to 2.95%. No mandatory gold hedging would be required and it included no early repayment penalties. Advances under the facility were subject to customary conditions precedent including executing security and construction documentation.
Cutfield Freeman & Co and Stikeman Elliott acted as advisers to Alacer on the transaction.
The $660-million sulphide project would consist of the introduction of a whole-ore pressure oxidation (POX) circuit that would extend the life of the mine and boost current resources and reserves.
The POX facility was expected to process sulphide ore at a rate of 5 000 t/d and would result in a 20-year mine life for the project.