JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Tiger Resources said on Wednesday that it had agreed terms with Taurus Mining Finance Fund for the refinancing of its existing secured debt facilities and for arranging a new facility to fund the potential debottlenecking works at the Kipoi copper project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The terms agreed envisaged two tranches of funding totalling up to $162.5-million. The first tranche would be fully underwritten for $137.5-million and would be used to term out Tiger’s exiting secured facilities to December 2021. The second tranche of $25-million would be used for the proposed debottlenecking project, which would increase production at the existing solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX-EW) plant at Kipoi from 25 000 t/y to 32 500 t/y.
The debottlenecking initiative was complementary to the potential Phase 2 expansion of SX-EW capacity. Phase 2 would involve the replication of the Phase 1 SX-EW process train and, with the addition of the debottlenecking initiatives, Phase 2 expansion would have the potential to increase Kipoi’s capacity to 65 000 t/y.
“We are pleased to have reached agreement on this financing with Taurus. This is an important milestone as on completion of these facilities, we will have matched our long life project with a term facility that offers certainty and flexibility as we progress the development of the Kipoi SX-EW project,” commented Tiger chairperson Neil Fearis.