Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Copper miner Tiger Resources has drawn down on a A$50-million advanced payment facility from Gerald Metals SA to support the construction of its Stage 2 solvent-extraction and electrowinning (SX-EW) plant at the Kipoi copper project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The advance payment is part of an agreement between Gerald and Tiger’s 60%-held subsidiary, Societe d’Exploitation de Kipoi SPRL.
The parties also have an offtake agreement that would see Gerald take some 100 000 t of copper cathode from the Stage 2 operation, which was nearing its final stages of construction and was on schedule to deliver its first cathode product by the second quarter of 2014.
“The agreement with Gerald was completed in an extremely challenging climate and shows the robustness of the Kipoi project, the confidence in the DRC, and the strength of our management team,” said Tiger MD Brad Marwood.
About 25 000 t of copper cathode would be produced in the first 12 months of the SX-EW plant, with production set to increase to 50 000 t over the following 12 months.
In addition to the SX-EW plant, Tiger would also produce about 39 000 t of copper in concentrate from the heavy media separation plant at Kipoi during 2014.
Marwood noted that the offtake agreement for Gerald was for 2 000 t/m of cathode, which was to be delivered during the initial phase of the SX-EW operations, increasing to 2 500 t/m after the proposed expansion to 50 000 t/y capacity.