Copper producer, developer and explorer Tiger Resources is targeting to boost production by more than a third at its 95%-owned Kipoi project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Katanga province, by activating the first drawdowns of its revised $137.5 million credit facility in the last quarter of the year, Tiger interim CEO Michael Griffiths said in an address made at the Paydirt 2015 Africa Down Under conference held in September.

Tiger Resources’ revised credit terms with funds management company Taurus Funds Manage-ment, based in Sydney, Australia, are said to ease and assist in alleviating the copper producer and developer’s previous obliga- tions of a shorter term finan-cing facility with the funds management company.

The new credit terms will afford Tiger Resources the flexibility of focusing its financing towards the cost of debottlenecking its current solvent extraction and electrowinning (SXEW) copper operations at Kipoi, in the DRC.

“This strategy is aimed at lifting the projects copper cath-ode product from 25 000 t/y to 32 500 t/y, with the timing sub-ject to the soon-to-be-completed technical study,” said Griffiths.

Taurus will further arrange an additional $25 million to fund the current technical study set to be completed by the end of 2015, which will assess other options Tiger can implement in its debottlenecking process.

The debottlenecking works are expected to be completed within an eight-month period, including detailed design, procurement and construction. Thus, the start of works in the fourth quarter of 2015 will see completion during the third quarter of 2016.

According to the copper producer, the debottlenecking project has a forecast internal rate of return of 107% and a payback period of ten months at a copper price of $3/lb.

Engineering and costing studies undertaken during the preliminary stages of the project have indicated low risks and high returns for the project at Kipoi if the company manages to make better use of its SXEW processing operations.

The engineering and costing study focused on potential modifications to use the identi-fied latent capacity of the SXEW processing train at Kipoi and was completed by Tiger Resources with assistance of independent consultants Cube Consulting and WorleyParsons.

Studies have further indicated a reserve-backed life-of-mine (LoM) of 16-plus years for Kipoi at the higher 32 500 t/y rate and a projected LoM operating cost of $1.27/lb.

Meanwhile, Griffiths believes that the company has achieved a strong opening-half performance in the 2015 calendar, producing 12 500 t of copper cathode at an all sustaining cost of $ 1.68 /Ib Potential for even higher incre-mental production gains is achievable, owing to the May and June operations at Kipoi being at 11% and 15% respectively above the plant’s nameplate capacity.

Operations at Kipoi continue to deliver an impressive safety record.