PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Kingston Resources has secured a A$10-million debt facility with PURE Asset Management to fund growth initiatives at the Mineral Hill gold/copper project, in New South Wales.

The funding will be provided in two tranches, including an immediate A$5-million, followed by a second A$5-million by the end of November, subject to progress milestones being met.

Kingston told shareholders on Thursday that the funding would enable work plans to be carried out in the short term to deliver a five-year-plus mine life at Mineral Hill. These work plans include engineering studies for the refurbishment of the front end of the processing plant, near term resource and reserve updates, mining studies and technical programmes for the Pearse openpit, and underground refurbishment working and mining studies at SOZ, as well as for working capital.

“We are delighted to be working with PURE Asset Management to deliver on our plans for Mineral Hill. The funding facility provided by PURE is an important achievement for the company, providing the necessary finance to get the project development under way,” said Kingston MD Andrew Corbett.

“The facility also represents an important corporate step for Kingstone, introducing our first debt funding package.”

The funding package will have a 48-month term for each tranche, and an interest rate of 9.9%, along with a 3% establishment fee.

Kingston acquired the Mineral Hill project in January this year, and since then extensive progress had been made in understanding the asset, tailings process and upside potential, said Corbett.

“With the conclusion of our highly successful initial drilling programme at Mineral Hill, the team is now very excited to be turning towards future production growth with work now underway on resource and reserve updates, mine design and plant refurbishment,” said Corbett.

“We are fortunate to be able to leverage the brownfield nature of our operations at Mineral Hill. The partial openpit at Pearse South, a developed underground at SOZ, an existing plant and current approvals all contribute to what we anticipate will be a relatively low-cost, high-return restart of hard rock mining at Mineral Hill.”

Kingston said on Thursday that a number of parties had approached the company indicating interest in securing concentrate offtake. The company would now also advance offtake discussions alongside mining restart studies.