London-listed Premier African Minerals’ 19%-owned subsidiary MN Holdings has advised that the offtake partners of the Otjozondu project are reviewing an existing uncommitted credit facility to increase prepayment for manganese ore from the project.
The offtake partners want to pay two equal tranches of $300 000 each in the coming months.
This planned increase in offtake finance will ease the funding requirements that MN Holdings has to increase the mine production rate.
The Otjozondu mine is in Namibia.
In a statement, Premier says the prepayment will also help fund the lead time between production, shipment and final payment on outturn at the destination port.
Local logistics, to some extent still affected by Covid-19, are limiting shipments to a load per week, each containing about 1 405 t of manganese lump ore.
To help overcome this, Otjozondu plans to relocate the container loading facility to Walvis Bay from where it is currently situated at Okahanja. The mine will then have ore railed in bulk to Walvis Bay.
Premier explains that this eliminates the need to rail empty containers to the load siding, takes out any potential demurrage charges associated with any rail delays or other breakdowns at the loading siding, and will allow for continuous filling of containers at Walvis Bay and a much more rapid turnaround of bulk rail cars from the siding.
“This is a significant step in the eventual change to bulk shipment as opposed to containerised, with important cost and efficiency benefits.”