PERTH (Miningweekly.com) – Dual listed copper developer Orion Minerals has signed a definitive agreement for a R250-million convertible loan to advance the development of its Prieska copper/zinc mine, in South Africa.
The agreement was struck with the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) of South Africa, under which the IDC would advance R250-million as a senior secured convertible loan facility to fund early works at Prieska.
“This is a hugely exciting time for Orion, with the company now entering the final stages of our early development studies and preparing for the imminent transition to development,” said MD and CEO Errol Smart.
“The combined pre-development funding being provided by Triple Flag and the IDC for Prieska now totals over R371-million. This will provide funding for Orion to carry out demonstration trial mining and allow dewatering to commence from underground mine workings. Both of these work streams are critical to our early works bankable feasibility study, which we expect to complete by mid-2023, and mark the official start of development at Prieska.”
Orion at the start of last year flagged early production from the Prieska project, re-scheduling openpit mining to occur concurrently with the 33-month development phase of the Prieska Deeps mine, rather than at the end of the project life. This would allow Orion to capitalise on the near-term base metals market.
First drawdown from the IDC convertible loan and the A$10-million Triple Flag funding are expected in the first quarter of this year.