Mine project working out its finances
A COMPANY planning a $1.3 billion nickel and cobalt project northwest of Townsville has given itself more time to secure finance.
But managing director of the listed company Australian Mines, Ben Bell, said they may still begin developing the project by the middle of this year. The project is expected to create 500 construction jobs and 300 jobs during operations.
Australian Mines is proposing to develop three open cut pits in the Greenvale area and a two million tonne per annum processing plant at Greenvale, producing nickel and cobalt sulphate for the electric vehicle battery market.
It is looking to finalise an offtake agreement for Korean energy and petrochemical giant SK Innovation to buy all of the plant’s production.
The company told the ASX both it and SK Innovation had agreed to extend the date for finalising finance from December 31, 2018, to September 19 this year.
Australian Mines is seeking funding from banks and the Federal Government’s Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility.
“This extension is designed to accommodate the Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility’s current due diligence and investigation into potentially providing financial support for Australian Mines’ 100 per centowned Sconi project,” the company said in a statement.
The extension also provided Australian Mines and SK Innovation sufficient time to finalise financing discussions with a consortium of tier one lenders, it said.
Mr Bell said despite the extension they still planned to have the entire project funding package in place during the second quarter of 2019.
He said this would allow them to start construction mid-year with first production from the processing plant for the first quarter of 2021.
Mr Bell said an upgrade to Greenvale’s airport and roads would be among the first construction works that would need to be undertaken.