Motheo Copper Mine secures new funding

New financing facility has been secured for Motheo Copper Mine project, Sandfire, the developers of the mine announced this week.

Sandfire’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Karl Simich said the company has executed a US$140 million (approximately P1, 8 billion) finance facility with Nedbank and Société Générale.

“All aspects of the Motheo project are progressing extremely well and remains on track to achieve first production in the June quarter of next year.

The proceeds of the debt facility will underpin the delivery of Sandfire’s 5.2Mtpa long-term production hub in the Kalahari Copper Belt,” said Simich.

According to the company, the Motheo project finance facility has a seven year tenure, scheduled repayments are to commence in December 2023. The construction of the Motheo Copper Mine is funded through a combination of cash and the proceeds from the finance facility, underpinning the current development ahead of expansion of the operations to 5.2Mtpa driven by the inclusion of the A4 Open Pit. Currently, a total of approximately US$185 million (approximately P2, 5 billion) has been invested of the estimated US$325.5 million (approximately P4, 3 billion) development capital. Apart from developing the mine, Sandfire last month announced intentions to gear up its exploration on the over 26,000 square kilometers of land on the Kalahari Copper Belt. Sandfire said the belt is under explored, despite its significant copper terrane with only 643 holes drilled in 15 years of regional exploration. Kalahari Copper Belt extends for approximately 1000 km between Botswana and Namibia. Through regional geophysical data collection, the company anticipates the heightened exploration to enable a holistic basin scale approach to targeting, supported by collaborative relationships with academia and industry counterparts to increase geological understanding.

Motheo latest exploration is on its piece of land code named, A1 Dome.