Miners work overtime to raise funding over festive season

Mintek's ConRoast technology is being used at Jubilee Platinum's mine. Image: Jubilee Platinum.

After announcing on 20 December it had a secured £1.85m (about R31m) in funding through the placing of convertible loan notes‚ Jubilee said it had now arranged a £10m equity finance facility with Darwin Strategic Limited (Darwin).

The £1.85m is to be used for the commissioning of the third arc furnace at Middelburg Smelters and to settle all remaining debt held in Jubilee's power plant subsidiary‚ Power Alt.

According to Jubilee's chief executive Leon Coetzer‚ the equity finance facility was intended to support Jubilee's mine-to-metals strategy and more specifically (go) towards potential acquisitions targeted by the company in the platinum and other metals industry with a view to using the ConRoast process"

Investment in technology

ConRoast is a revolutionary smelting technology developed by South African research institution Mintek over which Jubilee holds a commercial licence.

"Jubilee may make draw-downs from the facility at its discretion‚" Coetzer said.

"The equity finance facility provides Jubilee with a flexible‚ highly cost-effective source of capital which is available should the company wish to capitalise on further opportunities within the platinum sector‚" he said.

The site of the Boikarabelo Mine being developed by Resource Generation. Image: Boikarabelo.

Resgen has raised a further US$65m from partner Noble Resources to be used to fund construction of the proposed Boikarabelo coal mine in the Waterberg and has also received a US$2.5m deposit from Singapore-listed investment company Blumont‚ Resgen said.

Blumont was supposed to add a further US$22.6m to the initial payment to Resgen on 4 Decembe to subscribe for shares but did not. According to Resgen‚ if Blumont did not pay in the balance by 26 February‚ the deposit would be forfeited with no issue of shares being made in relation to that money.

The US$65m loan is in addition to the US$55.3m loan Resgen organised from Noble for the construction of a rail link from the Boikarabelo mine to the existing Transnet Freight Rail network.

The previously announced US$123m loan facility dated March last year - which was subsequently reduced to US$67.7m because of the rail link loan - expired on 31 December without any draw-downs being made.

"Completing these loan arrangements removes the remaining major gap in our funding plans‚" Resgen's managing director Paul Jury said.

Forbes - which operates the Magdalena bituminous coal and Aviemore anthracite mines near Dundee in KwaZulu-Natal - has secured a loan facility of up to US$19m from Resource Capital Fund.

The funding package consists of a bridging loan of US$4m and a convertible loan of up to US$15m.

The bridging loan will be used for general working capital in relation to Forbes's operation around Dundee as well as to facilitate the closure of the company's office in Toronto.

The convertible loan will be used for general working capital to improve the operations at Dundee as well as provide for further capital investment.