Base reschedules Kwale debt

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Dual-listed mineral sands miner Base Resources on Tuesday told shareholders that it has rescheduled its $215-million outstanding debt for the Kwale mineral sands project, in Kenya.

Base in November this year flagged the refinancing of its debt, saying that the current commodity market made the repayment of the project debt facilities ‘challenging’.

Under the terms of the reschedule, Base has now paid down $14-million of the debt facility on execution of the agreement, which along with the $11-million repayment made in June this year, brought the outstanding debt to $190-million.

The remaining debt would be repaid in tranches over the next four-and-a-half years, with Base allowed to lower its repayments over the next two years.

In 2016, the miner was expected to repay $9.5-million in debt, followed by an $11.4-million repayment in 2017. Between 2018 and 2020, the remaining debt would be paid off in tranches of $26.6-million.

Base’s parent guarantee would remain in place until the end of June 2017, subject to perfecting the applicable lender security package and finalising a long-term operating license for the port operations.

A margin of 0.25% would be applied to the debt until the earlier of the lender security package being perfected, and when the outstanding loan was reduced to $170-million.

A margin of 6.30% would also be applicable across all tranches.

Base started exports from Kwale in 2014 and the mine was being ramped up to produce 80 000 t/y of rutile, 360 000 t/y of ilmenite and 30 000 t/y of zircon. An optimisation push at Kwale was expected to increase the mine’s combined ilmenite, rutile and zircon output beyond 460 000 t/y.