PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed developer Kimberley Diamonds has secured a A$2.8-million working capital loan facility to bring its Lerala mine, in Botswana, into production.
The company told shareholders on Friday that it had entered into a sales and marketing, as well as an offtake agreement with Belgian-based diamond auction house DDA Trading BVBA.
Under the terms of the sales agreement, the loan facility would be provided bewteen April and September this year, and would carry an interest rate of 10% a year, and would be secured by collateral of diamonds produced from the Lerala mine.
DDA would be appointed as the exclusive sales and marketing agent for the Lerala diamonds for a period of three years, with Kimberley also issuing the company with five-million options, with an exercise price of 20c each, and an expiry date of three years.
Under the offtake agreement, which was inter-conditional with the sales agreement, DDA would be supplied with run-of-mine rough diamonds from Lerala to the total value of at least $5-million, at an agreed discount to valuation.
Both of the agreements would be subject to Kimberley Diamonds shareholder approval.
The company pointed out on Friday that to date, Kimberley had raised about A$13-million under a debt facility with Zhejiang Huitong Auction Company and $1-million under a diamond sales agreement with Restwell Investments.
The company was also hoping to undertake a rights issue in March or April, which was expected to raise a further A$4-million, and along with the working capital loan facility, would provide sufficient funding to bring the Lerala mine into production.
Lerala was scheduled to start mining during March this year, and first diamond production has been targeted for April.
Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter
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