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GeoProMining (GPM) has signed a $250 million loan facility with a syndicate of banks in Russia, the CIS and Europe, the Moscow-based company announced on Monday March 25.
The five-year agreement is split into two tranches, the first of which will be used to reduce indebtedness, while the second will be committed to capital and corporate spending, the company said.
Through subsidiaries, the lead arrangers of the loan were Raiffeisen Bank International Group, Sberbank and UniCredit, GPM said.
GPM is a Moscow-based gold and antimony miner with production assets in Russia and Armenia.
Earlier this month it opened the winter road connecting its Sentachan gold-antimony mine in Yakutia, Russia, with the federal highway, enabling the transport of ore to a processing plant and the supply of equipment and fuel for the next production season.
The company upgrades the ore into a 66-67% antimony concentrate with significant gold content, which is typically sold into the Chinese market.
The new loan agreement will be backed by gold produced by the company, and GPM has hedged 270,000 oz at an unspecified price in accordance with the structure of the deal, it said on Monday.
“We aimed at creating a solid platform for long-term relations with the banks, which we plan to expand in the course of our strategic development. It includes both organic growth and M&A in the regions which are of particular interest for us, [for example] Turkey,” company president Roman Khudoliy said.
Mark Burton mburton@metalbulletin.com Twitter:@mburtonmb