denotes premium content | Jan 7 2009 
News
posted 20 Oct 2008
Deal news
Equinox secures additional $80m for Lumwana
Copper miner Equinox Minerals has secured an extension to a December 2006 facility enabling it to invest an additional $80m in its Lumwana copper project in
The financing, from lead arrangers Standard Bank and Standard Chartered, is on the same terms as the December 2006 project-finance facility and will enable the company to take the mine through to production. The additional sum was required after a fire delayed its start up.
Lumwana will come on stream at the end of the year and is expected to produce more than 172,000 tonnes of copper annually from 2009 and to run for 37 years.
The project has been in development for almost ten years and production will put the company squarely on the takeover radars of the major mining conglomerates. Rio Tinto, for example, has said that it is planning to buy copper producers with production of up to 200,000 tonnes a year with long mine lives.
The Lumwana mine also offers the prospect of gold, cobalt and uranium. Indeed, the operation is expected to start producing Uranium from around 2010.
