PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australia’s Export Finance and Insurance Corporation (EFIC) has granted mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto a $100-million loan for the Escondida mine, in Chile.
The loan will help finance Escondida’s organic growth 1 project, which involves the construction of a new 152 000 t/d concentrator.
EFIC’s loan is tied to supply contracts with about 80 Australian companies, including both large corporate and small- to medium-sized enterprises. The suppliers provide a wide range of services including engineering, mineral equipment, fatigue detection systems, tyre management and research.
“We are very pleased to be supporting a large number of Australian companies by providing finance to the project linked to Australian exports” said EFIC executive director of origination and portfolio management Peter Field.
“This development underlines EFIC’s commitment to support Australian companies involved in export-related contracts,” he said.
The Escondida project is 57.5% held by BHP Billiton, and 30% owned by Rio.
The $3.8-billion expansion of Escondida would replace the Los Colorados concentrator with a new 152 000 t/d plant, and would allow access to higher-grade ore located beneath the existing facilities.
The expanded mine would deliver about 1.3-million tonnes a year of copper from June next year.