Cradle Arc’s 60%-owned subsidiary, Leboam, the holding company of the Mowana copper mine, in Botswana, has conditionally obtained a loan facility of $2-million from Cradle Arc's largest shareholder PenMin Botswana.
Proceeds from the facility will be applied to dealing with the intermittent equipment breakdowns and interruptions being continually experienced at Mowana's processing plant that have adversely affected the company’s production performance.
The facility is conditional on the conclusion of a debt sale agreement with Fujax, which is expected to occur shortly.
Specific areas to be addressed include pumping, piping, conveying and process control remediation and the installation of standby equipment in parallel in areas where a breakdown has an immediate impact on production, and enhanced spare part inventory.
The improvement and rehabilitation work on the processing plant will start immediately and is not expected to materially interrupt existing operations.
Cradle Arc CEO Kevin van Wouw commented that the plant improvements that will be made over the coming weeks should result in the stabilisation of operations, improved copper recoveries and, ultimately, increased production.
During the third quarter, ended September 30, Mowana produced 712 t of contained copper – a 29.5% quarter-on-quarter improvement.