PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed copper/gold miner Sandfire Resources on Thursday announced it had completed the restructuring of its $125-million DeGrussa project finance facility.

The company reached an agreement with its financier ANZ Banking Corporation to restructure the project finance facility into a separate A$85-million revolving facility and a A$40-million amortising facility.

The revolver facility, initially fully drawn, could be paid down or redrawn as required, but must be fully repaid by the end of 2017, while the amortising facility would have fixed repayments of A$5-million a quarter, for a period of six quarters, followed by A$2-million a quarter for a further four quarters.

The previous project financing facility required Sandfire to repay the entire debt by the end of 2015.

Sandfire MD Karl Simich said on Thursday that the company had decided to take advantage of the strong Australian dollar copper price environment, and the continuing robust operating and financial performance at the DeGrussa mine, in Western Australia, to implement a more flexible long-term debt structure.

“After rapidly reducing our debt over the past two-and-a-half years, with a total of A$255-million now repaid against the original A$300-million, we have reached agreement to restructure our facility arrangements with ANZ in a way that gives us better access to project cash flows in the short and medium term.”

Simich noted that the repayment structure of the amortising facility ensured that Sandfire continued to steadily reduce the company’s overall debt position over the next two-and-a-half years, while the revolving facility would give the company flexibility to either pay down its debt or redraw the facility should it be needed.

“This gives us a flexible and balanced debt structure that better aligns with the six-year mine life at DeGrussa, following the recent resource, reserve and mine plan update, while allowing us greater freedom to deploy cash across our business in the short term.”

Meanwhile, Sandfire on Thursday reported an increase in both copper and gold production during the quarter ended March.

Copper production increased to 17 103 t, compared with the 15 350 t produced in the previous quarter, while gold production was up from 9 058 oz to 10 150 oz during the same period.

Sandfire reported that mine production during the quarter exceeded 1.7-million tonnes a year, while milling rates at the DeGrussa plant were maintained at about 1.5-million tonnes a year. However, the miner noted that the installation and commissioning of process plant enhancements completed resulted in an immediate improvement in copper recoveries of over 2%.

Looking ahead, Sandfire told shareholders that the company expected to produce about 17 000 t of contained copper metal during the fourth quarter of 2015.