PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Gold miner Perseus Mining has secured a $150-million revolving cash advance facility which will be used to refinance its existing $31.5-million existing loan facilities, and the development of the Yaouré gold mine, in Cote d’Ivoire.

A consortium of three international banks, Macquarie Bank, Nedbank and Société Générale of France, will provide the finance facility.

“The finalisation of our $150-million corporate debt facility locks in the final piece of our funding plan to develop the Yaouré gold project, and as such is an important milestone for Perseus,” said MD and CEO Jeff Quartermaine.

“Development work at Yaouré has started with the purchase of long-lead items of plant equipment, the progressive assembly of our development team and some early site works. Full scale activities can now be accelerated safely in the knowledge that all funds required to develop our third gold mine will be available when the conditions precedent to drawdown are satisfied.”

First gold production at Yaouré has been targeted for December 2020, and the project is expected to assist Perseus in reaching its production target of some 500 000 oz/y at all-in site costs of less than $850/oz.

“We are now looking forward to the challenge of firstly, developing Yaouré on time and on budget, and then bringing it into production as our third operating gold mine and achieving our stated aim of producing more than 500 000 oz/y,” Quartermaine said.

“In addition to this, we recogniae the enormous untapped exploration potential within the Yaouré tenements and, with access to funding required to fund exploration from our two operating mines at Edikan and Sissingué, we expect to be able to materially add to the expected life of Yaouré operation. Planning of this exploration is under way and we hope to be able to progressively announce the results of an exciting 2020 exploration programme.”