US$322M secured for Copper Mountain

VANCOUVER — International conglomerate Mitsubishi Materials has secured US$322 million in project financing for the Copper Mountain copper project in southwest British Columbia.

Mitsubishi holds a 25% interest in the project after buying into it last year, and Copper Mountain Mining (CUM-T, COQ-F) controls the rest. Along with the $28.8-million buy-in, Mitsubishi had agreed to use commercially reasonable efforts to arrange a $250 million project loan, and to buy all the copper concentrate from the mine.

The company has now more-than- fulfilled the project loan requirement. A consortium of senior lenders including Bank of Tokyo- Mitsubishi and Mizuho Corporate Bank have committed to provide a US$162-million senior credit agreement, while the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the international arm of Japan Finance Corp. have committed to provide a further US$160 million as a term loan.

Copper Mountain, meanwhile, recently raised a $34.5 million to fulfill its working capital commitments.

The company issued 11.3 million shares at $3.05 in a bought-deal financing.

The project, located outside Princeton and roughly 270 km east of Vancouver, is on schedule. The historic mine is expected to return to production in mid-2011 with a 35,000-tonne-per-day copper concentrator.

The deposit’s reserves total 211 million tonnes grading 0.36% copper for 1.7 billion contained lbs. copper. The company expects to spend $438 million to reopen the mine.

Copper Mountain’s share price jumped 31¢ or 7.8% on the latest financing news to close at $2.78 with 90 million shares outstanding.

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