Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill iron ore project has secured a $US7.2 billion finance deal with a consortium of lenders including Australian banks.
The iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia is the biggest mining construction project in Australia and will employ thousands of people at its peak.
The finance deal is made up of loans and guarantees from five export credit agencies and a consortium of 19 commercial banks from Australia, Japan, Europe, China, Korea and Singapore.
The lenders include the big four Australian banks: National Australia Bank, ANZ, Westpac and the Commonwealth Bank.
In a statement, Mrs Rinehart, the chairman of Roy Hill, said the project represented an opportunity during a period of global uncertainty.
Roy Hill chief executive Barry Fitzgerald said the funding deal was the largest debt financing for a mining project in the world.
“The structure and quality of the project has allowed us to secure an internationally competitive, cost-effective funding structure that can endure market fluctuations,” Mr Fitzgerald said.
A total of 2,500 people are currently employed on the construction of the mine.
Production is expected to start late next year.
Roy Hill aims to produce 55 million tonnes of iron ore per year, which would make it Australia’s fourth-biggest iron ore producer.
About $10 billion will go towards building a mine, a 344-kilometre railway to Port Hedland, and port facilities to export the iron ore at Port Hedland Harbour.
Roy Hill is 70 per cent owned by Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, which is in partnership with South Korean steel giant Posco, Japanese steelmaker Marubeni Corporation and Taiwan’s China Steel Corporation.
Hancock and its investment partners have put in $3.2 billion.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-21/rinehart-secures-finance-deal-for-roy-hill-mine/5335634