IDC agrees to fund 43.75% of pre-development costs at SA’s Okiep Mining – Orion

The Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC) has agreed with copper developer Orion Minerals to fund 43.75% of pre-development costs at Okiep Mining.
Upon becoming a shareholder, IDC will advance its pro rata share of the R79 million total budgeted pre-development operating costs of New Okiep Mining Company (NOM), with Orion having already advanced its entire pro rata share of ZAR 44.5 million to NOM, which represents a 56.25% stake.
“With Orion already, representing 56.25% pro-rata portion of the total pre-development budget, the IDC has now agreed on the key commercial terms on which it will fund the balance of the budget to complete feasibility studies by June 2023,” said Orion chief executive Errol Smart. 
“Having also received the long-awaited grant of the mining right to the core area, we are finally able to complete the required drilling and metallurgical sampling to finalise the optimisation of the feasibility studies which are already well advanced.”
He said the future ownership of NOM puts the project on a very solid footing for the near-term development of what they expect to be a brownfields copper mining project.
A 2021 scoping study into the project estimated that the 780 000 tonnes per year operation could have a mine life of nearly 12 years, producing 386 000 tonnes per year of copper concentrate.

Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished