Australian gold mining company, Troy Resources Limited yesterday announced that it had entered into a gold loan facility of 5,200 ounces with Asian Investment Management Services Ltd (AIMS), a Malaysian based investment fund (Facility).
A release from the company said that the Facility provides for a gold loan of 5,200 gold ounces available in one or more tranches as required by the Company.
The Facility has a term of twelve months and is secured by a general security interest over the Company’s assets. The Facility has been drawn down with gross proceeds of USD$8.07 million received.
Together with monies from the December 2019 share placement, the loan proceeds will be used to restart production at the Karouni Mine in Guyana.
Troy will issue six million unlisted options with an exercise price of $0.10 and an expiry date of 16 January 2022 to AIMS for the provision of the Facility, the release said.
The Australian mining company had been seeking to mobilise financing to restart operations here after they were shut down in the aftermath of a fatal accident at its Karouni mine site.
It was later given the go-ahead to resume operations by the Guyana Government but required a financing injection to restart.
On December 23rd last year, Troy announced that it had secured needed capital for the immediate restart of its Karouni operations in Region Seven, for which it will be hiring workers.
“Since late November the Company has been working on sourcing the working capital required to make a formal decision to restart the operations… With that funding now secured, the Board has formally approved the recommencement of operations at the Karouni Gold Mine,” the company said in the statement. The funding secured amounts to approximately US$10.3 million.
“The restart of operations will begin immediately but progressively, initially with the employment of personnel involved in mining activities and later, after approximately two weeks, personnel involved in the processing area,” the statement said. The company, which had sacked some 300 workers after a forced closure, explained that the “lag” in the hiring is due to all available ore having been processed before the mill was placed on care and maintenance and so a rebuild of ore is required before milling can recommence. “Maintenance on the processing plant will continue to take place while awaiting a full restart of ore processing,” it said, while adding that it is likely that first gold sales revenue from the restart of operations will not be received for some six to eight weeks.
