News: Valence Industries lines up $35M funding for graphite project expansion

Valence Industries (ASX:VXL) has received multiple short-listed term sheets to establish $35 million in senior finance facilities for the proposed Phase II expansion of its Uley Graphite Project in South Australia.

This corresponds to the anticipated capital cost for construction of a full-scale 50,000 flake graphite project.

The names of the selected senior debt providers will be released ahead of financial close currently scheduled for early 2015.

Valence will continue to assess project acceleration options ahead of such funding.


Phase I

The company also noted the successful conduct of extensive construction testing and pre-commissioning of the Phase I plant.

Once regulatory approval is received, the ramp-up of Phase I will commence with fines re-processing over at least 30 days and moves to staged run of mine production over a planned ramp-up period of 3 to 4 months to meet the full production capacity rate of 14,000 tpa.

A similar program for ramp-up will be followed for the Phase II facilities.


Uley Project

The Uley Project is a coarse flake graphite deposit that occurs in weathered schist and gneiss.

It contains disseminated, high-grade flake graphite and the mineralisation is near surface, with the final manufactured graphite products recognised and purchased by many customers for their high quality.

Uley has an Indicated and Inferred Resource of 6.4 million tonnes grading 7.1% graphitic carbon as well as run of mine stockpiles of about 174,000 tonnes, which represents 12 months of production in the Phase I Plant.

Infill drilling campaign was undertaken during the September quarter of 2014 will lead to a re-estimation of Resources as well as a declaration of Ore Reserves.

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