Maybe the Board at SRN can convince the NAIF to provide funding to get Victory Bore going. At least Victory Bore has a mineral on the critical minerals list, being vanadium. See story below where the NAIF is providing funding to a prospective gold mine.
******************************************************************************************* Australian government backs De Grey Mining with $150m loan for Hemi gold project
With gold hovering around US$2,500 per ounce and tipped to rise even further, the Australian government has elected to provide significant new support for a Western Australian precious metal project developer.
Through its Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF), the government is providing a $150 million loan to De Grey Mining (ASX: DEG) for the development of its world-class Hemi gold project located 85 kilometres south of Port Hedland.
The NAIF loan will form part of the lending syndicate expected to provide a combined $1 billion senior debt facility and a $130m cost overrun facility which, together with De Grey’s existing cash balance, are expected to be sufficient to finance the development of Hemi.
Economic boost
In making the funding announcement while visiting Karratha, federal Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King said the project would boost economic and social outcomes for people living and working in the Pilbara.
“This investment will help diversify the local economy, which is currently highly concentrated around our successful iron ore and gas industries,” Ms King said.
“In addition to creating new job opportunities, the project will have significant flow-on benefits locally and attract further investment in community and public infrastructure.” Commodity diversification
De Grey managing director Glenn Jardine said Hemi is an important project for the Pilbara region which will help provide commodity diversification and new mineral processing skills.
“The Hemi processing facility will be a strategic long-term piece of regional infrastructure with the potential to process gold ores from the Pilbara and potentially from other parts of northern Australia.”
“With the support of NAIF, our commercial lending syndicate and a large existing cash balance, we expect to be in a position to complete the project financing for Hemi in the current December half 2024.”
“A final investment decision will then be dependent on the timing of the receipt of final environmental approvals.” Significant gold development
Hemi is set to become one of Australia’s largest gold mining operations and will deliver more than 1,700 jobs during construction and operation.
Discovered by De Grey in 2019, the project is rated as one of Australia’s biggest recent gold finds and opened up a new intrusion-hosted form of gold mineralisation play in the Pilbara in an area that had previously been passed over by explorers.
Hemi has a mineral estimate of 10.5 million ounces with the potential to be mined by large-scale, low strip ratio, low-cost open-pit mining.
SRN Price at posting:
0.7¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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