Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
On November 22, 2012, the Perth Branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) signed a $105 million USD credit facility agreement with Australian gold producer Norton Gold Fields Limited (NGF). The loan carried a maturity period of three years from the initial drawdown and was secured by a $115 million USD letter of guarantee issued by Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd., Norton's major shareholder, with a fee of 1.2% of the $115 million USD Zijin guarantee per annum payable to Zijin for its provision. It carried an interest rate of LIBOR plus a margin of 2.1%. Record ID#93972 captures ICBC's contribution to this $120 million AUD loan. The proceeds of this credit line were to be used by the borrower to fund the Norton's calendar year 2013 capital spending requirements at its Paddington Gold Mine, namely in the form of an allocation of $38 million AUD to purchase a mining fleet for Paddington, allowing Norton to replace equipment hired from contractors and facilitating its transition to an owner operator model at Paddington through the purchase a mining fleet, to finance ongoing exploration programs and the exploration of acquisition opportunities, and repay Norton's $38 million AUD from Jinyu (H.K.) International Mining, a wholly owned-subsidiary of Zijin. The $38 million AUD loan from Jinyu that was repaid by the $105 million USD loan is captured by Record ID#93941. Then, on December 23, 2014, it was announced that the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (ICBC) and the Sydney Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China Limited (ABC) had entered into a $120.0 million AUD syndicated credit facility with Norton Gold Fields Limited (NGF), an Australian gold producer whose major shareholder is Zijin Mining Group Co., Limited. This facility carried a maturity period of three years from the first drawdown, an interest rate of a floating rate plus a margin of 2.1% for ICBC's contribution and a floating rate plus a margin of 2.05% for ABC's contribution, and was secured by a letter of guarantee issued by Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. The proceeds of this loan were to used to refinance a $105 million USD loan provided by ICBC to Norton as well as to fund Norton's working capital requirements. As of April 2015, the loan had achieved a 100% disbursement rate. Record ID#93973 captures ABC's contribution. Record ID#93942 captures the November 2012 $105 million USD ICBC loan refinanced by that loan.
Staff comments
1. Norton Gold Fields Limited (NGF), later known as Norton Gold Fields Pty Ltd, is one of Australia’s largest domestic gold producers, with recent annual production of up to 200,000 ounces. Norton owns a mining and processing complex in Western Australia’s Kalgoorlie gold region, including a prospective tenement package of over 1,000 square kilometers surrounding the 3.8 Mtpa Paddington Mill. 2. The breakdown of contributions between ICBC and ABC to this loan is unknown. For now, AidData has assumed that both banks contributed equally ($60,000,000 AUD) to this $120,000,000 AUD syndicated loan. 3. AidData has coded the project_status field as Completion because all financing had been disbursed.