Client News

Asiamet Resources Limited (“Asiamet” or the “Company”) announces a further update in relation to the Company’s wholly owned, feasibility stage, BKM copper project located in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Debt Finance Process

·    The final version of the Independent Technical Expert (ITE) report from SRK Consulting has been issued and delivered to the prospective Lead Bank. The bank will now commence its commercial and financial analysis leading to the request for initial credit committee approval to act as lead arranger for the BKM project debt finance.

·    Pathway meetings for completion of prospective Lead Bank credit committee approvals have been held and remain ongoing. All parties are focused on delivering this initial approval before end of this calendar year.

·    Based on progress to date, the Company intends to engage with selected Indonesian banks as part of our broader funding progress. The Company will leverage off board members’ long-established relationships with leading local banks to execute the funding plan.

Offtake and Prepayment Financing

·    Discussions for prepayment (offtake) finance for the project continue with a detailed review of the indicative term sheet completed and feedback to be provided to the international metals trading group.

·    Several prospective prepayment (offtake) finance providers remain actively engaged with another two groups  recently commencing diligence.

EPC Engagement

·    Following significant engagement with Chinese and Indonesian engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and EPC management (EPCM) groups, the Company intends to soon engage  highly reputable engineering teams from both jurisdictions to deliver the next phase of project engineering works. The Company looks forward to updating the market further once these appointments have been made.

Other Items

·    The Company is progressing a detailed assessment of sources of suitable Biomass material from Palm Oil Plantations, Palm Oil Mills and Timber Processing Facilities for the proposed Biomass Power Plant to supply power to the BKM site. The assessment will feed into optimisation of the location of the power station.   

·    Pyrite (iron sulphide mineral) contained within the BKM copper resource has the potential to be an important source of sulphur for production of sulphuric acid needed for the ever-increasing production of nickel in Indonesia using acid leach processing (HPAL). A pyrite/copper concentrate resource has the potential to be a valuable future source of feedstock for acid plants tied to HPAL processing of nickel laterites. Cost-effective transportation is key to unlocking the value of this resource and a work programme has been initiated to study transportation costs for concentrate from BKM to known locations of HPAL nickel processing in the country.

·    A preliminary technical review relating to pyrite contained within BKM deposit has been undertaken and a workplan developed to improve confidence in the resource. This work will be actioned upon receipt of a positive transportation cost study. This work feeds into the longer- term strategy for developing BKM’s greater copper resources and eventually metal concentrates from BKZ and other polymetallic deposits at KSK. Further details will be reported as work is completed.

Darryn McClelland, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

“Our primary message in this latest update centres on the completion and delivery of the ITE technical due diligence report, a crucial step in the debt finance process. As debt financings of this nature are generally supported by a syndicate of banks, we will shortly commence engaging with senior Indonesian banks most likely to join the BKM project debt finance consortium. We look forward to moving through this next stage of the project financing process.

In addition to the copper offtake term sheet, we have received further interest from additional groups expressing a desire to secure BKM’s future copper cathode units and are advancing due diligence processes with these parties. Engagement is positive and we will update further as these discussions evolve.

An area of key focus is the engagement of engineering resources for the next phase of the BKM project execution. Positive engagement with groups during the BKM Feasibility Study update and in activities since its release have provided confidence in selecting key groups to take the project forward. I look forward to soon being able to share details of these engagements. 

Our project and corporate fronts are a hive of activity, and we are committed to providing regular updates on progress. The corporate development team is also very actively assessing and evaluating in-bound interest for a range of scenarios relating to project and corporate level investment.

October has been another very busy month for the Company with the successful delivery of the ITE report to the potential lead bank, a key milestone for securing debt finance and a clear demonstration of the excellent progress being made by the Asiamet team. We have made some big strides and are excited to be closing in on several major de-risking milestones for the Company and its stakeholders.”    

Corporate Update – 07:05:00 30 Oct 2023 – ARS News article | London Stock Exchange

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