IDC to fund 43.75% of pre-development costs at Okiep Copper

Orion Minerals has announced that it has entered into non-binding term sheets with the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa Limited (IDC) and Lulamile Xate regarding the key principles of the funding and Historically Disadvantaged South African (HDSA) ownership participation arrangements for New Okiep Mining Company (NOM). Orion and the IDC anticipate finalising and executing the definitive agreements for the IDC share acquisition and pre-development funding arrangements by 30 September 2022, with the IDC funding to flow during October 2022, subject to fulfilment of conditions precedent standard for such arrangements.
Orion, the IDC and Lulamile anticipate finalising and executing the definitive agreements for the HDSA ownership arrangements within the next two months, with the implementation of the HDSA ownership arrangements being
conditional on the transfer of the assets from SAFTA to NOM, per the terms and conditions of the SAFTA Asset Acquisition Agreement (refer ASX/JSE releases 2 February 2021 and 2 August 2021).
The IDC funding of pre-development costs in the amount of ZAR 34.579m will be advanced to NOM on the same terms as the pre-development funding amount of ZAR 44.458m already advanced by Orion to NOM.

Orion’s Managing Director and CEO, Errol Smart, commented:
“Following hard on the heels of last week’s announcement regarding the grant of the SAFTA Mining Right for the Flat Mines area at Okiep, we are delighted to have reached agreement on the key principles for both the inclusion of Mining Charter 2018 HDSA structures and for the IDC to contribute 43.75% of the total budgeted pre-development costs for NOM, marking a significant step towards the broader commercial development of the Okiep Copper Project.
With Orion already having contributed ZAR44.458m, representing 56.25% pro-rata portion of the total pre-development budget, the IDC has now agreed on the key commercial terms on which it will fund the balance of the budget to complete feasibility studies by June 2023.
Having also received the long awaited grant of the mining right to the core area, we are finally able to complete the required drilling and metallurgical sampling to finalise the optimisation of the feasibility studies which are already well advanced.
The future ownership of NOM with high quality development partners, such as the IDC, Lulamile Xate and our employees and host community, puts the Okiep Project on a very solid footing for the near-term development of what we expect to be a very exciting, brown-fields copper mining project.”