Swiss trading house pays Cyprium Metals US$35m to secure copper cathode supply

Cyprium Metals (ASX: CYM) has finalised an exclusive term sheet, which will see Swiss commodities trader Transamine SA pre-pay US$35 million (A$51.9 million) to put its foot on all copper cathode from the Nifty copper mine once it is restarted.

The offtake pre-payment is for 100% of the copper cathode produced — expected to total more than 140,000 tonnes — during the phase one restart at Nifty, which is located on the western edge of the Great Sandy Desert in northeast Pilbara.

The pre-payment from Transamine is part of a total debt funding package for the Nifty restart, with Cyprium requiring between A$240 million and A$260 million.

Cyprium says documentation for that funding package is “well advanced” with senior and pre-payment financing counterparties.

Project economics ‘very robust’

Founded in 1953, Transamine is a privately-owned commodities trading company specialising in non-ferrous metals.

The company has its headquarters in Geneva, and has offices throughout the key markets including Australia, South Africa, India, the US and China.

Cyprium managing director Barry Cahill said he was pleased to be renewing the association with Transamine as party of the Nifty restart financing package.

“The restart project economics remain very robust and we have continued to make further improvements to the Nifty copper project during the financing process,” he added.

With all the technical, legal, commercial and financial due diligence completed, Cyprium is now turning its focus to completing the offtake and financial documentation in conjunction with the prospective secured senior debt providers.

Will investigate adding sulphide material to mining plan

Nifty contains a mineral resource estimate of 940,000t of contained copper.

Cyprium will use a heap-leach SX-EW (solvent extraction and electrowinning) operation to retreat the current heap leach pads as well as the open pit oxide and transitional material.

In addition, Cyprium will investigate the potential restart of the copper concentrator to treat open pit sulphide material.

The company’s other projects include Maroochydore, located 85km southeast of Nifty, with its 486,000t of contained copper.