West Perth-based junior Image Resources remains optimistic about achieving its first production of heavy mineral concentrate by the end of March at its Atlas mineral sands project.
West Perth-based junior Image Resources remains optimistic about achieving its first production of heavy mineral concentrate by the end of March at its Atlas mineral sands project.
Despite being impacted by permitting delays and a significant bushfire in November last year, Image managing director and CEO Patrick Mutz said steps were in place for the mineral sands aspirant to meet its targets at the project, which is located 170km north of Perth.
“Even though construction at Atlas was delayed by more than 12-months due to permitting delays, we have maintained our commitment for capital costs for Atlas to be largely self-funded from cash reserves from Boonanarring,” Mr Mutz said.
“However, to maintain a sufficient cash buffer going forward, we have actioned the drawdown of working capital funds from the $US20 million HMC prepayment facility arranged through our offtake partner, Natfort.
“Accessing the working capital facility provides the funding necessary to achieve first revenue at Atlas, which is anticipated to be in early the second quarter of 2025.”
Last October, Image told the market it had acquired a $US20 million binding offtake agreement with China-based Natfort, with these funds used to accelerate both construction and development of Atlas.
In order to minimise risk, both Image and Natfort have agreed that the latter will share the provision of the funding, in a bid to minimise Image’s risk as a single funding entity.
As part of this, 50 per cent of the $US20 million funding obligation was shifted to Cayman Islands-based Billion Sunny Investment, an independent third-party financial company.
The junior said it received $US10 million from Sunny Investment on Tuesday, with the remaining $US5 million from Natfort’s pre-payment arrangement later during the quarter.
Image closed trade down 3 per cent to 8.6 cents.
