[miningmx.com] – RESOURCE Generation (Resgen) secured the services of FLSmidth & Co. which would build the firm’s proposed Boikarabelo coal handling and preparation plant (CHPP) for $200m, more than $50m below Resgen’s budget.
In addition, up to 50% of the cost stood to be guaranteed by the state-owned Danish export credit agency, EKF, which would enable Resgen to raise further project finance for the CHPP, the company said.
“The CHPP is the largest capex item in Boikarabelo’s budget, and this agreement represents significant progress. We are completing final drawings for the plant and look forward to working with FLSmidth to bring the mine to fruition, with production currently targeted to begin in late 2015,” said Paul Jury, MD of Resgen.
Resgen, an Australian-listed coal development company, hopes to produce six million tonnes/year (mtpa) from Boikarabelo from 2015 increasing to 25mtpa thereafter at a cost of R5.24bn ($530m).
Boikarabelo is situated on the Waterberg coalfields in South Africa’s Limpopo province which is thought to be the future centre of the country’s thermal coal supply replacing depleted reserves in the Witbank fields of Mpumalanga province.
