Gujarat NRE Minerals Ltd., (GNM) an Australian Subsidiary of Gujarat NRE Coke Ltd has successfully negotiated and secured a US$ 50 Million Long Term Loan Facility (“the Facility”) with the help of its parent company Gujarat NRE Coke Ltd. as a guarantor. The Facility is sanctioned by a consortium of Banks in Singapore, London, Hong Kong and Antwerp led by the Axis Bank Limited. All the formalities in relation to the Facility are completed and GNM now has full access to the funds (up to US$ 50 million) made available under the Facility.
The Facility was obtained to support and sustain mine developments that are in progress at the NRE No.1 Colliery and NRE Wongawilli Colliery (being consolidated with NRE Avondale Colliery). GNM at its NRE No.1 Colliery is developing three new roadways (for conveyor, rubber-tyred vehicles and track vehicles) into the Wongawilli Seam. Development of these roadways will allow access to the virgin coal seam and replaces the old access in the existing Bulli Seam workings. GNM is also developing X-Mains that will provide access to newly acquired V-Mains coal lease. At NRE Wongawilli Colliery, GNM is preparing its first longwall extraction panel (longwall 12), which is scheduled to commence in July this year and also establishing access to the Avondale portion of the Colliery. Overall, the above mentioned developments along with some other developments not-mentioned are progressing well and the availability of the funds will ensure their progresses remain as per plan to ramp up total ROM production to 7 million tones per annum from the NRE No.1 Colliery and NRE Wongawilli Colliery by the year 2012/13.
The timing of the Facility cannot be any better with much favorable US to Aus dollar exchange rate. In the current downtrend market GNM is focusing on expediting its developments and the availability of funds in current financial market offers GNM much better leverage over its suppliers and contractors to achieve desired progress and substantial cost-savings on these developments.
About the Company: Gujarat NRE Coke Ltd
Gujarat NRE Coke is the largest independent producer of Met Coke in India having production capacity of over 1 Million MT and has undertaken plans to set up plants for producing 1.25 Million MT in the States of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. It is the only Indian company with coking coalmines in Australia having more than 500 million tons of Metallurgical Coal with excellent coking properties. The company is set to emerge as one of the largest coking coal producers in Australia over the next few years. The coalmines are owned through its subsidiaries – Gujarat NRE Minerals Limited (ASX: GNM). Besides ownership of these coal mines, the company has done cornerstone investments in resource prospecting companies that are scouting for coal, gold, iron-ore and various other base metals. The company has 87.5 MW wind power energy and is in the process of setting up power plants for generation of 60 MW through waste heat recovery process. It has also set up mini steel mill in Gujarat to recycle steel scraps using green wind energy to manufacture TMT Bars.
