Aguia Resources (ASX:AGR) has received an offer for bank financing of up to $4 million from Brazil’s Southern Development Bank (BRDE) for the development of the Tres Estradas Mine and Pampafos processing facility in Brazil.
The funding will enable the company to start mining operations at Tres Estradas, as well as upgrade the processing facility which has been leased from Dagoberto Barcellos.
The 20-year loan has a Brazilian SELIC interest rate of 14.75% and BRDE interest rate 4.75% per year and is secured against the surface rights held by Aguia at Tres Estradas.
Aguia, which has a market capitalisation of $57 million, says the processing plant requires a capital expenditure of $1.97 million to become operational for processing 100,000 tonnes per year by January 2026.
It is estimated that an additional $4.1 million will be necessary for a subsequent increase in capacity to 300,000 tonnes per year, targeted for late 2026, pending economic assessment and internal approvals.
Executive Chairman Warwick Grigor says the facility will be useful in partly financing the expansion to 300,000 tonnes, in due course.
“The offer of finance from a government-owned bank speaks volumes for the quality of the Tres Estradas Project, confirming strong governmental and social support for the development,” Grigor says.
Aguia Resources is a multi-commodity company with pre-production phosphate projects in Brazil and gold projects in Colombia.
The phosphate mine is to be located in Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil. The state itself is about the size of New Zealand and has a population of 12 million people.
Tres Estradas has a measured and indicated resource of 83 million tonnes @ 4.11% phosphorus pentoxide and another 21.8 million tonnes @ 3.6% phosphorus pentoxide of inferred resource.
Phosphate is a natural source of phosphorus, an element that provides a quarter of all the nutrients that plants need for growth and development.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Aguia Resources
