Fortescue Metals Group Leaved Plans to Secure a $1 Billion Unsecured Term Loan
On Thursday, Fortescue Metals Group as the Australia’s third-largest iron ore miner leaved plans to secure a $1 billion unsecured term loan. It is to help fund its target of hiking production from 40 million mt/year to 155 million mt/year by June 2014. The decision will not impact the expansion as it has cash flow from current operations to proceed and enough cash on hand.
In a statement the company said “the proposed offers did not result in terms and conditions that meet the company’s expectations while Fortescue received significant investor interest.” Through the start of production at the Solomon Hub to the west of Chichester and an $8.4 billion works program at its Chichester hub of mines Fortescue plans to expand production to 155 million mt/year by June 2014. They were located in the Pilbara region of the state of Western Australia.
The impact of heavy rain on its mining, port and rail operations in the Pilbara made Fortescue exporteddown 15.8% from the December 2010 quarter and 11.5% year on year. In the March quarter, Fortescue exported 8.4 million mt of iron ore from Chichester. The company said it remains on track to ramp up to 55 million mt/year in the June quarter from the current 40 million mt/year has been completed and mining at the site is ramping up.
