The Northern Australia Investment Fund (NAIF) has reconfirmed its investment decision to support BCI Minerals’ Mardie project in WA.
Originally confirming its investment decision to fund the Mardie project in August, NAIF approved a $490 million project finance facility with a 15-year tenor.
NAIF has said it fully intends to execute financing documents and provide debt funding to the project.
The confirmation is in response to an article in the Australian Financial Review on September 20 2023 containing comments regarding NAIF’s pending loan for the Mardie project.
“NAIF has reconfirmed its commitment to the BCI Minerals project and the AFR story that recently ran 20th September 2023 is not an accurate reflection of NAIFs proposed investment in BCI,” NAIF chief executive officer Craig Doyle said.
“The review mentioned in the article has already been completed as part of NAIF’s normal processes for all projects and NAIF’s Board has reconfirmed its commitment to the $490 million to BCI Minerals.”
To date, the Mardie project has amassed $800 million of project finance commitments, obtained from a number of lenders, including NAIF.
This is a significant increase from the $650 million BCI received in August for the salt and potash project in the Pilbara.
In 2022, the project encountered cost increases common to all projects which triggered an extensive review process to confirm project viability.
BCI announced the results of this review on June 20 2023, confirming the project economics remained robust despite the higher capital cost.
This included a full review by NAIF of its 2021 investment decision, which was confirmed in August 2023.