Norton Rose Australia is advising China Development Bank and Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG on the USD155 million syndicated project financing for the development of the Mt.Cattlin spodumene mine in Ravensthorpe, WA and associated lithium carbonate production plant in Jiangsu, PRC, which are being developed by ASX-listed Galaxy Resources Ltd. Financial close is scheduled for the week beginning 13 September 2010.
This is a unique transaction given the scale of the project – Mt.Cattlin is forecast to be world’s second largest production source of spodumene – and the cross-border regulatory challenges associated with the development of a production site in the PRC.
Norton Rose, China practice group leader, Ian McCubbin said; “This is another important indicator of the increasingly critical role played by Chinese banks in the development of Australian assets, particularly given the limited availability of investment capital through traditional sources.”
Norton Rose partner Alen Pazin said; “Banking a lithium asset is not straight-forward in the way that, say, many base and precious metals projects tend to be – the global lithium carbonate market is shallow and is dominated by just four producers world-wide.”
“Structuring and documenting this deal has been unusually complex, given the PRC regulatory issues associated with securing the Jiangsu production plant, and the cross-border challenges spread across Australia, Hong Kong and the PRC,” said Mr Pazin.
Client
China Development Bank Corporation and Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG (through RZB Austria Finance (Hong Kong) Limited)
Deal Value
USD155 million
Norton Rose legal team
Alen Pazin (Partner), Ian McCubbin (Partner), Jennifer Ledger (Senior Associate), Andrew Thangarajah (Senior Associate), Gemma Cowan (Graduate), Nick Sinclair (Graduate)
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