Ivanhoe signed offtake agreements for its zinc focus with Citic Steel and Trafigura, as Bloomberg reported final month, and expects to signal extra agreements within the coming months. The corporate mentioned it has additionally organized financing services totaling $170 million supplied by Citic Steel, Trafigura and First Financial institution DRC of Kinshasa, with $50 million drawn up to now.
The marketplace for zinc concentrates has been extraordinarily tight, with the processing charges miners pay to smelters plunging as mine provide disappoints and smelters in Europe reopen within the wake of the vitality disaster of 2021 to 2022.
On the spot market, the so-called remedy expenses have fallen to only $5 a ton, the bottom since a minimum of 2014, in keeping with Fastmarkets, whereas yearly agreed “benchmark” remedy expenses dropped this yr.
Ivanhoe’s agreements comprise normal, worldwide business phrases, together with payables and remedy expenses based mostly on the zinc trade’s annual benchmark, the corporate mentioned.
(By Jacob Lorinc)