MEGA RNS - In CEO Terms!!30 Jun 2022 10:41
Not mine….!
Harry Anagnostaras-Adams, Executive Chairman of KEFI, commented:
" The Tulu Kapi Gold Project has been designed to the highest international regulatory standards and has had historical investment of approximately US$80 million. The Project has assembled a first-class management team backed by a first-tier syndicate of African experienced specialist organisations and funders.
"No other mining project of this scale in Ethiopia has been brought to this stage of advancement during recent years and Tulu Kapi will be the first industrial scale mine development in Ethiopia in over 30 years. It has taken extensive technical re-design of the Project, overhaul by the Ethiopian authorities of financial policies which previously hindered mining project finance and the patient and cautious traversing of recent well publicised events in the country.
"We are taking all measures to drive the Project safely forward, respect the national priority to develop Ethiopia's mining sector and place the highest importance on social licence in the very supportive Tulu Kapi community. We are pleased that the Minister of Mines and other Ethiopian government officials have expressed their continued support.
"The deposit was discovered some 15 years ago, and KEFI itself was invited in some eight years ago to remedy the Project's technical defects, which took about two years. We then collaboratively reviewed, with Government agencies, the financial regulations prevailing in Ethiopia that hindered modern mining project finance and assembled a first-class international syndicate which all signed terms sheets in 2019.
"Since then, the syndicate has completed technical and legal due diligence whilst the Company ensured the Project could proceed on the ground, traversing previously reported challenges. The decision to trigger financing and Project launch procedures was confirmed within the syndicate last month, some three months after the Ethiopian Government lifted its national State of Emergency. We very much appreciate the collaboration and mutual trust with our Federal and Regional Government co-shareholders in the operating subsidiary TKGM and the multitude of government agencies with whom we deal daily.
"The signing of the Umbrella Agreement is a very important step and we look forward to completing the outstanding matters that will allow for full Project construction to commence in the Ethiopian dry season starting in October 2022."
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