Ivanhoe’s Kipushi zinc mine in the DRC officially reopens
The restart marked exactly a century since the mine first went into production.
Newspaper magnate David Black’s company Kitimat Clean has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China’s largest bank, to back his $25 billion Kitimat refinery, media outlets are reporting this morning.
The MOU will see the bank act as financial adviser and provide financing for the project.
“It’s a big step forward,” Black told Business in Vancouver of the agreement, explaining there was more work to do.
“The second most important thing to do is to get an MOU on the offtake agreement, which is what the industry calls the agreement to sell all of the output from the refinery.
“I’m talking to offtakers now and I have another big meeting on Monday. Last night I came down and met with another one down near Shanghai at the moment. There’s a big offtaker here, a big private company, that may be interested in taking a quarter of our output. So I’m going back up to Beijing for meetings all day Monday and we’ll see.”
Black had announced in March that he had secured $25 billion for the refinery, which is set to be located 25 kilometres north of Kitimat, British Columbia.
A government-commissioned study released in March stated that the refinery would be economically advantageous and would provide “incremental long-term economic benefits to the region.”
The biggest challenge to the project, BIV reported in August 2012, is its dependence on Enbridge building its controversial Northern Gateway pipeline, which would extend from Alberta’s oilsands out to Kitimat on B.C.’s coast.
“If the pipeline doesn’t go ahead, there’s no refinery,” said Black at a press conference August 17. “And if Enbridge can’t assure us that they’ll build a pipeline that doesn’t leak, we shouldn’t do it.
Black is currently in Asia and was unreachable for comment.
Joanne Monaghan, the mayor of Kitimat, remains hopeful that the project will go through as it would be a good addition to the economic development of the area.
“It would certainly be interesting to work with the community to provide housing and all of those things that are going to be needed, and I think it’s going to be a challenge, and a good one,” she told Business in Vancouver. “If it goes ahead it will change the whole map of Kitimat, of Terrace, of the whole northwest and the whole province.”
By Emma Crawford
