West Australian iron ore miner Gindalbie Metals Ltd (Gindalbie) has announced that it has secured Chinese government approval for the AU$162.06 million (US$109.95 million) share placement with its joint venture partner, Chinese steelmaker Anshan Iron and Steel Group (Ansteel).
According to the statement released by Gindalbie, the Chinese approval was the final condition required to complete the placement of 190,658,824 shares with Angang Group Hong Kong (Holdings) Limited, or its nominee.
On May 2009, the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) approved the transaction.
Once the share placement is completed, Ansteel and Gindalbie will be able to make the final equity contributions of AU$143.68 million each, to complete the entire AU$534 million equity component of the funding package for Gindalbie's Karara iron ore project in Western Australia.
Gindalbie and Ansteel will continue working to complete the placement procedures within the next seven days. Following the share placement, Ansteel will lift its stake from the current 12.6 percent to 36.28 percent in Gindalbie.
In September 2007 Ansteel acquired a 12.6 percent interest in Gindalbie.
Gindalbie said that the balance of the capital for the Karara project would come through a project loan facility of up to US$1.2 billion from the China Development Bank (CDB).
"The achievement of Chinese government approvals represents another very important milestone for the project following the positive Environmental Protection Authority recommendation and FIRB approval received over the past two months," said Gindalbie MD Garret Dixon.
"It's all systems go for Karara and we are continuing to work very hard to achieve final ministerial approvals to enable us to be on the ground during the second quarter of this financial year (ends on December 31, 2009) to begin construction," added Mr. Dixon.