The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), a regional development bank established by the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan, has announced that it has signed a loan agreement with Russian pig iron and coking coal producer Industrial Metallurgical Holding (KOKS Group) to boost the iron ore output of the company.
In accordance with the agreement, EDB will provide IMH’s subsidiary Kombinat KMAruda $90 million for eight years. The facility will finance a project to enhance iron ore output of KMAruda’s Korobki deposit. The project envisions constructing a mine to increase KMAruda’s yearly output from the current 4.6 million mt to 7 million mt of iron ore. Production at the new mine is planned to begin in late 2019 or early 2020 and is expected to reach the designed output by 2022.
According to IMH’s vice president and CFO Sergey Cherkaev, the agreement with EDB was signed as part of IMH’s financial strategy aimed at decreasing the overall cost of the company’s loans and extending loan periods.