Al-Gharabally, president, Greenstone Equity Partners
Greenstone raises $70m for antimony roasting plant in Oman
DUBAI, October 5, 2015
Greenstone Equity Partners, a leading independent fund placement firm in the Middle East, has closed a two-year direct transaction agreement with Tri-Star Resources which raised a total of $70 million to fund the first commercial-scale antimony roasting plant to be built outside of China in Oman.
The Oman Antimony Roasting Facility, which will be located in Sohar Freezone Industrial Park, will be operating at a capacity of 20,000 tonne per annum and will adhere to the highest international environmental standards, said a statement.
As part of the agreement, Greenstone has closely worked with Tri-Star Resources on the establishment of the joint venture company Strategic Precious Metals Processing LLC (SPMP) and the raise of equity capital from Oman Investment Fund (OIF) and Dutco Natural Resources Investment (formerly known as Castell Investments Ltd), who are both shareholders in SPMP.
A senior debt facility worth $40 million has also been recently secured from Bank Nizwa, a leading Islamic Bank in the Sultanate, which will enable the project to proceed with final engineering and site construction activities.
Omar Al-Gharabally, president, Greenstone Equity Partners, said: "We are delighted to reach the financial closure of the Facility which, we are sure, will provide attractive returns on investment for its shareholders and boost local economy in Oman.
“Over the past two years, we have been closely working with Tri-Star on various financial and legal aspects of the project and today we are proud to reach this turning point where the project is ready to commence construction work.”
“At Greenstone, we are constantly looking to diversify our direct placement platform and align our transaction conditions with the investment preferences of GCC investors. Securing the required capital is only an acknowledgement to investors’ confidence in a project of such caliber,” he added.
The facility is scheduled to produce approximately 12 per cent of the world’s antimony product output capacity, the remainder historically only being available in China, said the statement.
The main uses of antimony are as a tri-oxide additive in the chemical and plastics industry, as a synthesiser for flame retardant compounds, as a hardener for lead electrodes in lead acid batteries and as a decolorizing agent for optical glass, it added. - TradeArabia News Service
