Altech Chemicals Ltd (ASX:ATC) has been officially advised by Euler Hermes Aktiengesellschaft (Hermes), of a positive pre-assessment by the German Government inter-ministerial committee (IMC) and Hermes, of Altech’s export credit project finance application for cursory review.
Hermes is the appointed export credit agency that administers the export credit scheme for the German government.
The positive pre-assessment of Altech’s export credit application is an important milestone in the assessment process of the company’s high purity alumina (HPA) project and its ECA application.
Whilst it is not legally binding and issued without prejudice to any decision to provide ECA cover, it reflects significant progress of the German Government approvals process.
Iggy Tan, managing director for Altech, said that the positive pre-assessment by the IMC and Hermes is a very significant milestone in the company’s endeavours for funding its HPA project.
“Obtaining this positive pre-assessment of the project from Hermes in such a short period of time is a real boost to the team.
"Another great effort by our Perth based management team, our German based financing consultants, KfW IPEX-Bank and our German EPC contractor M+W Group”.
Next steps
The assessment of the ECA application sets in motion a formal detailed due diligence of the project, that will be undertaken by various consultants appointed by the company’s mandated German financier, KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH.
The due diligence process culminates in an “expert opinion” report on the project to the IMC, and will form the basis of a decision on the approval to offer ECA cover by the IMC and Hermes.
Kaolin resource
Altech recently updated its kaolin resource at the wholly-owned HPA project in Meckering, Western Australia.
The updated Resource measures 11 million tonnes of kaolin clay containing 45% minus 45 micron clay with a brightness of 82.7%.
This resource will feed the proposed HPA plant in Malaysia for over 250 years.
Funding
Last month Altech welcomed a number of institutional investors onto its share register as a result of a AU$10 million oversubscribed share placement.
The institutions were predominantly from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Asia.
Altech’s plan is to offer a finished product range that will include HPA tailored for the synthetic sapphire and lithium-ion battery separator sheet manufacturing sectors, two rapidly growing segments of the HPA market.
Proactive Investors Australia is the market leader in producing news, articles and research reports on ASX emerging companies with distribution in Australia, UK, North America and Hong Kong / China.