Antofagasta Seals Esperanza Financing

Antofagasta has closed a $1.05bn 12-year project financing for its Esperanza copper-gold project in Chile, which is 30% owned by Marubeni. A spokesman for the borrower says the all in cost of funds is approximately 6% in nominal dollar terms. Of the total, JBIC contributed $400m, EDC $200m and KfW IPEX-Bank $50m. The remaining $400m comes from a syndicate including MLAs and joint bookrunners Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi-UFJ (trustee and collateral agent), Calyon (admin and documentation agent), ING (technical agent), Mizuho (JBIC co-ordination agent), Sumitomo Mitsui (insurance agent) and arrangers Santander and Natixis. The Antofagasta spokesman declines to reveal the spread on the syndicated loan. “The sponsors will provide certain completion guarantees for the financing, pro-rata to their ownership interests, until the project has satisfied certain specified completion tests, at which point the financing will become non-recourse to the sponsors,” says Antofagasta. The balance of the project’s $2.3bn total estimated capital cost – including working capital and financing costs – from the commencement of construction in Q3 2008, is being funded by the sponsors pro-rata to their ownership interests. Rothschild acted as financial advisor to the sponsors and Minera Esperanza, Sullivan & Cromwell acted as project New York counsel, and Jara, del Favero as Chilean counsel.