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BAtteRY MIneRALs

Altura rises above lithium malaise

Altura has reported three consecutive
ltura Mining Ltd managing director reducing output and we were somewhat quarters of commercial production from
AJames Brown hopes to spend more swimming upstream amongst those to try its namesake lithium mine in the Pilbara
time on corporate development and opera- and demonstrate that the neighbourhood
tional matters after securing the lithium pro- problems are more company-specific than
ducer’s long-term future via a $305 million industry-specific.” tion for the December quarter and opened
financing package. As part of the refinancing, Altura also the new year by shipping a record concen-
Brown and executive director Paul Man- negotiated to have its February 2020 inter- trate cargo of 24,500 wet metric tonnes to
tell were instrumental in negotiating new est repayment deferred for 12 months. The China.
agreements with Altura’s current lenders, company can also repay the major loan at “We’ve had 19 cargos delivered to date,
led by Magy LLC – an investment entity of its discretion without penalty at any time be- all with very limited variations amongst the
private funds managed by Castlelake LP, fore August 2023. grade, and the deleterious elements are
Carval, Nomura and Clearwater Capital – to With Altura’s future seemingly secure relatively low and controlled, so obviously
extend the maturity of the existing $US161 for at least the next 3.5 years, Brown can we have the ability to replicate the cargos,”
million ($244 million) loan facility out to Au- now dedicate more time to assisting with Brown said.
gust 2023. operational improvements at the company’s “The fact of the matter is it is a very im-
Institutional and sophisticated investors namesake lithium mine in the Pilbara, as mature market that we’re into and I think
sweetened the deal with an additional $11.2 well as undertaking more intimate dealings we’re going to take some hits. We can’t
million equity raising. with its customer base in China, where prac- control that, but we can certainly control our
US-based institutional investment group tical. costs and we’ve been fortunate to be able to
LDA Capital has also committed to provid- “There’s that little bit more time now to court material to all of our offtake partners
ing $50 million of standby equity to be drawn be spent more on development and opera- over a period of time. I think some people
at Altura’s discretion anytime over the next tional matters than we have had previously,” probably said when we signed a lot of these
three years. Brown said. agreements it looked a bit cumbersome
Speaking to Paydirt last month, Brown “I think operationally we’ve got a great and it would’ve been nice to have one big
was clearly relieved to have finalised the team in there. They know what to do and name, but I think having the ability to mix
company’s refinancing strategy amid trou- they don’t necessarily need myself to tell and match a little bit with our customers has
bled times in the lithium sector and prior to them what to do. But, certainly from a part- played positively into our hands.
the looming threat of the coronavirus. nership perspective I will try to spend a sig- “I think the market will remain pretty stat-
“It’s taken a fair bit of bandwidth out of the nificant amount of time in China working ic…I think the theory is – and not that I’m a
management team, mainly Paul Mantell and with our partners and working with our GM lithium guru – from an overall industry per-
myself and some of the others, knowing that marketing [Alex Cheeseman] to ensure we spective, we need everyone’s operations to
these loan notes were due in August and keep the cargos going and understanding continue and thrive to a certain extent so we
obviously having that maturity date looming, what their business needs are. can have available feedstock to people as
we had to do something,” Brown said. “We have seen some changes in the mar- and when required. I think the trick to getting
“Initially when we started looking at fund- ket with material that was expected to be in market penetration of EVs is getting a se-
ing facilities, we only had one quarter of the market now withdrawn, so it will be in- cure supply chain; that should be everyone’s
commercial production and it was sug- teresting to see how the landscape evolves goal at the moment.”
gested that we push that out to at least two over the next 6-12 months through to 2021 While business visits to China may be
quarters, which got us to the end of Sep- as to what the market is going to look like.” on hold for now due to the various country
tember, which meant all the paperwork that While results from the March quarter lockdowns amid the coronavirus pandemic,
goes with that was pushing us towards the were pending at the time of print, Brown is Brown remains in regular contact with Altu-
back end of the year to try and get some- confident there is plenty of “blue sky oppor- ra’s customers and cargos are still able to be
thing done. tunity” on the horizon for Altura after three shipped and unloaded without hinderance.
“Obviously what you saw during that pe- consecutive quarters of commercial pro- – Michael Washbourne
riod of time was [other lithium] operations duction.
going into care-and-maintenance, closing, Altura finished 2019 with record produc-

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