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Keeping up with the Barrick (ABX) / Pascua Lama / Citic story

Today we have this, from Chile’s respected bizmedia Diario Financiero. Here’s a translation of the relvant bit for our purposes, but there’s plenty more about other aspects of Pascua Lama in the note (underline/bold type added):

The New Partner
However, the decision on whether the continue with the project also depends on other factors. One of those is containing project costs, that had risen previous to the stoppage to U$8.5Bn, although the industry says that when Barrick stopped all construction at the end of October internally they were talking about U$10Bn. 

Under this scenario, when at the same time the mining industry in Canada is not going through a strong financial period, the figure of a new partner to help pay for the investment seems necessary and even more so when the current problematic environmental backdrop could make debt financing difficult. 

Sources close to the company say that after several months of parallel negotiation with two Chinese investment partners, Barrick has not managed to close an agreement with either.

continues here

Yes, that’s the same thing IKN has been telling you about since February. The main problem isn’t the terms of the deal between ABX and Citic, it’s the way the Chiense want a clear run at development once the deal is signed. That means Chile the country getting its house in order with ABX first so once the project has permitting green lights, the money will become available (in exchange for a large chunk of the project, of course).

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