Mardie Salt and Potash Project

BCI Minerals is an Australian-based business developing the Mardie Salt and Potash Project (the Project), a Tier 1 solar salt evaporation operation on the Pilbara coast in Western Australia. 

Industry:

Mining

Solution:

Project and Structured Finance

Region:

Asia

Need

To develop the Project, BCI Minerals needed additional finance to cover both operational and capital expenditures.

Solution

As part of a broader lending syndicate, we provided BCI Minerals with the finance it needed to fund the construction and initial operational readiness of the Project’s salt first component.

In 2016, BCI Minerals commenced its journey to develop Australia’s largest salt and potash project on the Pilbara coast in Western Australia. At completion, it will produce 5.3 million tonnes of high-grade industrial salt annually and 140,000 tonnes of sulphate of potash.

The Mardie Project will utilise an abundant seawater resource, concentrated through solar and wind evaporation, to sustainably produce salt and sulphate of potash over at least 60 years.

The primary focus for BCI Minerals is the production of salt. Upon completion, the Project will be the largest in Australia and third largest globally.

Steve Fewster, Chief Financial Officer at BCI Minerals, highlighted some of the challenges in securing financing for the Project:

That whole reputational impact Export Finance Australia brought has really enabled the Project to get off the ground from a funding point of view.

Troy Hayden,

General Manager of Corporate Finance, BCI Minerals

“Our commodity is unique in that it doesn't have an index. There is an annual closed-door contracting cycle that happens between buyer and seller, which makes it difficult to determine what future revenue might be – that’s one challenge.

“The second challenge is that there hasn't been a salt project of this size developed in Australia in 25 years, which means it is difficult to estimate construction costs, technical risks and environmental concerns.

“This places BCI Minerals in a unique position, as we continue to see demand for industrial salt grow worldwide. It is a versatile commodity involved in manufacturing thousands of products that impact our daily lives.”

Collaborating to finance the Mardie Salt and Potash Project

In 2021, we provided BCI Minerals with conditional approval for finance to support the Mardie Salt and Potash Project. This followed support that the business received from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) in 2020.

Working alongside NAIF and commercial lenders, we provided BCI Minerals with a $160 million loan with an 11-year tenor in 2023.

Our team also introduced BCI Minerals to Export Development Canda (EDC), which Troy Hayden, General Manager of Corporate Finance, said has provided an additional $150 million in finance to support the Project. This makes it the Project’s third-largest lender behind NAIF and Export Finance Australia.

Troy highlighted that our support had a significant impact on the ability to secure finance for the Project.

“Without Export Finance Australia coming in with funding of $160 million and a tenor of 11 years, the Project would have struggled to get finance.”

“There's a mix of the tenor and the size of the finance, the reassurance it provides and the fact that they brought in EDC,” Troy said. “That whole reputational impact Export Finance Australia brought has really enabled the Project to get off the ground from a funding point of view.”

When it comes to project finance, Troy highlighted that its success is very people-driven – something he felt our team at Export Finance Australia exemplified.

“You need to be able to get along with people, and you need people with the same intent, commitment and willingness to help out. I think we found everyone in Export Finance Australia that we have worked with to be very helpful.”

Mardie Salt and Potash Project

Need

Solution

Collaborating to finance the Mardie Salt and Potash Project

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