Meteoric Resources NL (ASX: MEI) (Meteoric or the Company) is pleased to announce it has initiated debt funding enquiries for its 100%-owned Caldeira Rare Earth Ionic Clay Project, located in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.
As a result of the ongoing advancement of Meteoric’s Caldeira Project, the Company has attracted the interest of both Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) and government lenders.
The Caldeira Project is a globally significant endowment of Rare Earth elements, further enhanced by its proximity to REE separation facilities in the Western Hemisphere. The Company is gearing up to mine and process high value Neodymium, Praseodymium (NdPr) and the highly sought Dysprosium and Terbium (DyTb). These four magnetic rare earth elements are critical for the generation of essential clean energy for the future.
With the support of Sprott Capital Partners (SCP), Meteoric has engaged Washington D.C.-based Woodford Resources for the initial phase of the Senior Debt Financing process. This has culminated in the Company receiving a non-binding Letter of Interest from the United States, Export-Import Bank (EXIM). Any financing support from EXIM following the Letter of Interest is subject to EXIM’s policies, procedures, credit requirements, and consideration by EXIM’s Board of Directors
The indicative terms of the potential financing are as follows:
- Facility amount of up to US$250M for United States origin equipment, goods and services.
- Subject to, but not limited to, typical conditions for financing but not yet defined.
- The willingness and interest of both parties to progress to a binding debt arrangement.
Meteoric is continuing to advance all aspects of the Caldeira Project, focussing on permitting, resource confidence, metallurgy and engineering studies. These studies are crucial to the progression of the EXIM due diligence process as Meteoric targets a Financial Investment Decision (FID) late in 2025.
In the event that the financing is approved by EXIM, the US$250M EXIM facility would have the potential to cornerstone a broad funding mix for the Caldeira Project. Meteoric is continuing to work with EXIM and other potential financiers and the details of any agreements will be announced on formalisation.
Chief Executive Officer, Nick Holthouse commented,
“We are delighted to start this process with the EXIM bank, an important step in our Debt Financing strategy for the Caldeira Project.
In recent years, there has been increased awareness of the deficiencies in the Western Supply chains for Rare Earth mining and downstream processing. Meteoric, through the Caldeira Project and support from the EXIM Bank, intends to play a part in re-building an independent and vertically integrated rare earth supply chain of scale. This is the first step in de-risking the funding aspect of Caldeira Project and we look forward to securing senior debt terms over time as we progress permitting, resource engineering and metallurgical packages and advance towards an FID.”
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