Uranium project developer Deep Yellow has appointed Nedbank as the mandated lead arranger and bookrunner to coordinate and arrange project financing for its flagship Tumas project, in Namibia.
The ASX-listed mining company says Nedbank has an extensive track record in financing mining projects across Africa. The current Deep Yellow management team previously worked with Nedbank in project financings for a uranium project in Namibia and a second African project.
“Their [Nedbank’s] extensive experience in Africa with a strong track record in financing uranium projects combined with our economically and technically robust project is a perfect match,” comments MD and CEO John Borshoff.
The proposed project financing is expected to deliver a competitively priced cost of funding for project development. Key to this process, says Deep Yellow, will be working with Nedbank to implement the optimal level of offtake commitments required to access debt funding, while ensuring maximum upside uranium price exposure.
Borshoff says the project finance process will run in parallel to the detailed engineering currently under way, with a final investment decision targeted before the end of the year.
“ It is pleasing that our schedule is holding for production start-up during third quarter of the 2026 calendar year,” he notes.
Tumas is envisaged as an operation treating 4.15-million tonnes a year to produce up to 3.6-million pounds of uranium and 1.15-million pounds of vanadium by-product a year over a projected mine life of 22.25 years.
A December 2023 feasibility study review has validated a lower initial capital cost of $360-million, down 64% from the initial estimates in the DFS.