Optimising the project finance process

By Nick Crawley on October 1 2010

I was delighted to be invited to present at the Excellence in Mining and Exploration conference, organised by Mining Journal and Beacon Events. This was yet another well organised conference run by Resourceful Events and hosted by the Hilton in Sydney – the same great location as the upcoming Excellence in Oil and Gas conference.

The conference was attended by the leading players in the Australasian mining sector. In fact, one of our clients Dorado Ocean Resources travelled all the way from Minneapolis to the conference.

I presented for 20 minutes on how to optimise the project finance process from the perspective of a resources company approaching a senior financier. This discussed

How a bank views mining projects
How to maximise the chance of obtaining project finance
How to minimise the time to obtain project finance
The current project finance environment

The presentation focused on the most important aspects a sponsor must consider when seeking finance. First and foremost is to be prepared to sell your project in an honest and upfront manner demonstrating that the key risks have already been properly considered and understood using well known consultants. For example

Have the correct documentation professionally presented
Have solid financial analysis with sensitivities, scenarios and the key ratios
Have completed due diligence with well respected consultants
Make sure your project has been independently scrutinised before approaching the bank
Open presentation of the key risks and proposed mitigants
Approaching the right team within the right bank

The full presentation is available here for those interested in reading further.

I look forward to the next mining conference – the Mines and Money conference in London at the end of November 2010.