logo
NexMetals secures $150m LoI from EXIM for Botswana mines redevelopment

NexMetals secures $150m LoI from EXIM for Botswana mines redevelopment

Yahoo18-07-2025
Botswana-focused exploration and development company NexMetals Mining has received a non-binding letter of interest (LoI) from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) for financing of up to $150m for its critical metals mine redevelopment projects in Botswana.
The LoI outlines a potential 15-year repayment tenure for the Selebi and Selkirk nickel-copper-cobalt-platinum group metal mines.
The Selebi project consists of a single mining licence covering an area of 115km², while the Selkirk project licence covers an area of 14.6km² and four prospecting licences covering 126.7km².
NEXM CEO Morgan Lekstrom said: "This represents a willingness from the United States to fund critical metals projects in one of Africa's safest and most stable jurisdictions. It clearly denotes the US Government's specific interest in Botswana, recognising both its rich mineral endowment and the scale of our high-grade projects.
'Given the quality and size of our resources and the pace of current activity, we anticipate our aggressive growth trajectory to align with our shared objective of delivering new, sustainable sources of critical metals for the US and its allies contributing to the future of the global critical metals supply chain."
EXIM's letter also highlights that NexMetals' procurement of US goods and services for the Selebi and Selkirk mines redevelopment could receive special consideration.
This is in line with Section 402 of EXIM's 2019 reauthorisation and the China and Transformational Exports Programme, which aims to counter China's influence and support transformative US exports.
The LoI does not guarantee the financial or commercial success of the potential transaction.
NexMetals Mining will need to submit a formal application for financing, after which EXIM will conduct standard due diligence before any final commitment can be issued.
"NexMetals secures $150m LoI from EXIM for Botswana mines redevelopment" was originally created and published by Mining Technology, a GlobalData owned brand.
The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Where Will Cameco Stock Be in 3 Years?
Where Will Cameco Stock Be in 3 Years?

Yahoo

time19 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Where Will Cameco Stock Be in 3 Years?

Key Points Cameco's stock recently hit an all-time high. Uranium's soaring commodity price is driving that rally. But it still looks reasonably valued relative to its growth potential. 10 stocks we like better than Cameco › Cameco (NYSE: CCJ), one of the world's top uranium miners, usually isn't a high-growth stock. But over the past three years, its price surged about 250% and now hovers near its all-time high. The S&P 500 only rose 60% during the same period. Let's see why Cameco's stock crushed the market, and if it can keep climbing over the next three years. A look back at Cameco's lost decade Cameco, which is based in Canada, owns uranium mines and mills across Canada, the U.S., and Kazakhstan. It mined roughly 17% of the world's uranium in 2024, making it the second largest uranium miner after Kazatomprom (OTC: NATK.Y), Kazakhstan's national mining company. From 2011 to 2021, Cameco's annual revenue dropped from $2.41 billion to $1.18 billion (in U.S. dollars) without a single year of revenue growth. That decline started after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011, which triggered a global collapse in uranium prices as many countries cautiously reined in their nuclear energy plans. Uranium's spot price plunged from more than $70 per pound before the Fukushima disaster to less than $20 in 2017, and Cameco was forced to suspend work at its biggest mines and throttle back its production to conserve its cash. Before the uranium market could recover, the COVID pandemic disrupted the market again and forced the company to temporarily shut down more of its mines. The weak Canadian dollar exacerbated that decline because the miner sold its uranium in U.S. dollars. What happened over the past three years? But from 2021 to 2024, Cameco's revenue had a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29% in Canadian dollar terms. Its gross margins also expanded to the double digits over the past two years. Metric 2022 2023 2024 Revenue growth 27% 39% 21% Gross margin 0.1% 21.7% 25% Data source: Cameco (all figures in Canadian dollar terms). That robust recovery was driven by uranium's spot prices, which soared from $29.63 in January 2021 to $78.50 this June. That rally prompted Cameco to restart its mining operations at McArthur River in Australia and Key Lake in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan in 2022 after being suspended in 2018. It also partnered with Brookfield Asset Management to acquire the nuclear power plant designer and builder Westinghouse Electric in late 2023. Its new 49% stake in Westinghouse should offset the volatility of its core mining business and make it the top uranium supplier for those plants. Several catalysts drove uranium's price higher over the past few years. The global supply shrank as Cameco and Kazatomprom curbed their production, but the demand rose as more countries initiated new nuclear energy plans and resumed their idled projects. Other global challenges are keeping uranium prices elevated. Russia, which was a major exporter of enriched uranium products and services to the U.S. and Europe, was hit by sanctions and export bans after its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Kazatomprom's supply chain issues and a coup in Niger (another key producer of uranium) in 2023 further reduced the global supply while driving more nuclear energy companies to buy their uranium from Cameco. What will happen to Cameco over the next three years? The bulls expect uranium's price to soar even higher as the market's demand continues to outstrip its available supply. The rapid growth of the cloud and AI data center markets -- which are driving more companies to consider using next-gen nuclear energy solutions like small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors -- could amplify those gains. Looking ahead, Cameco's 49% stake in Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) -- its uranium enrichment joint venture with Silex -- could transform it into a one-stop shop for nuclear power as it integrates those uranium enrichment capabilities into its core mining and conversion businesses. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expects the world's nuclear capacity to expand by up to 2.5 times from 2024 to 2050, so Cameco could still have plenty of room to grow over the next few decades. From 2024 to 2027, analysts expect Cameco's revenue to have a CAGR of 8% (in Canadian dollar terms) as its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) have a CAGR of 16%. Its growth should cool off as it laps the big spike in uranium spot prices, the restarting of its mines, and its investment in Westinghouse Electric, but it still looks reasonably valued at 25 times this year's adjusted EBITDA. So even though Cameco's stock is trading near its all-time high, it could rise even higher over the next three years. Should you invest $1,000 in Cameco right now? Before you buy stock in Cameco, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Cameco wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $636,628!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,063,471!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,041% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 183% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 21, 2025 Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Where Will Cameco Stock Be in 3 Years? was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio

South Africa Approves $5.3 Billion Guarantees for Transnet Debt
South Africa Approves $5.3 Billion Guarantees for Transnet Debt

Bloomberg

time3 hours ago

  • Bloomberg

South Africa Approves $5.3 Billion Guarantees for Transnet Debt

South Africa's government approved 94.8 billion rand ($5.3 billion) in guarantees to further support state-owned rail and port operator Transnet SOC Ltd. The allocation includes 48.6 billion rand to ensure all of the company's debt redemptions will be covered over the next five years, the Department of Transport said in a statement on Sunday. The other 46.2 billion rand is to mitigate the risks of credit-ratings downgrades on Transnet's debt.

This Gold Fund Is Red Hot But The Smart Money Is Already Selling
This Gold Fund Is Red Hot But The Smart Money Is Already Selling

Forbes

time4 hours ago

  • Forbes

This Gold Fund Is Red Hot But The Smart Money Is Already Selling

Gold ingots Today we're going to talk about a unique gold fund that's soared 69.4% so far this year—but despite that huge run, it's still not a buy. That said, there is a route to a buy here that I think will surprise you. So what's the name of this high-flyer? ASA Gold and Precious Metals Ltd. (ASA). It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, and the fund itself isn't very well-known. The details: ASA has a bit more than $600 million in assets under management, making it small compared to most ETFs, CEFs' more popular cousins. As you can likely tell from the name, ASA focuses on gold and other precious metals. Gold itself makes up 72.5% of the portfolio, a collection of mining stocks chip in another 24.8%, and silver comprises a smaller 2% slice. Here's the first number that will likely stop you in your tracks: ASA's dividend yield is 0.2%. That, admittedly, doesn't get us too excited, especially with all CEFs yielding 8.5% on average, according to data tracked by my CEF Insider service. I would agree that this is a good reason to avoid ASA—but there's more to the story here. How This Gold Fund Stacks Up In 2025 Let's move on to value: As I write this, ASA has an 11% discount to net asset value (NAV). That's another way of saying that it trades for less than what its portfolio is worth. The fact that the average CEF has just a 4% discount really drives the point home here. However, if we look at ASA's history, we see something interesting. ASA Discount to NAV ASA has had roughly an 11% discount to NAV for nearly 25 years, with its market price being much lower in the early 1990s and much higher in the late '90s, due to that decade's unusual market dynamics. (In the early 1990s, gold lost favor, causing the fund to lose market demand. Then in the late-'90s, the stock-market bubble drove everything higher, including ASA.) So, is ASA undervalued? Sure. But it always is. So if you buy ASA today for a 'bargain,' you should probably expect to sell it for a bargain in the future, too. Okay, so the discount isn't a good reason to buy ASA. Is its performance? Well, let's look at that. ASA Total Returns ASA is up 69.4% in 2025, and the reason is obvious: The fund is focused on gold, and since gold has soared in 2025, so too has ASA. That's also why its dividends are so paltry: Gold doesn't yield anything, so most of ASA's portfolio yields nothing, as well. Since CEF investors look for yields, we should expect ASA's discount to stick around for a long time. But that hardly matters if you're earning 69.4% profits in a bit over half a year, right? True. But one problem with ASA is that it tends to fall hard after a run-up. Let's See How This Gold Fund Performed During Gold's Last Run Up Early 2016 was a great time for gold—even better than early 2025, in fact. ASA soared 119% in the first seven months of that year, when gold investments were soaring. However, after such a big gain, ASA (in purple below) was in the red for the following three years! GLD Outperforms Here we see the real risks of buying ASA: If you get to the fund too late, you could find yourself in the red for years afterward, even when gold itself—represented by the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) in orange above—is doing much better. So if gold has just had a run-up, expect ASA to be set to take a run down. That's not the only mark against ASA. Clearly, in the short term, the fund can outrun gold itself, thanks to its higher-risk portfolio. But that also means the fund's long-term performance is going to be much worse. History has borne that out: Take a look at this chart of ASA's NAV return (a better measure of management's skill than market price), verses GLD: GLD Long Term The strategy with ASA, then, is to always bear in mind that the fund can deliver profits to short-term traders—but it'll weigh down investors who buy for the long haul. So, with that in mind, here's the best way to invest in this one—if you choose to at all: Where are we in this cycle? This chart makes that clear. GLD Plateaus Gold has been plateauing since around March, but ASA keeps soaring. That makes it a sell at this point in the cycle. But if you're looking to invest in gold down the road, you're best to wait for the metal to sell off. That's when ASA could shine again—at least for a short time. Michael Foster is the Lead Research Analyst for Contrarian Outlook. For more great income ideas, click here for our latest report 'Indestructible Income: 5 Bargain Funds with Steady 10% Dividends.' Disclosure: none

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store