Canadian miner Trigon Metals has secured $8.9m in financing from Epiroc South Africa to buy underground mining equipment to help relaunch operations at its Kombat copper mine in Namibia.

The equipment will mainly include an underground mining fleet at the Kombat mine, where production is scheduled to ramp up from next April.

Trigon bought the machinery through its Namibian unit, Trigon Namibia. Epiroc Financial Solutions has agreed to provide 85% of the purchase price worth $7.59m, with 15% of the down payment amounting to $1.33m to be paid upfront.

The loan facility has a 60-month term from the date of shipment of each time of equipment with an interest of 10.95% per annum. Repayments should be made in 55 monthly payments, beginning six months after the respective dates of shipment.

Terms for the loan are subject to the finalisation of a supplier credit agreement between the parties and regulatory, board and other clearances. The mining equipment is expected to be received on-site beginning next month and March next year.

Trigon president and CEO Jed Richardson said: “We are pleased to be working with Epiroc and thank them and the team members that worked to put this financing package in place in a timely fashion.

“This allows us to build out our underground fleet while we are just starting to generate cash flow at the open pit.”

Earlier this month, Trigon announced a full restart of milling and processing at the Kombat mine, one of the most significant copper mines in the country.

As a historical mine, it started production in 1962 producing 12.46 million tonnes of ore at 2.4% copper on average. The mine was closed in 2008 due to flooding and production at the mine resumed last year, after 14 years of closure.

Open-pit mining is currently taking place and underground mining is expected to begin next year.