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Ivanhoe Atlantic is mulling a US itemizing later this 12 months after receiving approvals for rail entry for its large Kon Kweni iron ore deposit in Guinea — an about-face from its earlier plans to listing in Australia.
The $1.8bn undertaking has been delayed for greater than a decade because of the prolonged tussle over rail rights. This month the US firm lastly obtained formal approval for rail entry from Liberia, clearing the way in which to move ore on a line it has dubbed the “Liberty hall”.
J Peter Pham, govt chair, instructed the FT that Ivanhoe Atlantic was contemplating an inventory “most certainly within the US, maybe an Australian secondary itemizing, however that’s to be decided”.
The corporate had been planning to listing in Australia, the place it employed bankers early final 12 months to discover an IPO. The swap underscores how shifting American insurance policies are drawing mining corporations to US capital markets.
“We’re not in a rush to go public; we wish to do it properly,” Pham instructed the FT. He added that the burst of mining help from the Trump administration has “affected our calculus” in choosing the IPO location.
Because the US authorities has elevated its give attention to important minerals, Ivanhoe Atlantic has positioned its mine and rail undertaking as a Trump-endorsed different to the huge Chinese language-led mining initiatives close by.
“We’re very actively engaged with the US authorities in any respect ranges, and now we have gotten very constructive suggestions. I’ll depart it at that,” Pham mentioned.
The Kon Kweni undertaking, backed by Canadian-American mining billionaire Robert Friedland, will produce high-grade iron ore with 66.5 per cent purity — among the many world’s highest.
Friedland has dubbed the output from the positioning, also called Nimba, because the “beluga caviar” of iron ore. Ivanhoe Atlantic says it might begin delivery as quickly as the primary half of 2027.
The Liberian authorities issued its “handbill” finalising the choice earlier this month, in accordance with a duplicate of the doc seen by the FT, after the legislature ratified the invoice in December.
Beforehand, precedence use of the rail line had belonged to its operator ArcelorMittal, the Indian conglomerate that can also be a giant investor in Liberia.
Ivanhoe Atlantic’s majority shareholder is I-Pulse, a personal expertise firm based and chaired by Friedland, who can also be the founding father of Toronto-listed Ivanhoe Mines.
