Leading commercial banks are coming to the party as Queensland Pacific Metals advances financing deals for its TECH battery materials project in Townsville.

The company already has received indicative commitments from government-backed lending agencies exceeding $1.4 billion of conditional funding support.

QPM and its debt advisor KPMG Corporate Finance have now also progressed talks with international and domestic commercial banks.

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QPM said this had resulted in the receipt of non-binding Short Form Term Sheets (SFTS) from seven banks – noting the appetite in that sector to back projects that support decarbonisation initiatives.

Indicative commitments received were well in excess of the target commercial bank funding requirement, the company said.

“We are delighted at the response received to date from commercial financiers and their willingness to consider debt funding for the TECH project,” managing director and chief executive officer Stephen Grocott said.

“This confirms recognition of the attractiveness of the TECH project to the global battery market and to financiers.

“Our strategy has been to initially target government-backed lending agencies and then to refine the funding structure through support from the commercial banks.

“This approach is has borne fruit and we greatly appreciate the indicative support received to date. We look forward to advancing through the due diligence phase and to credit approvals.”on terms aligned with current debt funding plan.”

QPM said due diligence was advancing in line with the targeted timeline of 1H 2024.

Expected to cost about $2.1 billion to build in its first stage of development, TECH has attracted Significant Investment Project status from the State Government.

The TECH plant is set to process about 1.6 million wet metric tonnes of ore per annum to produce about 16,000t of nickel metal and 1,750t of cobalt metal, both in sulfate form, as well as other valuable co-products.

QPM has already secured offtake agreements for 100 per cent of nickel and cobalt sales for the life of the project with General Motors, LG Energy Solutions and POSCO.