The Legault government is ready to put money back into a mining project in which it has already swallowed up more than $ 50 million and which arouses the indifference of many international investors.
Two days before Christmas, the Montreal firm Métaux BlackRock took shelter from its creditors, crumbling under more than $ 145 million in debt.
The Department of the Economy alone has invested at least $ 52 million in BlackRock. In 2018, just before losing power to the CAQ, Philippe Couillard’s liberals pledged to inject up to $ 185 million into the company.
“Protect assets”
Founded in 2008 by Ontarian Sean Cleary and American David Caldwell, BlackRock is attempting to develop a vanadium and titanium mine in Chibougamau, in Nord-du-Québec. The project also includes a processing plant in Saguenay.
“Investissement Québec and the government intend to protect the assets [de BlackRock] during the restructuring process and will work with the managers of the company so that this structuring project materializes, ”said the Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, yesterday in a statement sent by his cabinet to Journal.
Since 2018, BlackRock has been trying to raise the US $ 1.1 billion needed to establish the mine and build the plant, but to no avail.
In a report submitted to the Superior Court, the accounting firm Deloitte specifies that BlackRock has solicited no less than 150 institutional investors around the world, including the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and JP Morgan Asset Management, more than 50 large fortunes and a dozen European funds.
BlackRock’s main shareholders include Winner World from Hong Kong and Luxembourg (48% of the shares), Orion Resource Partners from the United States and the Cayman Islands (18%) and Quebec (12%).
Take over
The government and Orion are proposing to the court to jointly take control of BlackRock in return for the nearly $ 91 million guaranteed loans they have made to the company. The company’s other major creditors are Prosperity International of Hong Kong ($ 50 million), Revenu Québec ($ 932,000) and Revenue Canada ($ 775,000).
In a statement released on December 23, BlackRock said Orion and the Ministry of the Economy “have agreed to make additional funds available” to the company to allow it to restructure.
Recall that in a report published in 2018, the Office of Public Hearings on the Environment (BAPE) was critical of the BlackRock plant project, while judging it “feasible”. It read that if the facilities saw the light of day, they would be among the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in Quebec.
THEY INVESTED IN BLACKROCK
- Government of Quebec 52,5 M$
- Prosperity International (Hong Kong) 50 M$
- Orion Resource Partners (United States / Cayman Islands) 45,4 M$
- Oman Oil Company (Oman) 12,7 M$