HONG KONG -- The chairman of troubled Chinese miner Tianqi Lithium is to lend the company $117 million under a condition of the company's deal with Australian miner IGO Ltd.
Tianqi Lithium came close to defaulting last month on $1.88 billion in loans taken out two years ago to finance the purchase of a large stake in Chilean lithium miner SQM. IGO helped Tianqi Lithium out of the debt squeeze by agreeing to buy nearly half of Tianqi Lithium's interest in a joint venture that controls Greenbushes, the world's largest lithium mine, and a nearby processing facility in Western Australia state.
