Frontier Energy’s (ASX:FHE) WA-based Waroona renewable energy project is coming closer, with debt funding entering its final stages.
That project is the Waroona Renewables project, at the first stage of its life, a grid-scale solar farm in WA’s southwest.
The company expects, by next month, to have credit approved terms for funding ahead of the company choosing a banking syndicate, the final step of the process.
Currently in ‘Phase 2,’ Frontier recently whacked on privately held Aurecon as the independent technical engineer for the project. The company also saw legal representatives come on board as “counsel for the lenders.”
Notably, Frontier believes that the price of solar panels and batteries have fallen significantly enough since the time a DFS was completed to present better economics for the project overall.
Frontier described itself as “close” to securing long lead items on Wednesday.
But it will be July that helps the company actualise how close it is to completing the pre-build funding steps: binding credit approved terms for Waroona are expected to kick off FY25.
The company has reported that major banks are presenting strong interest in line with the assumptions of the DFS (that put solar panel prices higher,) with Frontier reporting financing could be up to 70% of the project – $225M.
The company expects Waroona to turn over $68M/y in average EBITDA across the first 5Y of operations.
“We are pleased with the progress of the debt financing process for the Waroona Project, with important workstreams underway following key appointments, contracts for procurement of capital items well advanced and tender documents for the EPC contract issued,” Frontier CEO Adam Kiley said.
FHE last traded at 39cps.
