Turquoise Hill starting production at Oyu Tolgoi underground mine in Mongolia

Turquoise Hill has renewed its partnership with the Government of Mongolia and the Oyu Tolgoi board of directors has unanimously approved the commencement of blasting that will start the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine production. Consequently, the company expects to begin caving operations in the coming days. With this decision, the company continues to expect that the underground mine will achieve sustainable production for Panel 0 in the first half of 2023. In addition, the company and Rio Tinto (RIO) have agreed to a comprehensive and binding, amended funding arrangement to address the company's estimated funding requirements. Turquoise Hill has agreed to waive in full the $2.4B carry account loan of the Government of Mongolia's state-owned entity through which it owns its interest in OT. The Parliament of Mongolia has approved a resolution to resolve part of the outstanding issues that the company and Rio Tinto have been negotiating with the Government of Mongolia over the last two years. Turquoise Hill's estimate of its base case incremental funding requirement is $3.4B, down from $200M previous estimate. Rio Tinto is committing is to provide a co-lending facility, incremental to the re-profiling of debt and the SSD, of up to $750M to be made available once sustainable production has been achieved; Rio Tinto is aski committing to a short-term bridge financing to the company up to a maximum of $300M; and the company is agreeing to conduct an equity offering of at least $650M, including a Rio Tinto pro rata participation, by no later than August 31, 2022.