Chile’s state copper company Codelco, the world’s biggest producer of the metal, has signed a syndicated loan for US$300mn to fund investments and refinance debt.

The lead agents in the transaction were ABN Amro, BBVA Securities and Tokyo-Mitsubishi Bank. The co-agents were BNP Paribas, EDC, HSBC, the Royal Bank of Canada and Wachovia.

Other participating banks were ANZ, Calyon, Citibank, Deutsche, Dresdner and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking.

The credit is for five years, with one capital payment at the end of the term and a spread of 0.25% over Libor.

Codelco produces some 1.6 mt/y of copper and controls around 17% of the world’s copper reserves.