TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines has appointed BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered and Export Development Canada (EDC) to complete its core lender group of five financial institutions that will lead the arrangement of a project finance debt package for the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mining complex in Mongolia.

Ivanhoe said in May that it had signed a joint mandate letter with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) for evaluation of a major financing package for the project, which is expected to cost $4,6-billion.

"The completion of the assembly of the core lender group is a key step in the process of securing the Oyu Tolgoi financing package, which we expect to close in the first quarter of 2011," executive chairperson Robert Friedland said in a statement on Monday