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Iodine producer Iofina said it had secured a two-month loan repayment extension while it looks to refinance its debt.
The company said it was in the final stages of negotiation with a new primary lender based in the US, but progress had been slowed by the Covid-19 crisis.
Current senior secured lender Stena Investments had agreed, in principle, to extend the current repayment deadline for another two months to 1 September in order to facilitate completion of the refinancing.
Contracts pertaining to the extension were being finalised and were expected to be executed prior to 1 July.
The terms of the extension would require an aggregate payment of about $3.05m to Stena, which represented all accrued and unpaid interest and fees owing on 1 July.
It also required a partial payment of 15% of the aggregate outstanding principal amount owned to Stena.
Outstanding sums not repaid would maintain the same interest rate of 7.5% over the extension period.
Iofina also announced that it had restarted operations at its newest iodine plant, IO#8, which had been idled as a direct consequence of lower oil prices.
'We are grateful to Stena, our senior lender, for agreeing to the terms of the two month extension to the repayment deadline,' chief executive Tom Becker said.
'We are extremely pleased with the progress that we have made despite the delays to the process caused by the Covid-19 outbreak and we are confident that we can complete the refinancing within this extended timeframe.'
At 2:53pm: (LON:IOF) Iofina PLC share price was +1p at 17.5p