The company’s internal valuations gave the 1% royalty on gross iron ore revenue from the Amapa mine a value of $US15 million (then $A16.3 million) and MiningNews.net understands the royalty has been delivering around $400,000 a month in revenue since the acquisition closed.

Beadell raised $A57 million to close the acquisition earlier this year, picking up the multi-million ounce Amapari gold project (since renamed Tucano) and the 1% royalty on gross iron ore revenue from the sale of iron ore from the Amapa mine.

The Amapari project was in production between late 2005 and early 2009, and has 2.9 million ounces of gold resources.

The deal came with potentially significant liabilities, however, as there was an outstanding lawsuit that could have seen damages of up to $US47 million awarded against the company.

Beadell settled that for only $440,000 in early August and has been making steady progress in getting the mine back into production by its target date of 2012.

Beadell also acquired the mine’s plant and equipment as part of the deal, and has announced plans to sell the earthmoving equipment to a mining services group and lease them back as part of a long-term contract mining agreement.

While Beadell managing director Peter Bowler wouldn’t speculate on how much he expects to make from that deal, he told MiningNews.net this morning the company was in the closing stages of negotiations to finalise the sale.

He said Beadell would use the capital to fund the construction of the carbon-in-leach plant at the project, along with a “sensible” level of debt.

“It would be a very substantial result if we could build the gold plant without going back to the equity markets,” he said.

Beadell shares rose in early trading on the news, hitting an intraday high of 38.5c after an overnight close of 36c.