PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Lithium developer Altura Mining will raise A$26-million through a share placement to institutional and sophisticated investors to fast-track lithium production expansion studies at its lithium project in Western Australia.
The company on Friday announced that it would issue about 136.8-million shares, at a price of 19c each under its current placement capacity.
The placement price represented an 8.44% discount to Altura’s 30-day volume-weighted average price of 20c a share, and a 12.57% discount to the 15-day volume-weighted average price of 21c a share.
“We received a strong level of interest from international investors in how advanced the Altura lithium project already is, and how the project could be expanded to meet growing global demand for lithium,” said Altura MD James Brown.
“Construction of the project is already more than 50% complete and is fully funded following the recent finalisation of the $110-million senior secured debt facility. We are only months away from first production and now investors see considerable upside in advancing our Stage 2 expansion study in order to capitalise on this opportunity.”
The company previously approved the Stage 2 expansion study of its flagship project in Pilgangoora, aimed at increasing production from the start-up capacity of 220 000 t/y to 450 000 t/y.
The expansion study is due for delivery in early 2018.
Brown said that the expansion was particularly attractive and straightforward because increased mining volumes could be accommodated with the addition of a second mining shift, and there would be no need to increase the accommodation village capacity or ancillary infrastructure to facilitate the expansion.