JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Copper developer Hot Chili on Wednesday said it had successfully arranged a placement to raise A$11.7-million for its Productora project, in Chile.
The placement at A$0.45 a share had seen strong demand from existing strategic shareholders, particularly project partner CAP and affiliates of Sprott Inc.
Productora’s development programme included progressing prefeasibility studies and working towards mining the project, which was one of Chile’s fastest-emerging new, midtier, coastal copper projects.
Proceeds from the placement would be used for the continuation of resource growth drilling and development study activities at Productora.
"The funds secured will allow us to continue to invest in the company's Productora copper project, our most advanced large-scale copper asset in Chile," MD Christian Easterday said.
The placement would be undertaken in two tranches, the first of which was the unconditional placement, comprising the issue of four-million shares to raise A$1.8-million. This portion of the raising is within the company's 15% placement capacity and was permitted under the listing rules without shareholder approval.
The second tranche was the conditional placement of 22.13-million shares to raise a further A$9.9-million.
Settlement of the unconditional placement was expected to occur on, or before, July 22, with allotment to occur on the following day.
Hot Chili’s project pipeline included its latest copper/gold discovery Frontera, 70 km south of Productora. Together, Productora and Frontera underpinned Hot Chili’s strategy to develop a coastal copper production hub in Chile.