PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Alkane Resources has revealed plans to raise about A$16-million to progress the development of its Dubbo zirconia project, in New South Wales.
Alkane told shareholders on Tuesday that the company would undertake a pro-rata traditional nonrenounceable entitlement offer, offering one new share for every five existing shares held, at an issue price of 20c a share.
The offer price represented a 7.8% discount to Alkane’s closing price on April 22, the last day of trading.
Shareholder approval would not be required for the placement.
Alkane noted that the proceeds from the offer would be used to buy the remaining key parcels of land within the Dubbo project area, to perform pilot plant runs and confirm front-end engineering design and other process changes to produce product samples for potential offtake customers. It would also be used for general working capital requirements.
The A$1.3-billion Dubbo project was expected to extract 19.5-million tonnes of rare metals and rare-earth ores from an opencut mine, at a rate of one-million tonnes a year.
Alkane earlier in April signed a letter of intent with materials company Vietnam Rare Earth JSC (VTRE) to toll process rare-earth concentrate from Dubbo into individual rare-earth products.
It was expected that up to 6 664 t/y of separated rare earths could be produced from the Dubbo project. Initially, however, only 2 000 t/y of the key, high-value rare earths would be shipped to VTRE for processing, with lanthanum, cerium and yttrium to be recovered from Dubbo.