PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The restart of the Thalanga zinc project, in Queensland, is now fully funded after ASX-listed Red River announced a A$30-million capital raise.
The company told shareholders on Friday that it had received commitments to raise A$30-million through a two tranche placement of 162.1-million shares, priced at 18.5c a share.
The first tranche will comprise some 76.1-million shares, and will be issued within the company’s placement capacity, while the balance of the shares will be placed subject to shareholder approval.
Red River MD Mel Palacian said on Friday that the company was pleased to be fully funded for the development of, and imminent production from, the Thalanga zinc mine.
“We have been watching the strong performance of the zinc, copper and lead price, and the board has taken the view that now is the right time to bring Thalanga back into production.”
Red River previously reported that it would need to invest A$17.2-million to restart production at Thalanga, which has been on care and maintenance since 2012.
Following the funding initiative, Red River will immediately start to increase restart activities at Thalanga, with the production expected to start in the second half of 2017.
A 2015 restart study estimated that the 650 000 t/y processing plant could deliver average production of 21 400 t/y of zinc, 3 600 t/y of copper, 5 000 t/y of lead, 2 000 oz/y of gold and 370 000 oz/y of silver-in-concentrate.
Red River is also completing ongoing discussions with a number of interested parties regarding concentrate offtake agreements.