Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Minerals explorer Salt Lake Potash will raise some A$17.6-million to develop its Goldfields Salt Lakes project, in Western Australia.
The company on Tuesday said that it had received firm commitments for institutional and sophisticated investors in the UK and Australia, to subscribe for 41-million new shares, priced at A$0.43c each.
The placement price represented a 10.4% discount to the company’s last closing price on the ASX, and an 11.9% discount to the 20-day volume-weighted average price.
The placement will be conducted in two tranches, with the first 30.7-million shares to be issued under the company’s placement capacity, while the second tranche of 10.3-million shares will be subject to shareholder approval.
The proceeds from the placement will be used for planning and the initial construction costs of a pilot plant at the Goldfields Salt Lakes project, as well as ongoing resource investigation, process testwork, engineering and transport studies, and working capital.
The planned pilot plant will have a capacity of between 20 000 t/y and 40 000 t/y and will process only brine feed drawn from the near-surface resource. The pilot plant will form part of a prefeasibility study into Goldfields Salt Lakes project, and offered an accelerated pathway to production, Salt Lake previously reported.
The pilot plant will operate for between 12 and 24 months and will harvest its first salt in 2018.