PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Liontown Resources will raise A$12.5-million through a share placement to institutional and professional investors, to advance its Kathleen Valley lithium/tantalum project, and its Moora gold/platinum, nickel/copper projects, in Western Australia.

The company on Thursday said that more than 44.9-million shares will be issued, at a price of 23c a share, under the company’s existing placement capacity to raise an initial A$10.33-million.

A further 9.4-million shares will be placed to the company’s directors, subject to shareholder approval, to raise a further A$2.17-million.

The issue price represents a 13.2% discount to Liontown’s last closing price on October 26.

“This placement further de-risks Liontown’s development pathway and puts us in a great position to advance our high-quality Kathleen Valley lithium/tantalum project rapidly towards the completion of a definitive feasibility study and project financing,” said MD David Richards.

“The strong demand from investors is testament to the quality, grade, scale and location of the Kathleen Valley project, which is now firmly established as Australia’s fifth largest spodumene-lithium resource.

“The majority of the funds raised will be allocated towards completing the Kathleen Valley definitive feasibility study, including reviewing a number of opportunities to significantly enhance the financial metrics of the project.

“The proceeds will also allow us to advance our exploration programmes in the new West Yilgarn province, where we are looking forward to commencing drilling at the Moora project to follow up on the exceptional gold/platinum/nickel/copper results generated from our early-stage exploration this year.”

A recently completed downstream scoping study into the Kathleen Valley project demonstrated the financial upside to an integrated mining, processing and refining operation to produce lithium hydroxide monohydrate (LHM), or lithium sulphate monohydrate (LSM).

The downstream scoping study estimated that an integrated LHM operation would require a total capital spend of A$1.1-billion, while an integrated LSM operation would require a capital spend of A$0.9-billion.

At steady state production, both the LHM and the LSM projects would produce at a rate of 430 000 t/y of tantalum, with the LHM refinery to have a design production rate of 58 000 t/y, while the LSM refinery would have a production rate of 88 000 t/y.