PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed AIC Mines will raise A$30-million in a share placement to institutional and sophisticated investors to fund initial work at its Jericho and Eloise projects, in Queensland.

The company has received firm commitments for the placement of 66.7-million shares, at a price of 45c each. The placement will be undertaken in two tranches, with the first tranche of 56.3-million shares to be issued under the company’s existing placement capacity to raise an initial A$25.3-million.

A second tranche of 10.4-million shares, to raise a further A$4.7-million, will be issued subject to shareholder approval at the company’s general meeting planned for the end of March.

The offer price represented an 8.2% discount to AIC’s last closing price and a 7.5% discount to the 15-day volume weighted average share price prior to the placement.

AIC told shareholders on Wednesday that proceeds from the placement will be used to fund initial work related to the Jericho mine development and expansion of the Eloise processing plant.

“Development of the Jericho mine will be transformational for Eloise, increasing copper and gold production, decreasing operating costs and extending mine life. It is encouraging to have received such strong investor support to enable us to start advancing the development and expansion work to keep the timeline to production at Jericho as tight as possible,” said MD Aaron Colleran.

It is expected that the development of Jericho would increase yearly production to more than 20 000 t/y of copper and 10 000 oz/y in concentrate, while also improving economies of scale and increasing the mine life to more than ten years, while also reducing the reliance on the Eloise Deeps deposit, thereby derisking ore production.

AIC is currently expecting development of the Jericho mine to start in early 2024, with first ore accessed in early 2025.

Meanwhile, a processing plant expansion optimisation study at Eloise is due to start shortly to study the optimum processing expansion from the current 750 000 t/y capacity to between 1-million and 1.4-million tonnes a year.