PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Centaurus Metals will raise A$75-million in a share placement to institutional investors to drive the continued development of its Jaguar nickel sulphide project in northern Brazil.

The company on Friday announced that it would issue more than 64.6-million shares, at a price of A$1.16 each in a single tranche, under its existing placement capacity.

The offer price represented a 9.7% discount to the company’s last closing price, and a 10.7% discount to its ten-day volume weighted average share price.

Centaurus told shareholders that the funds would be used to complete a definitive feasibility study (DFS) for Jaguar and maintain the company’s very strong existing drilling momentum.

A 90 000 m drill programmw planned for 2022 will include significant ongoing diamond drilling designed to maximise the measured and indicated components of the extensive resource inventory ready for reserve conversion. Funds will also be used for pre-development and financing activities ahead of a planned final investment decision (FID) on the project in the third quarter of 2023.

“We are delighted with the very strong level of interest received from global investors for this milestone capital raising, which really puts Centaurus in an outstanding position to realise our objective of becoming one of the world’s next significant green nickel producers,” said Centaurus MD Darren Gordon.

“The strong interest in this raise reflects both the scale and quality of the Jaguar project and its impeccable environmental and social governance credentials, combined with the clear corporate strategy we have outlined to bring it into development as quickly as possible.

“It also reflects the strong macro environment for the nickel, which recently hit 11-year highs on the strong demand outlook from the burgeoning electric vehicle, renewable energy and lithium-ion battery sectors. Nickel is an extremely valuable and very strategic metal, and yet supply globally is constrained in part because of the scarcity of major new projects coming on stream, particularly nickel sulphide projects. We have one of the most significant new nickel sulphide projects anywhere in the world, and we are really looking forward to maximising its potential for our shareholders in the months and years ahead.”

Centaurus recently delivered an updated Joint Ore Reserves Committee mineral resource estimate of 80.6-million tonnes at 0.91% nickel for 730 700 t of contained nickel metal for the Jaguar project, making it one of the largest undeveloped nickel sulphide projects globally.