Mount Burgess Mining (ASX:MTB) has received commitments from sophisticated and professional investors to raise $530,000 before costs to support ongoing work at its Kihabe-Nxuu Project in Botswana.
The Perth-based explorer intends to issue more than 132.4 million shares at a $0.004 per share, which represents a 20% discount to its last trading price of $0.005.
According to an announcement released this morning, 7.5 million of the shares on offer will be taken up — subject to shareholder approval — by Mount Burgess Chairman and Managing Director Nigel Forrester, along with Non-Executive Directors Harry Warries and Robert Brougham.
GBA Capital acted as the lead manager for the placement and will receive a commission worth 6% of the total amount raised, plus 5 million unlisted options exercisable at $0.01 by August 2, 2025.
The placement shares will be issued to investors on August 2, 2023.
Mount Burgess will use the proceeds to fund metallurgical work testing the recovery of gallium and germanium on-site at the Kihabe-Nxuu Project, which is also prospective for zinc, lead, copper, silver, and vanadium.
A portion of the funds will also go towards project and resource development costs.
In a recent interview with Mining.com.au, Forrester explained that while gallium and germanium were not the company’s initial focus, their influence could be potentially significant.
“The reason we’re reasonably confident that both gallium and germanium are going to make a significant contribution to the project is because the gallium and germanium mineralised domains stretch well beyond those of the zinc, lead, silver and vanadium pentoxide. Basically, they have the potential to significantly reduce our waste-to-ore ratios,” he said.
“What we’ve got to do is the metallurgy. We know the main proportion of gallium and germanium is hosted in micas, and micas are very easy to extract by way of a high-percentage concentrate because they’re very easy to float.
“now we’ve got to work on what minerals those micas are and how we get the gallium and the germanium out, and whether we can get them out on-site”
But now we’ve got to work on what minerals those micas are and how we get the gallium and the germanium out, and whether we can get them out on-site. Because if we can get those metals out on-site, then it’s going to have a very significant impact on the project, as I said, because it has such a major contribution to the overall mineralised domains.”
Widely regarded as modern strategic metals, both gallium and germanium are used in the manufacture of semiconductors for their niche and difficult-to-replicate properties.
Germanium is useful in space technologies for its resistance to cosmic radiation and in semiconductors to improve electron flow and thermal conductivity. Roughly 95% of gallium, on the other hand, is used in a material called gallium arsenide, which helps to improve the performance and power consumption of semiconductors.
Write to Oliver Gray at Mining.com.au
Images: Mount Burgess Mining Ltd
