At the start of this week several mining companies secured funding or were conducting capital raisings, including De Grey Mining (ASX:DEG) which secured approval for $150 million of debt funding.
The Australian Government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) agreed to fund the $150 million loan to support De Grey develop the Hemi Gold Project in Western Australia.
De Grey, which has a market capitalisation of $2.91 billion, says the NAIF funding forms part of a planned $1 billion senior debt facility with credit approved term sheets received from commercial banks for the balance of funding.
The terms agreed with NAIF include De Grey committing to continue engaging closely with the Kariyarra People, the native title holders of the land which Hemi lies on, as well as to drive positive outcomes for traditional owners.
The Hemi Project lies in the Pilbara region and is considered an intrusion-hosted form of gold mineralisation that is new to the region and shows a scale of mineralisation not previously encountered in the Mallina Basin.
Precious and base metals explorer West Wits Mining (ASX:WWI) has completed a capital raising, totalling $1.5 million, via an issue of convertible notes.
West Wits Mining, which has a market capitalisation of $40.66 million, says the funds raised will be used for Qala Shallows operations, consultants’ costs connected to bank funding due diligence process, and meeting working capital.
The issue of convertible notes is subject to shareholder approval, which the company intends to seek at an extraordinary general meeting in October 2024.
Each convertible note has an issue price and face value of $25,000. The notes have a conversion price of $0.02 until 17 January 2025, and thereafter have a conversion price of the lesser of $0.02 or a 20% discount to the 15-day volume weighted average price of the company’s shares at that time.
West Wits Mining expects to receive the subscription funds for the convertible notes from existing and new sophisticated and professional investors on or around 29 August 2024, as a loan pending receipt of shareholder approval.
Ignite Equity acted as lead manager to the capital raising.
Brazilian-focused explorer Perpetual Resources (ASX:PEC) is conducting a placement to raise at least $1.03 million to advance its Raptor Rare Earth Element and Isabella Lithium projects in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil.
Under the placement, 114.88 million shares will be issued at $0.009 per share.
Foster Stockbroking and GBA Capital will act as joint lead managers.
The $6.4 million market capitalisation company says this placement provides it with capital to advance exploration activities across Raptor and Isabella.
Perpetual Resources directors will participate for at least $70,000 of the overall placement, subject to shareholder approval at the next annual general meeting.
Further, First Graphene (ASX:FGR) has secured funding for a collaborative research project with Swansea University to determine the market potential of its Kainos Technology.
The funding is valued at $192,152 and was secured through analysis for innovators round 12 stage two funding, delivered by Innovate UK. The funding is specifically for businesses using expertise from leading research facilities across the UK to overcome productivity or technical barriers of new technologies towards market readiness.
First Graphene, which has a market capitalisation of $32.3 million, says the six-month project will provide a greater understanding of its Kainos technology and its ability to produce high-quality, battery-grade synthetic graphite and pristine graphene from petroleum feedstock using a scalable hydrodynamic cavitation manufacturing process.
This process has also shown the ability to produce green hydrogen as a by-product in previous research by the company.
First Graphene adds that with the technology already proven at the laboratory scale, this project will focus on using controlled experimentation and analysis to interrogate the hydrodynamic cavitation process.
The company notes this will support the development of modelling techniques at Swansea University that will underpin First Graphene’s design basis for scaling up the Kainos Technology, in collaboration with the energy industry.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: De Grey Mining, West Wits Mining, Perpetual Resources, First Graphene
