PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed junior Vital Metals has raised A$2-million through a share placement to progress its Watershed tungsten project, in Queensland.
The company will issue 263.9-million new shares, at 75c each, to professional and sophisticated investors, under its current placement capacity.
Vital MD Mark Strizek said on Friday that the capital raise would assist the company in improving on work already undertaken at Watershed, as well as to continue to test and extend the large range of targets in Burkina Faso, during 2018.
Work at the Watershed project would include an update to the resource estimate, ongoing metallurgical testwork to optimise the process flow sheet, an updated capital and operating cost estimate and an optimised mining schedule.
Recent metallurgical testwork optimisation at Watershed has improved tungsten recoveries from 74% to 77%, as Vital focused on optimising the feed size to the dense media separation plant to increase efficiencies and recoveries.
The Watershed project has a post-tax net present value (NPV) of A$150-million and an internal rate of return (IRR) of 32%, compared with a NPV of A$112-million and an IRR of 22%, as estimated in a 2014 definitive feasibility study (DFS).
The initial DFS estimated that the project will require a capital injection of A$172-million to deliver a 2.5-million-tonne-a-year operation with a mine life of ten years. Vital is estimating a capital cost of A$100-million.
Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter
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