Join our daily newsletter At The Bell to receive exclusive market insights
- American Pacific Borates (ABR) has raised over $7 million to advance construction work at its Fort Cady Borate Mine in southern California
- The company recently paid an outstanding debt of US$1.4 million to Amvest who helped fund project activities last year
- This means ABR can now fully focus on developing Fort Cady
- Fort Cady is the largest known occurrence of borate in the world that isn’t owned by Rio Tinto and Eti Maden
- ABR is up 10.5 per cent and shares are trading for 47.5 cents each
American Pacific Borates (ABR) has completed its placement to raise $7.1 million at 40 cents per share to institutional, professional and sophisticated investors.
The issue price of 40 cents represents a 7.5 per cent discount to the last closing price of ABR’s shares on February 14 of 43 cents per share. It also represents a 5.7 per cent discount to the 15-day volume-weighted average price of shares to February 14 of 42 cents per share
ABR has raised the money to advance construction activities at its Fort Cady Borate Mine in southern California.
As announced on January 28 2020, construction commenced for the Fort Cady mine. Earlier this month, the company unloaded second-hand boric acid production equipment it needs for phase 1A of production.
Currently, infrastructure work is ongoing with onsite workers conducting road, fencing and initial survey work before the installation of equipment.
Fort Cady is a rare and large colemanite deposit with significant lithium potential. It is also the largest known contained borate occurrence in the world that isn’t owned by Rio Tinto and Eti Maden.
Additionally, ABR is preparing for the delivery of an updated definitive feasibility study (DFS) which is scheduled for April 30 2020.
The enhanced DFS is targeting an increase in sulphate of potash (SOP) production for phases 1B, 2 and 3.
The company first delivered its DFS in December 2018 and in January 2019 announced an enhancement to include a low capex starter project by splitting phase 1 into phase 1A and 1B.
In December last year, ABR revisited a DFS to increase SOP production.
Recently, ABR was able to pay an outstanding balance of US$1.4 million (approx. A$2.09 million) for a debt owed to Amvest Capital Mining Opportunities.
Now that this has been paid, ABR can focus its funds on developing Fort Cady even further.
ABR is up 10.5 per cent and shares are trading for 47.5 cents each at 2:05 pm AEDT.
