Rolek Resources is confident that it will be relisted in the first few months of this year.

The company’s goal since September last year has been to complete a backdoor listing through the shell of Shaw River Manganese (ASX:SRR).

Rolek was aiming to be back trading by the end of October, but the volatile market in the second half of the year threw a spanner in the works.

As part of the relisting it is looking to raise at least $5m through the issue of 250 million shares at 2c each.

“It really has been a function of volatile markets internationally and a general malaise across the entire junior end of the market up until Christmas,” managing director Ian Stuart told Stockhead.

“We have had an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the Rolek story to those we have presented to, but up until Christmas understandably there was a lot of caution across the entire IPO market.”

But now Rolek is “well advanced” with its capital raising and “very confident” it will re-comply with the ASX listing rules and start trading again.

“With the New Year it really is just a reset into a far more stable an optimistic market,” Mr Stuart said.

“We have seen the market rebounding and particular interest in resources as evidenced by strong buying into the resource majors and consequently the mid-caps and juniors.”

Rolek had raised over half its $5m target before Christmas, with those investors still hanging in there.

The company is confident it will be able to secure the final amount and close the offer in the short-term.

More than just manganese 

While Rolek will still be very much focused on manganese, it has also now picked up ground prospective for beryllium, lithium, tantalum, nickel and cobalt in the Kimberley, Pilbara, Gascoyne and Murchison regions of WA.

Beryllium is one of the lightest metals and has one of the highest melting points of light metals. It is used to make mobile phones, missiles and aircraft.

With some $7m already spent on exploration at its flagship Barramine manganese project, Rolek plans to use the new funds to quickly prove up a JORC-compliant resource and complete a scoping study on a small-scale operation.

JORC refers to the mining industry’s official code for reporting exploration results, mineral resources and ore reserves, managed by the Australasian Joint Ore Reserves Committee.

Rolek is aiming to deliver a resource within the first quarter from relisting.

The company wants to have Barramine in production within 18 months.

The global market for manganese is forecast to increase 50 per cent – from 20 million tonnes a year to 30 million – by 2022.

As manganese’s primary use is as an essential and irreplaceable ingredient in steel production, synchronised global growth is expected to at least partially drive the increase in demand.

But the commodity is also finding increasing application as a cathode material in electric vehicle batteries and has recently been listed as a strategic mineral by the US Geological Survey.

Rolek’s capital raising is open until the end of March, which means the company would likely list in April.

But Mr Stuart said Rolek is working hard to get relisted as soon as possible.