Altech Chemicals (ASX:ATC) has completed the first steps in a German shuffle which will result in $US100 million ($147.2 million) of funding for its high purity alumina project.

It’s wrapped up all the steps needed for a complicated series of measures to take place to get the funding, including the approval of a 63 million euro capital raise by the German company putting in the $10 million.

  • Scroll down for more ASX battery metals news >>>

Under the deal, Altech will acquire 29 per cent of the shares in German company Youbisheng Green Paper AG, which will be renamed Altech Advanced Materials AG.

Altech will then sell the right to acquire a 49 per cent stake in ATC’s alumina project for $100 million to the German company.

“It is pleasing to have documented both transactions of our German equity strategy in a very short time-frame, and to have satisfied all of the conditions precedent items within four weeks of signing the agreements,” ATC managing director Iggy Tan said.

The German company will now appoint a German bank to lead the capital raise — which will involve selling the 49 per cent stake in the ATC project back to the Australian company in six years, with ATC to pay a 15 per cent annual return based on the subscription price.
 

In other ASX battery metals news today

Golden Deeps Limited (ASX:GED) thinks it may be able to upgrade the inferred resource at its Abenab vanadium project in Namibia — thanks to one diamond hole. It told shareholders this morning that it had started to get the results back from phase one of drilling at the project, which included 23 total holes for 3638m.

It received results back from two diamond holes out of five, with one hole intersecting 64.18m at 0.9 per cent vanadium pentoxide, 2.01 per cent lead, and 0.65 per cent zinc from 207m. This included a section of 19m @1.25 per cent vanadium pentoxide, 2.73 percent lead and 0.878 per cent zinc.

This hole, GED chairman Michael Minosora said, was enough to increase its overall inferred mineral resource of 2.8Mt at 0.66 per cent vanadium pentoxide, 2.35 per cent lead, and 0.94 per cent zinc at a 0.2 percent vanadium pentoxide cut-off. However, it hasn’t calculated just how much the existing infrerred resource could be upgraded by.

The next step is to drill five or six infill holes to help convert some of the existing inferred resource into the indicated category.
 
Fresh from the news that it had positive results from a graphite processing trial, Black Rock Mining (ASX:BKT) is hitting the market for fresh capital. It told the market this morning that it was in a halt pending the announcement of an equity raising.

The request was made on Monday, the same day it announced it had delivered a spheronising yield of up to 53 per cent from a 400kg sample — with purity of 99.98 per cent. The trial was carried out at a dedicated pilot plant run by the company’s EPC partner, Yantai Jinyuan Mining Machinery.

Black Rock said it should be out of the halt before the start of trade on Friday.