Investors back Terra Metals’ push to accelerate Dante exploration and development with $15m placement

• Terra Metals secures commitments for $15m placement to advance its Dante project
• Placement backed by institutional investors led by GEAR, Matt Latimore and Tribeca Investment Partners
• Proceeds will be used to expedite drilling, resource growth and development

Special Report: Terra Metals will have the funds needed to accelerate and expand exploration and development activities at its highly prospective Dante polymetallic project in WA after receiving firm commitments for a $15m placement.

New and existing institutional and sophisticated investors led by Golden Energy and Resources (GEAR), Matt Latimore and Tribeca Investment Partners committed to subscribe for more than 214.28 million shares at 7c each, which represents a 10% discount to the 15-day volume weighted average price.

This is a clear sign of support for Terra Metals (ASX:TM1) and the Dante project that hosts multiple large-scale, near-surface, polymetallic deposits comprising titanium, vanadium, copper, gold and platinum group metals in the West Musgrave region.

Managing director Thomas Line said the $15m placement cornerstoned by highly regarded resource investors provided the company with the balance sheet strength to aggressively advance Dante.

“The scale of the system we are uncovering continues to grow, and with these additional funds we can now expedite drilling, resource growth and development activities without being constrained by capital,” he added. 

“The follow-on investments from GEAR, Matt Latimore and Tribeca underline the quality of the project and the confidence in our strategy to rapidly advance this globally significant and growing discovery.”

Recent activity

Dante differs from other titanium projects in key aspects with its multi-commodity nature and also for being hosted in hard rock mineralisation rather than the typical heavy mineral sands.

The Dante Reefs are a series of gently dipping, laterally extensive mineralised layers which outcrop from surface and run for at least 42km.

These are believed to mirror the Bushveld province of South Africa, which houses some of the world’s largest, longest running and most profitable PGE, copper, nickel and gold operations.

Early this month, TM1 defined a maiden resource of 148Mt grading 14.8% titanium dioxide, 0.54% vanadium pentoxide, 0.18% copper and 0.33% PGE just 12 months after making the initial discovery.

This translates to contained resources of 22Mt TiO2, 800,000t V2O5, 270,000t copper, 400,000oz gold, 880,000oz platinum and 330,000oz palladium.

It also includes a higher confidence indicated resource of 38Mt at 18.4% TiO2, 0.73% V2O5, 0.23% copper and 0.72g/t 3PGE which provides enough geological certainty for mine planning.

While significant, this resource covers just 10% of the mapped mineralised trend, which remains open along strike and at depth with reconnaissance continuing to expand the known footprint.

Initial metallurgical testwork using flotation and magnetic separation has also confirmed excellent recoveries and concentrate grades across all key metals – titanium (65.6% recovery), vanadium (90.9%), copper (95.8%), gold (75.8%) and platinum (74.4%) – with optimisation work ongoing.

The entire basket of metals is valuable with titanium being much sought after in the aerospace sector for its high strength and light weight compared with steel while vanadium is primarily used to strengthen steel but is seeing growing use in energy storage.

Looking ahead, the company is planning to carry out Phase 3 drilling, which includes infill and extensional drilling at Reef 1 North (Crius), Reef 2 (Hyperion), and Reef 1 South (Oceanus) as well as the testing of new targets identified across the broader Dante trend, including outcropping mapped reefs and electromagnetic targets.

Metallurgical optimisation work is underway to support future scoping and feasibility studies while reconnaissance exploration is expected to continue to expand the strike of known reef systems.

This article was developed in collaboration with Terra Metals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing. 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.