ORION Minerals said South African investors played an important role in the $15m share placement announced on Friday.
Local investment in the country’s mining junior and exploration industry is not traditionally forthcoming. Orion’s capital raising is therefore noteworthy, especially coming after the failure of Copper 360, a copper junior whose share price has fallen 67% in 12 months and may have damaged investor confidence.
Orion issued 698 million shares at an average price of 2.2 Australian cents per share, equal to 26 South African cents, raising about $15.4m (R181.5m). Orion is currently trading on the JSE at 30c/share, an increase of 7% as of mid-morning Friday. However, the stock is well off its 12-month high, achieved in February, of some 47c/share.
“This is a pivotal capital raising for Orion as we begin our transition to operating mining company in the second half of 2026, and we are very pleased with the outcome,” said Tony Lennox, CEO of Orion, in a statement.
“In particular, we received strong support from South African investors via the JSE – which reflects Orion’s growing visibility and status in South Africa as an important new copper producer at a key time in the global metals cycle,” he said.
About $5m of the share issue was taken up by Orion’s “cornerstone” investors, which include Tembo Capital Management in the UK and Germany’s Delphi Group. But Lennox said the group had “attracted several new investors onto the register”.
Funds from the raising would be ploughed into the firm’s Uppers Project at its Prieska Copper Zinc Project (PCZM), the shallower part of the orebody. It is also developing Okiep Copper, another brownfields project – distant from Prieska but in South Africa’s Northern Cape province nonetheless.
A major catalyst for Orion is a $250m prepayment for a concentrate offtake arrangement with Glencore, announced last year. The transaction is still conditional. Under the agreement, $40m of the prepayment will be in upfront cash.
A portion of Glencore’s capital injection will also fund PCZM’s extension, known as the Deeps Project. Combined with the Uppers Project, Orion requires a capital outlay of just over R6bn, leaving roughly R2bn still to be financed. At full capacity, PCZM will produce 22,000 tons of copper and 65,000t of zinc a year.
