Orion Trading requests trading halt ahead of capital raising for Prieska Copper-Zinc project

TRADING in Orion Minerals shares has been halted on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange until August 10 as the firm was raising money with investors.

“The requested consecutive trading halts will allow Orion time to consider, plan and execute the capital raising,” the company said in a statement today. Shares in the firm were trading at 26 cents/share after reaching a year-to-date high of 28c/share at the beginning of July.

The onset of Covid-19 has interrupted some of the firm’s plans to develop the Prieska Copper-Zinc Project situated in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. In July, Orion announced that UK private equity firm, Tembo Capital, had agreed to extend a $3.6m loan facility by about four months to end-October.

There was only the most preliminary work taking place on site until funding was in place, but Orion was hoping to finalise the last of its required permits from South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, principally a water use authorisation. “Local officials are back at work but it is constrained understandably,” said Errol Smart, CEO of Orion Minerals in July.

Orion recently published updated findings on a bankable feasibility study for the project which found that production could be increased to 22,000 tons of copper and 70,000 tons of zinc annually over 12 years instead of a 10-year life of mine.

However, the capital cost of the project has increased to A$413m from A$378m in order to accommodate technical improvements.