Altura hits commercial production, doubles SPP

Altura Mining has declared its Pilgangoora lithium project is now producing commercial amounts of lithium, while increasing its share purchase plan from $5 million to $10 million.

The company made its maiden spodumene concentrate shipment of 5,000 tonnes in October from Port Hedland, approximately 120 kilometres from the project.

Last month, Altura said it had achieved multiple daily production returns at or above its stage one nameplate capacity target of 220,000t per annum lithium concentrate equivalent, at a 6 per cent grade.

In January, the company said it had only shipped about 24,000t of lithium from the facility nearly six months after production began, due to an issue with the running time of the processing plant.

Last month, Altura announced $28 million a capital raising to fund Pilgangoora, including a $23 million share placement to which the company directors would contribute $15.46 million.

The remaining $5 million was a share purchase plan, which like the share placement had an issue price of 13 cents per share.

Today, the company said it would increase the share purchase plan to $10 million, with the same issue price for the shares.

Altura managing director James Brown said the increase was due to strong investor demand.

“We are delighted with the response from investors and rather than have to scale back shareholders who are keen to support us, the board has decided to increase the capacity of the share purchase plan to satisfy demand,” he said.

Mr Brown also said declaring commercial production was one of the most significant milestones in the company’s history.

“In less than two years we have taken this project from the first sod-turning to full production, which is a monumental achievement and testament of the hard work and efforts of the entire Altura team,” he said.

Shares in Altura were up 7.41 per cent to trade at 14 cents each at 4pm AEDT.