Atrum Coal raises $18.5m

Atrum Coal has completed an $18.5 million equity raising as it looks to accelerate development at its Groundhog anthracite project in Canada.

The company said the placement of shares to institutional and sophisticated investors at $1.40 per ordinary share closed heavily oversubscribed.

Blackwood Capital acted as lead manager and bookrunner for the placement.

A scoping study completed in August put capital expenditure for the Groundhog project at $US62 million on a contract mining basis for a 1.8 million tonnes per annum run-of-mine operation.

Atrum was the biggest mover and shaker in September on the Deloitte WA Index, recording a 59 per cent increase in market capitalisation to jump from 69th to 49th on the list of 100 WA companies on the back of the scoping study.

Atrum hopes to complete a pre-feasibility study for Groundhog by the first quarter of 2014 before commencing a bulk sample and test shipment program.

It hopes to achieve first production by the end of 2014.

Atrum shares were 3.7 per cent lower at $1.55 at 10:45am WST.