Working with PAC Partners the company has secured commitments to raise A$8.44 million at 8.5c, with one free 14c option for every two shares, exercisable within two years.

 

It the company's first raising since a $2.1 million capital injection last August priced at 1.7c. It had $1.7 million remaining at the start of the year.

 

The cash will be initially focused at Yalgoo, but some funds will be used to support drilling and geophysics across its other projects, also in the Yalgoo and Mt Magnet fields.

 

Tempest chair Brian Moller said there had been a positive response from both domestic and international high net worth, sophisticated, and professional investors.

 

Interest in the explorer surged in March, when it announced the first diamond hole into the Orion geochemical target returned 709m of intermittently mineralised core, including some chalcopyrite and sulphides.

 

Tempest said the geology was directly comparable to 29Metals' nearby Golden Grove copper-zinc mine.

 

A second hole was completed some 300m away to a depth of 1021m, with the explorer reporting multiple thick zones of enrichment and alteration throughout the entire section, potentially extending the zone by 300m, with extensive copper mineralisation observed, including bornite.

 

Meleya was described as being within an entirely untested area, where the company has some 50km of a previously unrecognised segment of the Yalgoo Greenstone Belt.

 

The two-hole stratigraphic program was co-funded by the WA government under its Exploration Incentive Scheme.

 

Assays are pending.

 

The company is planning downhole geophysics and further drilling within Meleya, and the initial results from its Euro gold-copper project drilling.

 

The company has more than 900sq.km of ground at Yalgoo.

 

The company listed in 2017 as Lithium Consolidated but changed its name and focus in mid-2020.

 

Its shares have traded as low as 1.4c over the past year and peaked at 21.5c earlier this month.

 

The stock jumped 10% today to 11c, valuing it at $40 million.